Between a critical review and biographical writing: Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz reads Zbigniew Herbert (with Czesław Miłosz behind the scenes)

This is a critical reading of a review essay of Zbigniew Herbert's “Study of the Object” by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. It was originally published in Życie Warszawy and reprinted in 2010 in a collection of his essays Rozmowy o książkach [Conversations about Books]. The review was included in the book, as we are told by the editor, to illustrate Iwaszkiewicz's authorial criticism and his inexplicit dialogue with Czesław Miłosz. This article claims that the review essay can also be read as another episode in the history of complex relations between Iwaszkiewicz and Miłosz (and, indirectly, Miłosz and Herbert). Furthermore, the history of either pair of relations can be seen as an expression of the same conflict.