Brodsky’s Poetics and Aesthetics PDF
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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.
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