Man’s measures. Piotr Mitzner and fundamental anthropological questions

Abstract

The articles concerns various possibilities of interpreting Piotr Mitzner’s poem Jest miarąfrom the volume of poems I po kropce (2013). Three important interpretative contexts for Mitzner’s poem can be identifi ed: 1) different ways of understanding Protagoras’ maxim anthroposmetron consi-dered to be the „magnacharta of Western relativism” (G. Reale); 2) the theoretical and practical implications of the development of craniometry, with its connections to the physical and cultural anthropology of the 19th and 20th centuries (along with references to the ideological use of human skull measurements i.e. during the 2nd World War), the refl ection on human cognitive limitations. The formal aspects of Mitzner’s poem that are crucial for its analysis include repetitions, rhythm and graphic and sound arrangement as well as the construction of the implied subject.