The Secret of the Seventh Angel

Abstract

Władysław Panas's article The secret of the seventh angel is a profound and precise analysis of one of the basic construction elements of Zbigniew Herbert's poem Siódmy anioł (The Seventh Angel). His considerations are concentrated on a seemingly marginal question, e.i. the meanings of the angels' names that are mentioned in the poem. Panas shows, in a completely convincing way, that it is exactly within the vocabulary of the text that the „sense” and artistic „shape” of the poem are formed by means of subtle and at the same time very consistent measures. Without the author's findings concerning that primary level of the poem (its euphonic order and its semantic potential that is connected with it), every interpretation of Siódmy anioł seems to be doomed to be a failure. Władysław Panas's text reveals – which happens quite seldom in studies of Herbert's poetry, usually considered as using the simplest artistic means – that this poetry has a complicated form and is extraordinarily ingenious. The presented analysis shows how deeply erroneous the popular cliché is that describes Herbert as a poet of „thought” rather than of „words”.