Joseph Brodsky
A Poet for our Time

Valentina Polukhina locates Brodsky in relation to other Russian writers from Derzhavin to Akhmatova

Valentina Polukhina (Author)

9780521111461, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 May 2009

348 pages, 2 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

The Russian poet Joseph Brodsky has in recent years commanded increasing attention among both Russian specialists and a wider audience interested in modern culture. In 1987 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. This book, the first in English to be devoted entirely to him, presents a sustained and comprehensive analysis of his work to date, and offers an interpretation of his major themes: love, faith, creation, time, exile and empire. Individual poems are closely scrutinised to show the complexity and sophistication of Brodsky's ideas about perennial human problems, and the ways in which his language conveys his perception of certain values. Valentina Polukhina locates Brodsky in relation to other Russian writers from Derzhavin to Akhmatova, as well as drawing comparisons between his work and poetry in English. She also provides a comprehensive bibliography. Her book constitutes a timely study of the poetry and poetics, style and ideas of one of the most important poets of the twentieth century.

Preface
Abbreviations
Transliteration
Acknowledgement
Part I. A Stepson of the Empire: 1. The generation of 1956
2. A new pre-Gutenberg epoch
3. The northern exile
4. A change of empires
Part II. Longing for World Culture: 5. In defence of culture
6. A modern descendant of classicism
7. Elegies to the admired dead: John Donne, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden
Part III. The Mask of Metaphor: 8. A web of metaphors
9. Similarity in disparity
10. Ars est celare artem
11. A form of identity of two versions
Part IV. Words Devouring Things: 12. Thing - Veshch
13. Man - thing - number
14. Man - word - spirit
15. An intellectual and poetic tour de force
Part V. A Song of Disobedience: 16. Poet versus empire
17. A masochistic joy
18. Speaking into silence
Part VI. Image of Alienation: 19. A stern metaphysical realist
20. Man against time and space
21. Credo quia absurdum est
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]