THE POETS DISPUTE AND DIALOGUE. ZBIGNIEW HERBERT AND CZESLAW MILOSZ IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR CORRESPONDENCE (Spór i dialog poetów. Herbert i Milosz w swietle korespondencji)

The article is devoted to the correspondence between Zbigniew Herbert and Czeslaw Milosz. It starts with a short stylistic characteristics of the poets' letters, then the author moves to a discussion on their thematic layer. The first part of the paper discusses the issues on which the poets had different views and which settled their polemics and disputes: political matters, history, patriotic duties, and understanding of art. In the second part, it brings up the issues which united them and gave their letters a character of a friendly dialogue: sources and purposes of writing, and significance of unbiased contact with the visible world. From this perspective, Herbert and Milosz seem to be the representatives of objectivist trend in Polish literature. Suggesting an axiological interpretation of the letters, the author of the paper draws a fragmentary map of the values cherished by the poets.