Kiedy wiersz jest prozą (i na odwrót)? O (prozo)wierszu Zbigniewa Herberta Rovigo

Abstract

The article concerns the relationship between the transcription of a poem and its tonal realisation, using as an example Zbigniew Herbert’s Rovigo. The key question is the situation in which the verse text corresponds to the rhythm of prose (intonational-structural delimitation). Two forms of verse format are distinguished: ‘classical’, acknowledging punctuation marks, and avant-garde, renouncing punctuation marks and, sometimes, capital letters. Consequently, it is possible to use the category of the prose poem understood both as a rhymed prose record in the sense of sound as well as a term describing a type of work in which rhyme delimitation in the phonological sense (rhythm) co-occurs with particles separated on the basis of intonation and syntax. The terminology introduced makes it also possible to consider Zbigniew Herbert as a representative of aesthetic conservative modernism, which combines both conventions of verse writing and uses both regular verse and various varieties of free verse.