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The work of Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996), one of Russia’s great modern poets, has been the subject of much study and debate. His life, too, is the stuff of legend, from his survival of the siege of Leningrad in early childhood to his expulsion from the Soviet Union and his achievements as a Nobel Prize winner and America’s poet laureate.
In this penetrating biography, Brodsky’s life and work are illuminated by his great friend, the late poet and literary scholar Lev Loseff. Drawing on a wide range of source materials, some previously unpublished, and extensive interviews with writers and critics, Loseff carefully reconstructs Brodsky’s personal history while offering deft and sensitive commentary on the philosophical, religious, and mythological sources that influenced the poet’s work. Published to great acclaim in Russia and now available in English for the first time, this is literary biography of the first order, and sets the groundwork for any books on Brodsky that might follow.
"A delightful literary biography. . . . This work is a pleasure, and it sheds light on unexpected details about the poet."—D. Hutchins, CHOICE
— D. Hutchins
“The best single literary biography of the writer yet to have appeared in any language.”—Times Literary Supplement
Preface ix
Note on Translations and Sources xiii
Chapter 1 Home. Parents. First impressions (war). Heredity. The lessons of the city. School days. Outskirts. Real education. Brodsky as Jew. 1
Chapter 2 First jobs. Expeditions. Social status. Early reading. Winds from the West. Modernism. Poetry. Leningrad poetry, late 1950s. Brodsky's early verse. Persecution-prosecution. Umansky and his circle. Incident in Samarkand. 25
Chapter 3 The beginnings of a style. Boris Slutsky: meter, rhyme, composition, intonation. Leningrad literary circles. Evgeniy Rein: the art of the elegy. Akhmatova. Marina Basmanova and New Stanzas to Augusta. 49
Chapter 4 Annus mirabilis, 1964-1965: ideology. Persecution in Leningrad. Kanatchikov Dacha and "Songs of a Happy Winter." Arrest and preliminary hearing. Pryazhka. The trial. Support for Brodsky and international fame. Prison. 67
Chapter 5 Annus mirabilis, 1964-1965: exile to Norenskaya. Brodsky and Basmanova. Anglo-American poetry. Epiphany in Norenskaya. Back from exile. 95
Chapter 6 After exile: 1965-1972. Attempts at publishing a book. A Halt in the Desert, Long poems (1): "Isaac and Abraham." Long poems (2): "Gorbunov and Gorchakov." Leaving the USSR. 118
Chapter 7 The world according to Brodsky. Poetry and politics. Motherland: us and them. Brodsky's Asia. Questions of faith. The world according to Brodsky (conclusion). Existentialism. 139
Chapter 8 Arrival in the West: Auden. Brodsky in America. Carl Proffer and Ardis. The End of a Beautiful Era and A Part of Speech: a philosophy of prosody. The End of a Beautiful Era and A Part of Speech: publication. Brodsky the professor. Brodsky in New York. Travels. Friends and foes. Nonmeetings: Brodsky and Nabokov. Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn speak to America. Afghanistan and Poland. Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn. 168
Chapter 9 Fame and fortune. The politics and morals of the American campus. Brodsky and the erotic. Urania. Brodsky in English. Essays. The Nobel Prize. 210
Chapter 10 Changes at home. Democracy! Busy years: 1990-1995. Illness. "Being-toward-death." Death. 238
Notes 263
Selected Bibliography 305
Index 313
Overview
The work of Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996), one of Russia’s great modern poets, has been the subject of much study and debate. His life, too, is the stuff of legend, from his survival of the siege of Leningrad in early childhood to his expulsion from the Soviet Union and his achievements as a Nobel Prize winner and America’s poet laureate.
In this penetrating biography, Brodsky’s life and work are illuminated by his great friend, the late poet and literary scholar Lev Loseff. ...