SOURCE: Gömöri, George. “The Faces of Mr. Cogito.” Canadian Slavonic Papers: An Interdisciplinary Journal Devoted to Central and Eastern Europe 35, nos. 1-2 (March-June 1993): 1-12.

In the following essay, Gömöri traces the development of Herbert's poetic persona, Mr. Cogito, over the span of Herbert's career.

Zbigniew Herbert had already published four books of poetry when towards the end of the 1960s he began to experiment with the “lyrical persona” named Mr. Cogito. While in his earlier poetry he often employed both “direct” and “dramatic” monologues (the latter becoming a characteristic “Herbertian” form of expression manifested in poems such as “Tren Fortynbrasa” [“The Lament of Fortinbras”] and “Powrót prokonsula” [“The Return of the Proconsul”]), he now decided to shift his attention from history and cultural history to philosophy. This did not mean taking up the task of writing “philosophical” poetry; in an interview given to...