A Defense of Ardor » (Bargain)

Adam Zagajewski was born in Lvov, Poland, in 1945. He lives in Krakow and spends part of the year teaching at the University of Houston. He was awarded the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Ardor, inspiration, the soul, the sublime: Such terms have long since fallen from favor among critics and artists alike. In his new collection of essays, Adam Zagajewski continues his efforts to reclaim for art not just the terms but the scanted spiritual dimension of modern human existence that they stake out.

Bringing gravity and grace to his meditations on art, society, and history, Zagajewski wears his erudition lightly, with a disarming blend of modesty and humor. His topics range from autobiography (his first visit to a post-Soviet Lvov after childhood exile; his illicit readings of Nietzsche in Communist Poland); to considerations of artist friends past and present (Zbigniew Herbert, Czeslaw Milosz); to intellectual and psychological portraits of cities he has known, east and west; to a dazzling thumbnail sketch of postwar Polish poetry.

Zagajewski gives an account of the place of art in the modern age that distinguishes his self-proclaimed liberal vision from the “right-wing radicalism” of such modernist precursors as Eliot or Yeats. The same mixture of ardor and compassion that marks Zagajewski’s distinctive contribution to modern poetry runs throughout this eloquent, engaging collection.

Library Journal

In this collection of essays, Zagajewski, a well-known Polish poet, novelist, and essayist who won the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, writes about ardor, inspiration, the soul, and the sublime. The essays vocalize his meditations on a variety of topics, including history, society, religious fundamentalism, and autobiography; thinkers such as Nietzsche, Aristotle, Todorov, and Thomas Mann; postwar Polish poetry; and his travel experiences, cities he has visited, and performances he has seen. Moreover, Zagajewski reflects on such significant questions of our time as the place of art and the question of aesthetics in modern life, the nature of poetry, the state of literature today, and the relationship between art and life, without losing his light sense of humor and humane outlook. Lucid, engaging, and stimulating, these essays are at once enjoyable and thought-provoking. Recommended for public and academic libraries.-Aparna Zambare, Central Michigan Univ. Libs., Mount Pleasant, MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.