Marek Aureliusz i Zbigniew Herbert. Dwa światy

Zbigniew Herbert’s poem “To Marcus Aurelius” bears dramatic witness to the imprisonment of the contemporary Western consciousness in the outdated, mechanistic, scientific worldview. Visions of an endless dead desert, a universe devoid of any meaning or point of reference, deepen Herbert’s existential pessimism, conditioned by his youthful experiences during the Second World War. In the poem, Herbert appears to be seeking solace in the harmony of ancient culture, embodied by the stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius. But this attempt is doomed to failure, because Herbert is actually faithful to the mechanistic worldview, the only legitimate one in our modern, technological civilization. By treating the ancient animistic worldview as a great illusion, we cease to understand not only Marcus Aurelius, but his entire era. At the same time, the poet is left helpless with his existential angst, for which there is no place in a world devoid of subjectivity. We can only “tremble …gnaw our fingers seek vain words drag off the fallen shades behind us”.