A Room of His Own: Joseph Brodsky and the Making of a Bilingual Poet

by Daria S. Smirnova

Overview

A Room of His Own: Joseph Brodsky and the Making of a Bilingual Poet makes the original and persuasive claim that Brodsky’s force as a transnational poet derives paradoxically from an inward-looking stance that privileges “the trope of the room” and a practice of self-translation that is faithful to his own internal poetics rather than the poetic norms of the target tradition. The resulting bilingual poetics is one that, though not universally accepted by English readers, ultimately had a profound effect on the Anglo-American literary tradition and anticipated certain foreignizing tendencies that have become central to translation studies and theories of transnationalism. No less powerful than the book’s thesis is the elegant analyses, which encompass Brodsky’s Russian poetry, his translations from Russian to English, and his English-language essays.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798897830176
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	08/12/2025
Series:	Liber Primus
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Daria Smirnova holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon and a degree in Linguistics from Russia. Inspired by years of traveling between languages and cultures, her research explores literary translation, bilingualism, and transmediation. Daria’s current archival research examines the role of translation in shaping literary canons.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: THE METAPHYSICAL ROOM: BRODSKY AND THE POETICS OF THE BRITISH BAROQUE

The Term “Metaphysical”: How Metaphysical Is Brodsky’s Poetry? 

The Topos of a Room: The Metaphysical Conceit Reinvented

“Don’t leave the room . . .” 

“To L. V. Lifshitz” or “I kept saying that fate is a game . . .” 

“Noon in a Room” 

CHAPTER 2: BRODSKY’S SELF-TRANSLATIONS AS A BILINGUAL TEXT

A Miracle or a Disaster: The “Dreyfus Affair” of the English Brodsky

Writing from the Midzone: Continuity versus Dissimilarity in the Approach to (Self-)Translation   

Polemics with Weissbort’s Approach to Brodsky’s Self-Translation

From Dekabrʹ to December: Continuity in Brodsky’s First Self-Translation

Birds of a Feather: Derek Walcott’s Translation as an Example of an Approach by a Multilingual Poet

CHAPTER 3: EXPANSION OF ISOLATION: BRODSKY’S TRANSLATION BETWEEN GENRES

Self-Revealing Prose

Prose as the Laboratory of Poetic Creation/Translation

Transporting Imagery

Transporting Motifs

Transporting Structure

Transporting Traditions: The Russian Shkaf in the Metaphysical Room

New Genre, New Readership: The Reception of the Brodsky’s English Prose

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B: “DECEMBER IN FLORENCE”: TRANSCRIPTION OF TRANSLATION DRAFTS

APPENDIX C: RHYME SCHEME

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editorial Reviews

As playful and erudite as the title promises, the book cleans a window onto Brodsky’s life and work. The study explores how Brodsky integrated diverse foreign poetic traditions into his own distinctive voice, analyzes his idiolect and translingual poetic sensibility, and provides an illuminating overview of the critical reception, exposing the cultural and literary prejudices that influenced contemporary responses to Brodsky’s work. Personal and witty, it is a pleasure to read.”

—Dr. Alexandra Berlina, author of Brodsky Translating Brodsky: Poetry in Self-Translation

“In three substantial chapters, Daria Smirnova explores Joseph Brodsky's formation and literary production as a bilingual poet, auto-translator, and transformative essayist. She traces his appropriation and absorption of foreign and local poetic elements (especially and famously the English Metaphysical poets), his translations and self-translations in the context of critical reactions by Anglophone readers (including some of Brodsky's own translators), and the impact of his prose essays on readers of his poetry, as well as readers of the poets he wrote about. Smirnova argues that these writings and concerns bring formerly disparate poetic periods and movements into new kinds of contact and relationship. A Room of His Own (not a room and a half! and not less than one!) offers plentiful square footage for thought, and windows that look out in multiple directions.”

— Sibelan Forrester, Susan W. Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages and Russian, Swarthmore College

From the Publisher