Brodsky’s Poetics and Aesthetics

225 Pages·1990·19.73 MB·English

by  Lev Loseff

BRODSKY'S POETICS AND AESTHETICS
Also by Lev Loseff
ON THE BENEFICENCE OF CENSORSHIP: Aesopian
Language in Modern Russian Literature
Also by Valentina Polukhina
JOSEPH BRODSKY: A Poet for Our Time
Joseph Brodsky (c. 1978)
(from the personal collection of Valentina Polukhina)
Brodsky's Poetics
and Aesthetics
Edited by
Lev Loseff
Professor of RlIssiml Literature at Dartmouth College
and
Valentina Polukhina
Lecturer ill Rlissiml Literature
University of Keele
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-20767-1 ISBN 978-1-349-20765-7 (eBook)
52
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20765-7
© The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1990
Selection and editorial matter © Lev Loseff and Valentina Polukhina, 1990
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 1990
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1990
ISBN 978-0-312-04511-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brodsky's poetics and aesthetics/edited by Lev Loseff and Valentina
Polukhina.
p. em.
ISBN 978-0-312-04511-1
1. Brodsky, Joseph, 1940- -Criticism and interpretation.
I. Loseff, Lev, 1937- . II. Polukhina, V. A. (Valerii Anatol'evich)
PG3479.4.R64Z59 1990
891.71'44-dc20 89-70322
CIP
Contents
Foreword vii
Acknowledgement ix
Abbreviations x
Notes on the Contributors xi
1 Nobel Lecture, 1987 1
Joseph Brodsky
2 The Complicity of the Real: Affinities in the Poetics of
Brodsky and Mandelstam 12
Leon Burnett
3 Politics/Poetics 34
Lev Loseff
4 Variations on the Theme of Exile 56
George L. Kline
5 The Ironic Journey into Antiquity 89
Georges Nivat
6 Notes on the Sonnets to Mary Queen of Scots 98
Peter France
7 'Polden'v komnate' 124
Gerald S. Smith
8 A Journey from Petersburg to Istanbul 135
Tomas Venclova
9 Similarity in Disparity 152
Valentina Polukhina
v
Vl Contents
10 Beginning at the End: Rhyme and Enjambment in
Brodsky's Poetry 180
Barry P. Scherr
11 An Interview with Bella Akhmadulina 198
Valentina Polukhina
Index 205
Foreword
Indeed we wouldn't know,
Whether Pushkin was great or not,
Without their doctoral dissertations
Which shed light on everything[,]
wrote Pasternak in his 'Four Fragments About Blok'. Joseph
Brodsky, who has been a Russian poet for thirty years, is no more
in need of scholastic glorification than his predecessors - Pushkin,
Blok and Pasternak. It is not the task of literary scholars to create
the reputation of a living poet, and they should be cautious when
approaching modern-day literature.
Of course the definition of 'modern-day' varies. The dis
tinguished academician V.N. Peretz (1870-1935) considered it
foolish and childish to study anything written after 1700. Boris
Gasparov, a contemporary scholar, believes that nobody should
attempt to investigate works which appeared after the year of his
or her birth.
Leaving these, rather ritualistic, niceties aside, we believe that
research in the realm of current literature has its own cognitive
value: both as exegesis and as poetic analysis.
Exegetical commentary involves the reader in what Gershenzon
called 'slow reading', i.e. re-reading and reading with a broad
intertextual perspective in mind; while applying the analytical
methods of poetics to contemporary works (may the ghost of
Pasternak forgive us!) indeed sheds new light on the whole corpus
of a national literature.
The authors of this collection do not share any theoretical or
methodological platform; the only factor uniting them is a common
interest in the work of this outstanding poet, as well as in Russian
poetry and poetics in general.
The essays by Peter France, G.S. Smith and Tomas Venclova are
primarily focused on individual works of Brodsky while Leon
Burnett, George Kline, Georges Nivat and Lev Loseff investigate
certain recurrent motifs in the poet's oeuvre. Valentina Polukhina
and Barry Scherr approach Brodsky's poetry from the point of view
vii
viii Foreword
of general poetics: they discuss problems of simile and rhyme
respectively. Valentina Polukhina's conversation with Bella Akh
madulina provides exciting glimpses into the perception of
Brodsky by another famous poet, who belongs to a different school
of poetry - and who is a woman.
Some of the authors in the collection contributed to Poetika
Brodskogo, published in Russian in 1986 by Hermitage. The present
volume continues the free critical discussion begun there, or rather
continues the beginning of a discussion which, in our view, prom
ises to be productive.
LEV LOSEFF
VALENTINA POLUKHINA
NOTE
The variety of approaches adopted by the authors in this collection
precludes total uniformity in such technical matters as the arrange
ment of references, footnoting, etc. Translations of quotations in
the text were done by the authors (if not acknowledged otherwise).
L.L, V.P.