BRODSKY's POETICS and AESTHETICS Also by Lev Loseff on the BENEFICENCE of CENSORSHIP: Aesopian Language in Modern Russian Literature

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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) DOI52 10.1007/978-1-349-20765-7

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. Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement is made to the Nobel Foundation for per mission to include Brodsky's Nobel lecture (© Nobel Foundation 1987) in this collection of articles.

ix Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used for those works of Brodsky's repeatedly cited in Russian and in English:

S. Stikhotvoreniya i poemy (Short and Long Poems) O. Ostanovka v pustyne (A Halt in the Wilderness) K. Konets prekrasnoi epokhi (The End of a Beautiful Epoch) C. Chast' rechi (A Part of Speech) N. Novye stansy k Avguste (New Stanzas to Augusta) U. Uraniya (Urania) L. Less Than One: Selected Essays SP. Selected Poems PS. A Part of Speech

x Notes on the Contributors

Bella Akhmadulina is a poet and has published several collections of poems, including Taina (Moscow, 1983) and Sad (Moscow, 1987).

Leon Burnett is Lecturer in Russian Literature, University of Essex, Colchester, and has written essays on Mandelstam, Keats and Pushkin, has contributed to and edited F.M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881). A Centenary Collection (1981).

Peter France is Professor of French at the University of Edinburgh, is the author of Poets of Modern Russia (1982), and has translated poems of Blok, Pasternak, Gennady Aygi, Oleg Chukhontsev and Brodsky.

George L. Kline is Professor of Philosophy at Bryn Mawr College (Pennsylvania, USA), and is the author of Spinoza in Soviet Phil osophy (1952, 1981) and several articles on Brodsky's poetry; he is the translator of Boris Pasternak: Seven Poems (1969, 1972) and Joseph Brodsky: Selected Poems (1973, 1974); has contributed translations to Brodsky's A Part of Speech (1980) and To Urania (1988).

Lev Lose£f is a poet and Professor of Russian Literature at Dart mouth College (New Hampshire), and has published collections of poems Chudesnyi desant (1985) and Tainyi sovetnik (1987), On the Beneficence of Censorship: Aesopian Language in Modern Russian Litera ture (1984) and edited Poetika Brodskogo (1986).

Georges Nivat is Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), and is the author of Sur Soljenitsyne (1974), Soljenitsyne (1980) and Vers la fin du my the russe (1983, 1988); co-editor of Histoire de la Litterature russe in seven volumes (1989), and translator into French of Bely, Gogol, Siniavsky, Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky.

Barry P. Scherr is Professor and Chairman, Department of Russian at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), and has written an article

xi xii Notes on the Contributors on Brodsky (Poetika Brodkogo), Russian Poetry: Meter, Rhythm, and Rhyme (1986) and Maxim Gorky (1988).

Gerald S. Smith is Professor of Russian Literature, New College, Oxford, and is the author of Song to Seven Strings; Russian Guitar Poetry and Soviet Mass Song (1984) and editor of D.5. Mirsky's Uncollected Writings on Russian Literature (1989).

Valentina Polukhina is Lecturer in Russian Literature, Depart ment of Modern Languages, University of Keele, Staffordshire, and has written Joseph Brodsky: A Poet for Our Time (1989), and essays on Khlebnikov, Pasternak, Akmatova, Tsvetaeva and Brodsky.

Tomas Venclova is a poet and Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, and has pub lished Unstable Equilibrium: Eight Russian Poetic Texts (1986).