poetry, Herbert advocated semantic transparency. In a talk given at a conference organized by the journal "Odra" he said: "So not having pretensions to infallibility, but stating only my predilections, I would like to say that in contemporary poetry the poems that appeal to me the most are those in which I discern something I would call a quality of semantic transparency (a term borrowed from Husserl's logic). This semantic transparency is the characteristic of a sign consisting in this: that during the time when the sign is used, attention is directed towards the object denoted, and the sign itself does not hold the attention. The word is a window onto reality." EssaysBarbarzyńca w ogrodzie (Barbarian in the Garden), the result of Herbert's first trip abroad, was published in 1962. It is composed of essays, which describe particular places and things that have been seen by the poet, as well as two historical essays – the story about Albigensians and the persecution of the Templar order. The journey takes place in two dimensions simultaneously – it is both contemporary travel and time travel. The last one starts with prehistory, in the Lascaux caves, lasts over the age of Greek and Roman antiquity, the days of Gothic cathedrals, Renaissance painting and sentimental gardens. The journey becomes fascinating because the traveler shares with his readers the knowledge of the less and more serious history of the places, items and people portrayed in the essays. Even Herbert defined it as not only a journey to the places, but also to books. In Barbarzyńca w ogrodzie there are two historical essays. The theme of the Albigensian crusade and of the collapse of the Knights Templars absorbed Herbert not because of its peculiarity, but quite the opposite, namely because of its ubiquity in history. Therefore, both are described by the poet with proper respect to historical detail and towards the drama of the individuals being involved, thereby timeless crime mechanisms have been revealed. Another collection of essays, Martwa natura z wędzidłem (Still Life with a Bridle), published in 1993, is devoted to seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Just as in Barbarzyńca w ogrodzie, here widely accepted assessments have no impact on the author's personal preferences. Among Dutch painters, the one who fascinates Herbert the most is hardly known Torrentius, whose work Martwa natura z wędzidłem is the only one to be preserved. In this particular volume of