Lomonosov tournament. Lomonosov Brodsky tournament what a pity that the more
WHAT A PITY...
What a pity that what it became for me
your existence is gone
my existence is for you.
... Once again on the old vacant lot
I'm launching into wire space
your copper penny crowned with a coat of arms,
in a desperate attempt to exalt
moment of connection... Alas,
to someone who is unable to replace
the whole world usually remains
spin the chipped telephone dial,
like a table at a seance,
until the ghost echoes back
the last screams of the buzzer in the night.
JOSEPH BRODSKY
1967
Joseph Brodsky: “Avoid at all costs ascribing to yourself the status of a victim”
Fragments from the famous speech Joseph Brodsky gave to graduates of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor at the stadium in December 1988.
1. Try to expand your vocabulary and treat it like you treat your bank account. Pay a lot of attention to it and try to increase your dividends. The goal here is not to promote your eloquence in the bedroom or your professional success—although that may be possible later—nor is it to turn you into a social savvy. The goal is to enable you to express yourself as fully and accurately as possible; in a word, the goal is your balance.
Every day a lot changes in a person’s soul, but the way of expression often remains the same. The ability to express oneself lags behind experience. Feelings, shades, thoughts, perceptions that remain unnamed, unspoken and not content with approximate formulations accumulate inside the individual and can lead to a psychological explosion or breakdown.
You don't have to become a bookworm to avoid this. You just need to buy a dictionary and read it every day, and sometimes read books of poetry. They are quite cheap, but even the most expensive among them cost much less than one visit to a psychiatrist.
2. Try not to rely too much on politicians - not so much because they are unintelligent or dishonest, as is often the case, but because the scale of their work is too large even for the best among them. At best, they can somewhat reduce social evil, but not eradicate it. No matter how significant an improvement may be, from an ethical point of view it will always be negligible, because there will always be those - at least one person - who will not benefit from this improvement.
3. The world is imperfect; There never was and never will be a golden age. The only thing that will happen to the world is that it will become bigger, i.e. more crowded without increasing in size. No matter how fairly the person you choose promises to share the pie, it will not increase in size; Portions will definitely become smaller. In the light of this, or rather in the darkness, you must rely on your own home cooking, that is, manage the world yourself, at least that part of it that is accessible to you and within your reach.
4. Try to be modest. There are already too many of us, and very soon there will be many more. This climb to a place in the sun necessarily comes at the expense of others who will not climb. Just because you have to step on someone's toes doesn't mean you have to stand on their shoulders. Moreover, all you will see from this point is a sea of people, plus those who, like you, have taken a similar position - prominent, but at the same time very precarious: those who are called rich and famous.
5. If you want to become rich or famous or both, by all means, don't give it your all. To covet something that someone else has is to lose one's uniqueness; on the other hand, it, of course, stimulates mass production.
6. Avoid at all costs ascribing to yourself the status of a victim. No matter how disgusting your situation may be, try not to blame external forces for it: history, state, bosses, race, parents, moon phase, childhood, untimely potty training, etc. The moment you place blame on something, you undermine your own resolve to change anything.
7. In general, try to respect life not only for its charms, but also for its difficulties. They are part of the game, and the good thing about them is that they are not cheating. Whenever you are in despair or on the verge of despair, when you are in trouble or difficulty, remember: it is life that speaks to you in the only language it knows well.
8. The world you are about to enter does not have a good reputation. It's not a nice place, as you'll soon discover, and I doubt it'll be much nicer by the time you leave it. However, this is the only world available: there is no alternative, and even if there was one, there is no guarantee that it would be much better than this one.
9. Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make your life miserable. There will be many of them, both in official positions and self-appointed ones. Tolerate them if you cannot avoid them, but once you get rid of them, forget about them immediately.
10. What your enemies do gains its meaning or importance from how you react to it. So rush through or past them as if they were a yellow light rather than a red one. This way you will relieve your brain cells from useless excitement; so perhaps you can even save these idiots from themselves, for the prospect of being forgotten is shorter than the prospect of being forgiven. Change the channel: You can't stop broadcasting this network, but you can at least reduce its ratings. This decision is unlikely to please the angels, but it will certainly strike a blow against the demons, and at the moment this is the most important thing. 
ASSIGNMENTS, ANSWERS AND COMMENTS
All assignments are addressed to schoolchildren of all grades. It is not necessary to try to say at least something on each question - it is better to complete one task as thoroughly as possible or answer only understandable and feasible questions in each task.
1. Here is a poem by a Russian poet, Nobel Prize winner.
Sonnet
My existence is for you.
...Once again on the old vacant lot
I'm launching into wire space
your copper penny crowned with a coat of arms,
in a desperate attempt to exalt
moment of connection... Alas,
to someone who is unable to replace
the whole world usually remains
spin the chipped telephone dial,
like a table at a seance,
until the ghost echoes back
the last screams of the buzzer in the night.
Write notes and comments on the poem, i.e. try to formulate what it is about and explain the words and phrases, without understanding which the meaning of the poem will remain unclear.
What do you think: approximately when was it written? Prove your point.
What is a sonnet? Who do you think are the most famous sonnet authors?
How does the above poem differ from a “real”, “correct” sonnet? How can you explain why it is named like that?
Compose your “correct” sonnet.
The author of “Sonnet” (1967; another name for the poem is “Postscriptum”) is Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996). Some participants in the competition, trying to guess the author, named the names of other Russian writers and poets - Nobel Prize winners: I.A. Bunina, B.L. Pasternak and even M.A. Sholokhov. The positive effect of accidentally hitting the target is much weaker than the negative effect of missing the target: such assumptions show that their author is completely unfamiliar with Russian poetry of the twentieth century.
It is very important to understand the first and direct meaning of what is written. It would seem that the plot of the poem is extremely simple: the lyrical hero comes to an old vacant lot, puts a coin into a pay phone and at the same time reflects on the futility of his own attempts to turn his feelings into reciprocal ones.(Maria Povetyeva, 8th grade, Day boarding school No. 84, Samara). Then it is easier to determine the time of creation of the poem. Here are excerpts from successful works, where some words and phrases are explained and commented on.
Spin the chipped telephone dial– dial a number (in phones, this was done not with a keyboard, but with a disk with holes for each digit).
Like a table at a séance– there was a practice of so-called “spiritualistic seances”, when a “magician” tried to “summon a spirit” and then “communicate with it” using certain attributes, in particular a round table. In Nabokov's story “The Spy,” one of the minor characters, a bookseller, summons spirits in this way.
wire space – perhaps referring to wires running above the ground.(Natalia Berseneva, 10th grade, school No. 1514, Moscow)
A table for a seance is a fairly common image in Brodsky’s poems (for example, “Only there is no one to turn the table with, // To ask you, Rurik” - “The End of the Belle Epoque”).(Victoria Danilova, 10th grade, school No. 57, Moscow) wire space – telephone communication (space - world). A copper penny topped with a coat of arms, – a coin that is dropped into the phone instead of a token. A chipped telephone dial says that this is an old phone of an old model (with a disk); To dial a number, you need to spin the dial.
Seance – calling spirits from another world. During spiritualistic seances, the table is rotated. The lyrical hero calls as if to another world. More likely a ghost or an echo will answer him than the one for whom his existence has not become what it was for him - hers.
Buzzer screams– ringing tone on the phone. (Elena Luchina, 10th grade, school No. 1514, Moscow)
The poem could have been called “Pay Phone” if not for the lyrical introduction. But the apparatus itself is not entirely recognizable in the sonnet. His device becomes more complex to the point of “wired space,” and the telephone dial is compared to a table for a seance. The coin becomes a “crested penny” and the beeps become “buzzer screams.” Why does a simple operation become a sacred rite for the author? Here again you need to turn to the introduction, and it becomes clear that the sonnet is about unrequited love, and the machine gun is the last thing that can save her, but does not save her.(Tatyana Petrova, 10th grade, school No. 2, Pravdinsky village, Pushkin district, Moscow region) A copper penny topped with a coat of arms,- a coin, a symbol of the futility of the hero’s attempts. Word a penny refers to the saying “not worth a penny”; one gets the impression that a weak person is defenseless in front of the world... Brodsky speaks of his love as if it were in the past: at a spiritualistic séance, the spirit of a deceased person is usually invoked, i.e. they bring the past to life, and the lyrical hero, with his call, wants to bring back the past - past love, past Her, the ghost of which can “echo the last screams of the buzzer in the night.”(Alexandra Dedyukhina, 10th grade, school No. 57, Moscow)
Old wasteland...... There is a feeling here of a life lived, of a past gone forever, and of emptiness—mental emptiness. In addition, the wasteland - the reality of St. Petersburg - is associated with the image of his hometown, which is important for Brodsky - a city of ruinous swamps and dirty courtyards, palaces of tyrants and wasteland of vagabonds.
Image wire space not accidental. It feels tired of the soulless world of technology, but also a certain ephemerality (or, conversely, subtlety and tenderness of feelings?). The image of space expands the space of the poem, making the scale of feelings cosmic. (Anton Skulachev, 10th grade, school No. 1514, Moscow)
Based on some realities mentioned in the poem, it was possible to more or less accurately determine the time of its writing. I think the time of writing the poem was after the 60s of the 20th century. Nowadays there are almost no phones where you can “turn the chipped telephone dial.”(Anna Kuznetsova, 7th grade, school No. 21, Moscow) It was written in the second half of the twentieth century, when Belok and Strelok were already launched into space, when the first human flight into space took place.(Maria Rogozina, 11th grade, school No. 969, Moscow)
Theoretical information about the sonnet in a considerable number of works was presented clearly and sensibly, for example, like this: A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines. There are Italian (and similar French) and English sonnets. English consists of three quatrains (quatrains) and a couplet - a key. Italian - from two quatrains and two terzets. The rhyme can be like this: abab baab (in the second quatrain the rhyme can be cross), tercets look like this: cdc dcd - or like this: cde cde.(Elena Luchina)
Many participants in the competition know that the most famous author of Italian sonnets is Fr. Petrarch and that the English sonnet was glorified by William Shakespeare. But there are works in which the answer to the question is given with enviable thoroughness. Bunin (by the way, also a Nobel laureate), Gumilyov, Akhmatova (for example, “Seaside Sonnet”) have sonnets.(Svetlana Malyutina,
11th grade, school No. 1268, Moscow) Sonnets were written by Dante (from the sonnets to Beatrice he compiled his “New Life”), the poets of the Pleiades (including Ronsard), T. Wyeth, J. Donne, Shakespeare, Goethe, Heine, Bryusov, Brodsky (sonnets to Mary Stuart).(Alexandra Dedyukhina) In his poem “The stern Dante did not despise the sonnet...” A.S. Pushkin listed both the great authors of the Renaissance and the new poets who were “captivated by him”; these are Wordsworth, Mickiewicz, Delvig. By the way, this Pushkin poem is a sonnet, and as an epigraph the author took Wordsworth’s words “Do not despise the sonnet, critic”...... The Russian Silver Age gave rise to a huge number of sonnets; they can be found in Bryusov, Annensky, Gumilev, Akhmatova and many others. Often these are experiments with the sonnet form. By the way, at this time the Workshop of Poets composed a parody of Pushkin’s sonnet:
Valere Brussoff did not despise the sonnet,
Ivanov wove wreaths from them,
Annette’s husband loved their sizes,
Voloshin muttered no worse than them......
(Svetlana Tambovtseva, 10th grade, school No. 1514, Moscow)
A traditional sonnet was written according to strict stylistic laws: sublime vocabulary and intonation, precise and rare rhymes were required; Hyphenations (inconsistencies in the rhythmic and syntactic division of speech in verse) and repetitions of a significant word in the same meaning were prohibited. But in Russian poetry already A.S. Pushkin, who strictly observed the laws of rhyme, refused to fulfill the remaining requirements. And in Brodsky’s poem, it seems, there are absolutely no signs of a classic sonnet left, except for the number of lines: no rhyme (blank verse), no division into stanzas - this was noticed by everyone who answered the question about the form and title. Here are some other considerations from the competition participants.
The unusual thing about the sonnet is that it is written about love only in hints; modern words are used.(Anna Kuznetsova, 7th grade, school No. 21, Moscow) In a sonnet, the conclusion, the result of everything said, should be in the last stanza, and Brodsky places a kind of conclusion in the first three lines.(Svetlana Malyutina, 11th grade, school No. 268,
Moscow city)
Very often a sonnet is a song about love. This is perhaps what justified Brodsky's choice. The title “Sonnet” raises and elevates the feeling depicted by the poet to the level of eternal, timeless love, the same as that portrayed by Petrarch and Shakespeare.(Svetlana Tambovtseva) Although the sonnet is written in modern language and the telephone is the main object of salvation, in its lyricism it is not inferior to Shakespeare’s sonnets.(Tatyana Petrova, 10th grade, school No. 2, Pravdinsky village, Pushkin district, Moscow region) The hero makes a phone call in a vacant lot - and this seemingly simple action turns into something sacred, great... The way a coin is dropped into a telephone machine–copper penny topped with a coat of arms, that the machine itself is named wire space, the very purpose of dropping a coin is exalt- everything - both images and vocabulary - gives the night call a feeling of sacrifice, the greatness of what is happening. A series of words are built: existence, space, coat of arms, exalt, moment of connection – high vocabulary; this series closes with the phrase the whole world . (Victoria Danilova)
The title immediately refers educated readers to vast cultural layers: the sonnets of Camões, Dante, and Petrarch come to mind. And, of course, Shakespeare’s sonnets - about love and friendship, about the impossibility of eternal love and beauty, about all-consuming time, about that very “moment of union” - are absolutely logical and strictly built in form, composition and motives, but at the same time sincere imbued with a sense of enormous power. Brodsky, calling the poem “Sonnet,” on the one hand, includes it in a rich cultural tradition, but on the other, largely violating the rules of the sonnet, he makes his work a bold experiment; the text becomes an act of confirmation of one’s own freedom, going beyond the boundaries of the narrow space of conditions and rules .
The poem begins with the words “What a pity...”, then in the middle of the poem - “Alas...” - and then - “Until the ghost answers with an echo...”. This is an endless stream, not stopping or interrupting, going into the infinity of time. as long as and space echo. It is important that the word is used existence (and for the second time with b- shortening, pinching, shrinking), which elevates personal events to a general philosophical plane...... But the poem is interrupted. The dot is followed by an ellipsis - an exciting pause, tragic anticipation and the emptiness of “non-meeting”. A new part of the sonnet begins (crushing into parts is a characteristic feature of the genre). If in the first three lines the verbs were in the past tense, now they are in the present and future. However, the inextricable connection between the present, future and past is emphasized by the words once again– a continuous chain of losses and bereavements forms human life......
We think it's coming moment of connection - the poem, in a single stream of enjabemans, strives for this desperate point. But -...Alas. This ellipsis again divides the poem into parts, and then there is the final certainty of impossibility. Reality disappears instead existence, instead of life, instead of the whole world- an echo (!) of sound, a ghost, a telephone dial (as if separate from the booth itself), and there is not even one who will replace the world, especially the world itself.
The last two lines complete this continuous stream of feelings; they feel something eschatological and full of hopeless tragedy. And this is another similarity with the “correct” sonnet - these two lines remind us of the key of the sonnet. (Anton Skulachev)
We publish the most successful sonnets written at the competition. Let's not compare them with high examples - this is either a joke or more or less successful stylizations, usually with errors in rhythm and rhyme. We also recognize as sonnets those impromptu songs that are written not in iambic pentameter or hexameter, traditional for the Russian sonnet, but in iambic tetrameter or trochee pentameter.
Writing sonnets may not be difficult,
When you remember what a sonnet is.
But what can you do if not?
Try it. I'll start with caution.But stop. What, what should I write about?
When your heart beats unevenly in your chest
And the thought is lost? Will it be found or won’t it be found?
Isn’t it time for me to turn in the paper?No, it's not time. Already started - write,
I called myself a milkweed - the body was opened to me.
The clock is ticking. Oh horror, horror, horror!
Well, how can I complete my sonnet?I don’t know if it turned out to be a sonnet.
But there is no more time and thoughts.
Daria Polyakova, 8th grade,
school "Intellectual", Moscow.
Brown eyes are the most wonderful,
They are infinitely beautiful
So beautiful that it’s impossible to describe!
They beckon, they are dangerous...Anyone prefer turquoise?
Or the blue-eyed gaze is pure, clear,
Well, who cares - a varied pattern,
Eyes of beautifully motley miracles...No, I look at them indifferently,
And I absolutely despise gray-eyed people -
Their beauty is not for me at all!I admire just one glance,
I serve and worship one eye,
Keeping their image in my trembling heart!
Elena Luchina
Sometimes the world is shamelessly big -
So, I’m talking, but I don’t know with whom,
But I reach out, reach out to you with my lips,
No, not to the lips, but to the shell of the ear,Although it would be better to listen with your soul,
And do not interfere with vibrations and words -
They will lose the key to understanding,
Although the meaning was short and simple.And I would, of course, snuggle up to you
(Innocent dream prank),
But the night must be bitterly cold:Then only you will show pity for me,
Then only you will tolerate this little thing
And you will make yourself feel in love.
Victoria Danilova
The languid wave howls sadly,
And the roar of the clouds echoes menacingly.
And I am silent, because she is with me again,
She is my light, a golden-haired ray.The depth draws invitingly, beckons,
And her call is so sweet and viscous.
But I prefer whiteness to darkness
Those shoulders descending mountain steeps.She is my temple, my idol... everything is her.
I credo, I believe, and the faith is so strong,
I can move mountains, just give me the key -I have the key to my heart... Oh, don’t torment me,
Hard-hearted. Silence. Wave
Still sad and languid.
Alexandra Dedyukhina
Autumn has clouded my eyes,
She took me into a dream,
Covered with a leafy blanket,
Started a conversation with me:"How are you? What are you reading?
Do you want me to sing you a song?
Sleep, little one, in your dreams you will fly,
Quiet, quiet... bayushki-bayu...".“I can’t sleep, something is gnawing at my soul...
Mother Autumn, open the window...
The wind is gentle - it will help me
Forget everything. There will be only one leftA breath on the cheeks and tears..."
And the reader is already waiting for the “rose” rhyme.
Olga Nikolaenko
What a pity that there is emptiness in my heart
And the pain is like shards of ice in my chest.
And the thought: is Ta in your heart
And I whisper in a rustling voice: I’m sorry.Longing like a needle in my soul...
I will sadly share the chair.
Through my fingers - I catch a dream,My dream is like a handful of sand.
In you, like a drop of dew,
I'm melting, melting... and the clock
Tick-tock, tick-tock, they say: “Forget it!”
And again sadness sits in the chair...I sacrifice myself -
And I still breathe you.
Ekaterina Pirogova, 11th grade,
SMUN, Samara
What a pity that what it became for me
Your existence is gone
My existence is for you.
The yawning slit is already tired
Swallow the unfortunate coins again.
I send them spinning again
In a soulless tangle of wires,
In a desperate attempt to get through.But for what? You won't answer me.
After all, I'm not the one who can be the center of the world
Replace with yourself. I'm on par
With any passerby for you. Not really,I'm worse - strangers are interesting.
And I get beeps in response.
Maria Protasova, 11th grade,
School No. 57, Moscow
I want to dedicate the sonnet to you:
Your eyes, your sweet smile.
I'm a wanderer, but I'm not sad at all
A wanderer from star to star.And black space is joyful and sweet
(My eyes distort it so much)
My space always amazes me
Abundance and eternity of lights.But you are a hundred times more beautiful than him,
And the light of the sun is nothing before yours
By the glow of my eyes, I swear to them again,And I want to hug you more
How fair is it to establish a kingdom here,
How to cut through immeasurable space.
Nikolay Reshetnikov, 11th grade,
school No. 520, Moscow
When I see the groves in crimson color,
Aspen and maple leaves fire
And ancient oaks, already lifeless
Witnesses of bygone years,
It seems to me that the water of dark puddles
Not the yellow foliage of gray birches,
And the sun's golden drops of tears
It reflects there.
In the sky, as always,Already cranes flying in a strict wedge
Sometimes it flies south in autumn,
And the fogs rose over the mountain,
And a woodpecker knocks alone in the distance.The first days of autumn have a sad face,
Like cranes flying in the sky cry.
Maria Utyuzhova, 9th grade,
School No. 60, Bryansk
And the terrible vision recedes,
Letting you into the cruel and funny world
Another poem without rhyme.And I pay for stupid fear with peace,
And I hide in anxiety for centuries,
So far the poems are coming in an uneven order.
Olga Nadykto, 11th grade, school No. 4, Unecha,
Unechi district, Bryansk region.
To be continued
ON THE. SHAPIRO,
Moscow
"Postscriptum" Joseph Brodsky
What a pity that what it became for me
your existence is gone
my existence is for you.
...Once again on the old vacant lot
I'm launching into wire space
your copper penny crowned with a coat of arms,
in a desperate attempt to exalt
moment of connection... Alas,
to someone who doesn't know how to replace
the whole world usually remains
spin the chipped telephone dial,
like a table at a seance,
until the ghost echoes back
the last screams of the buzzer in the night.
Analysis of Brodsky's poem "Postscriptum"
The poem “Postscriptum,” written in 1967, reflects the tragic love story of Brodsky and Basmanova. The poet met Marianna Pavlovna while visiting their mutual friend in early 1962. A romance began, which immediately turned out to be full of difficulties. Both the parents of Joseph Alexandrovich and the father of his beloved were against the meetings of the young people. At the same time, Brodsky himself really wanted to marry Basmanova. Perhaps they would still have entered into a marriage, not paying attention to the protests of relatives, but Marianna Pavlovna categorically did not want to deprive herself of freedom. She did not marry the poet even after she gave birth to his child. Until the last moment, Joseph Alexandrovich hoped that his beloved would emigrate with him, but Marianna Pavlovna chose to stay in her homeland. For many years Brodsky could not forget her; he dedicated many poems to her. It only completely healed at the end of the 1980s.
The central theme of the poem “Postscriptum” is the theme of loneliness. It is stated in the very first lines of the work. A lonely life for the lyrical hero is not life, but existence. At the same time, he made attempts to be together with the woman he loved, attempts to find happiness, more than once, as evidenced by the beginning of the fourth line: “...Once again in the old wasteland...”. It is no coincidence that a wasteland also appears in the poem. By mentioning him, Brodsky emphasizes the total loneliness of the hero. Then the space expands. A wasteland remains behind, its place taken by endless space. The hero is contrasted with the rest of the world. Not only is he unable to connect with his beloved, but he is also unable to become part of the surrounding society. The poem does not offer a way out of the current situation. Moreover, its absence is declared. The telephone dial symbolizes the eternal cycle - actions are repeated, leading to the same result over and over again.
Initially, the poem had a different name - “Sonnet”, although it was not written in the canonical sonnet form. The work has fourteen lines, uses iambic pentameter, but the lines do not rhyme. The current name – “Postscriptum” – is really better. The poem represents the very last statement, the necessary addition. Even if the beloved woman does not hear the hero, even if he has no hope of an answer, the main thing is to put his thoughts into words.
Alexander Zholkovsky
MARGINALIA TO BRODSKY’S “POSTSCRIPTUM”
We will talk about a poem by a twenty-seven-year-old, but already quite mature poet:
At different levels - composition, tropics, themes, poetic language - the unity of a masterfully executed concept is felt. Which one exactly? Speaking roughly for now, I would note the reliance on both stereotypes and their subversion, the stylistic play of both promotion and demotion, and finally, the cherished devotion to poetry and language rather than to life and love. Much of the poem is brilliant, but some of it is memorable. Let's take a closer look at the text.
The original title, “Sonnet” (as in the collection “Stopping in the Desert,” 1970), was less specific in content, but gave a formal hint. However, is this really a sonnet? The poem has 14 lines and is written in “sonnet” 5th line. iambic, but in blank verse - the lines do not rhyme, just as the characters did not “rhyme” - so there is no need to talk about the scheme of the sonnet as a solid form, and the order of alternating male and female endings does not form a sonnet pattern.
Unrhymed 5th st. Iambic is generally used widely: already in Pushkin’s dramas (“Boris Godunov” and “Little Tragedies”), elegiac meditations on free themes (“...I visited again...”), including love ones (“How happy I am.” when I can leave..."). True, Brodsky has earlier unrhymed “Sonnets” in the same “Stop in the Desert” (“The Great Hector was killed by arrows...”, 1961; “We again live by the bay...”, 1962; “January has passed outside the windows prisons...”, 1962) and they subsequently retain their genre names, one might assume, because they have a semblance of sonnet divisions into quatrains and terzetts, which is not at all present in “Postscriptum”. Later, in “Twenty Sonnets to Mary Stuart” (1974/1977), Brodsky moves on to a mischievous play with the sonnet form in full compliance with the rhyme, but here the boundary between the sonnet and a free meditation on unhappy love is not so much tense as it is blurred. That is, in terms of the interpretation of the sonnet form, there is a further decrease in the poetic intensity of the situation - in addition to the prosaicization of the verse, the genre itself is prosaicized. This is consistent with the final title, which focuses not on the drama itself, but, so to speak, on its epilogue, or rather, notes after the fact.
“Postscriptum” opens with a three-line passage that immediately strikes you with its “ugliness,” but then follows a series of effective tropes. In one of the few works about Brodsky that pays attention to this poem, its semantic core is declared to be a periphrasis: lines I launch my copper penny, crowned with a coat of arms, into the wire space in a desperate attempt to magnify the moment of connection... deciphered like this:
“I put a coin into the telephone to connect with my beloved. But this is only a substantive meaning, in fact, “wire space” is much wider than a telephone set - it is the entire system of complex communication threads that create the possibility or impossibility of contact [...] “A copper penny crowned with a coat of arms” is also not just a coin, but also the futility of effort […] is a connotation coming from the expression “not worth a penny.” And all this action is a “desperate attempt to exalt the moment of connection,” where connection is understood not only directly […] but also metaphorically - a love connection […] spiritual […] as an act of overcoming space.”
Without getting into a discussion about whether this is a periphrase or a system of metaphors, let us note that further in the text there is an indisputable periphrasis: instead of a simple I there appears a phrase that generally describes its collision ( to someone who is not able to replace the whole world), then another bush of branched comparisons arises ( spin a chipped telephone dial like a seance table until the ghost echoes back), and then another metaphor, also known as metonymy ( buzzer screams - but in essence the lyrical “I” - in the night).
Among the functions of periphrasis, along with the descriptive (consisting of all tropes in enriching the realities of the text with a projection onto something “other”), sometimes euphemistic is distinguished, with the goal of avoiding taboo topics. Postscriptum's paraphrases accomplish both of these tasks.
The “forbidden” topic is one suggested by the genre (be it a sonnet or an elegy), well known to both partners, but not called by name - “love”. The first three lines transparently nod in her direction, as well as subsequent lamentations about the inability to replace the whole world and the illusory nature of attempts to get on the phone. However, a direct declaration of love - albeit rejected and, apparently, faded, but perhaps not completely - is never made. And the powerful figurative imagery deployed throughout the text directs the reader’s attention not so much to love and the image of the beloved, but to the own eloquence of the lyrical “I”. Disengagement from the specifics of love is also facilitated by the bad repetition, rather than relevance, of situations ( Once again...) and generality of typical self-description ( Alas, for those who...usually...).
However, the eloquence of the subject is not purely rhetorical in nature, but fulfills a very specific semantic super-task. Into the orbit of the text, in addition to the lyrical pair ( me And you), a copper coin, a telephone dial and an old vacant lot, a whole range of macro-phenomena is involved: the state emblem, the launch of a satellite, space, a seance, a ghost, an echo, a military field telephone. Thus, the lyrical hero, at least in words, accomplishes what he failed in a real relationship with the heroine - he presents her, so to speak, the whole world.
It can be assumed that the purely verbal status of this “whole world” doomed their love to failure, and we are witnessing another demonstration of the hopeless virtuality of the contact being undertaken. Its flip side is the opposite attitude - towards reducing self-detachment ( old, wire, penny twist, gap-toothed; once again, remains, in a desperate attempt). The combination of these opposites is manifested, among other things, in Brodsky’s characteristic predilection for foreign, scientific, technical and philosophical vocabulary: a cluster of words such as existence, space, disk, spiritualistic, session, buzzer, simultaneously raises the intellectual bar of the discourse and moderates its emotional intensity.
The telephone version of the love topos was intensively developed in Mayakovsky’s poem “About This” (1923), which introduced into poetic use almost all the lexemes from the corresponding vocabulary nest ( device, calls, bells, ringer, cable, number, telephone, telephone network, telephone exchange,[telephone]young lady, tube, cord), metaphorically linking them with images of contact, horizon, duel and death (cf. buzzer screams at Brodsky).
And in the years close to the creation of “Postscriptum”, one of the variants of the telephone topos - “pay telephone” - was represented by Andrei Voznesensky’s popular poem “First Ice” (1959):
The girl is freezing in the machine gun, hiding it in a chilly coat, all covered in tears and lipstick, smeared face. Breathes into thin palms. Fingers are like ice. There are earrings in the ears. She goes back alone, alone along the icy street. First ice. This is the first time. The first ice of telephone phrases. The frozen mark on the cheeks glistens - The first ice from human grievances.
What is striking is the extreme melodramatization of the conflict, which uses freezing cold, tears, the vulnerability of the young heroine, and the exclusivity of the first time, which is facilitated by the pronominal perspective of the story, told from the third person, but with complete sympathy for the victim.
Brodsky, as it were, takes this melodrama accumulated by topos out of brackets (cf. the difference between his once again And for the first time Voznesensky). Generally speaking, in the first person one could act more openly, but the hero takes a pose of self-irony. It is, of course, completely in line with the elegiac tradition and is far from the cynicism effectively developed, say, in the later, playfully fantastic poetics of Vladimir Vishnevsky (cf. his telephone one-line: You give birth to me, and I’ll call you back!).
More relevant for Brodsky - at least in terms of constructive continuation - was Mandelstam's telephone topic, but not in its extreme, suicidal version, as in the poem “Telephone,” but in a relatively moderate one, but also focused on the problem of contact. Wed. 7th poem from the “Primus” cycle (1924/1925):
The telephone in the apartment is crying - Two minutes, three, four. He fell silent and was very angry: Oh, no one came. - So I'm not needed at all, I'm offended, I have a cold: Old telephones - Those will understand my calls!
And Brodsky’s more or less direct Mandelstam subtext could have been the famous meditation in white 5th century. iambic “I am still far from being the patriarch” … ” (1931/1966), also containing motifs of a telephone, a fragile connection with the world and a coin. Wed:
When you think what is connected with the world, Then you don’t believe yourself: nonsense! Midnight key to someone else’s apartment, Yes silver dime in your pocket, Yes, celluloid films are stolen... I like a puppy I rush to the phone For every hysterical call: You can hear the Polish in it: “Dzenkue, lady”, a non-resident affectionate reproach Il broken promise .
The spiritualistic motif as an accompaniment to the love theme is also attracted by Brodsky, not without relying on a literary precedent - on the 5th art. iambic “First Strike” from the cycle “Trout Breaks the Ice” by Kuzmin, where the line I was at a séance appears between two erotically exciting images - first female, then male.
There is a weaker connection between the love plot of “Postscriptum” and the space theme, but the motif of replacing the entire world has a more direct relationship to the depiction of tender passion. From poetry contemporary to early Brodsky, one can cite the poems of Korzhavin (1952/1961):
It’s so difficult for me to live without you, And you, you tease and worry. You cannot replace the whole world for me... But it seems that you can. Yes in the world I have my own: Deeds, successes and misfortunes. I only need you for complete human happiness. It’s so difficult for me to live without you: Everything is uncomfortable, everything is disturbing... You cannot replace the world. But he can’t do you either.
The probable classical source of this poem, and “Postscriptum” as well, should apparently be sought in Lermontov’s “K *” (“I will not humiliate myself before you...”), with its motifs of the whole world, replacement and exchange in general value of feelings, cf.:
And so for too long I saw in you the hope of young days And the whole world hated To love you more. Who knows, maybe those moments that passed at your feet, I took away at inspiration! What did you replace them with? Perhaps, with heavenly thoughts and the strength of spirit, I am convinced, I would give the world a wonderful gift, but would it give me immortality? Why so tenderly You promised to replace his crown, Why weren’t you at first, What you finally became!<…>Not knowing the insidious betrayal, I soul you gave away; Have you ever known such a soul? price? You knew - I didn’t know you!
It is noteworthy that both Lermontov and Korzhavin associate the (in)ability to replace the whole world with the image of the woman to whom the poems are addressed, and not with the lyrical “I” of the man. This is natural, since in traditional, male lyric poetry it is the image of a woman - the Muse, the beloved, Beatrice, Laura, the Eternal Femininity - that is presented as the focus of world values. Therefore, the mirror expectations of the addressee of “Postscriptum” are rather unexpected and are perceived as original.
Along with subject motives, one of the leading ones in the development of the topos of unrequited love is stylistic: an antithesis that clearly expresses the conflict being described in the form of a striking contrast between the feelings of the characters, emphasized by syntax, line composition and identical vocabulary. Wed. the already cited ending of Lermontov’s “K *” ( You knew - I didn’t know you!) and a number of similar beginnings and endings:
I’m dear to you, you say, But I’m superfluous the prisoner is dearer to you; I am very dear to you, but, alas! Others are nice to you too(Baratynsky, “To ***” (“The bait of affectionate speeches...”); end);
I was not loved; You, May be, was loved by me(Baratynsky, “Tiff”; end; note the turn Whom regret- possible source What a pity Brodsky);
Beautiful young man loves, But she loved it another; This other one loves the other And he called his wife (Heine; trans. A. Pleshcheev, 1859; beginning);
An old song. She is a thousand years old: He loves her, but she doesn't love him<…>So why am I offended that for a thousand years He loves her, but she doesn't?(Naum Korzhavin, “A Song That Is a Thousand Years Old,” 1958/1961; beginning and end; Korzhavin takes the opening lines of Heine’s “Song” as an epigraph).
I loved you: love still, perhaps<…> I loved you silently, hopelessly<…>How give to you God beloved to be different(Pushkin, “I loved you: love is still, perhaps...”; beginning and end).
Here, the surrender of the beloved to another is embodied in the setting of this other to rhyme with the main predicate of the poem (“to love”), so that the final rhyme turns out to be “the same” (in - them as if there was a form there love), and “other” (in the form of the word others), whereas the expected form under the rhyme love appears in an emphatically “other”, non-rhyming position.
On the contrary, in Korzhavin’s poem “The earthly language is extremely short...” (1945/1961), more openly than “Postscriptum”, based on Pushkin’s, the transition to the “other” is given directly, aphoristically, but without unexpected icons:
The earthly language is extremely short, It will always be like that. With another it means: what is with me, But with another. And I have already overcome this pain, I left and waved my hand: On the other... This means: what is happening to you, But on the other.
In essence, “Postscriptum” opens with the same type of antithesis as in the above series. And the last example from Korzhavin is relevant in two more respects: in it, too, love is not directly named, and periphrastics is also used ( what's wrong with me;what's on the other). Korzhavin literalizes the declared “extreme brevity of language” by resorting to systematic repetitions of words, and not so much full-meaning words as auxiliary ones, in particular pronominal ones. We have before us, as it were, algebraic notation (6 s(o), 4 to others, 3 this is Y), 2 each That, What And But and one at a time He, like this, me, you And already), connected by equal signs (2 Means). Brodsky, as we have seen, combines periphrases with rich tropics, but a certain tendency to impoverish his language is also evident - in the opening lines, consisting almost exclusively of repetitions.
In my opinion, these three lines are the strongest point in the poem, and its secret has occupied me for a long time. I'm not sure I have it completely figured out, but here's what I think.
We have before us a typical antithesis of love/dislike, but interpreted in an unusual way. It is placed, as expected, in a rather strong - initial - position, but, unlike the accepted one, only in the initial position, and not in the even stronger final one. Deviation from the standard seems to weaken the effect, reducing the symmetry of the structure and its sharpness towards the end, but the very originality of the move acts in the opposite - reinforcing - direction.
This deviation can be associated with others that also work both to decrease and to increase. In verse terms - with the rejection of rhyme, with an odd number of lines allocated for the antithesis (there are 3 of them, not 2 or 4), and in terms of tropics - with the rejection of both aphoristic directness and lush imagery. As a result, the beginning loses in emotionality and “poetry”, but wins in intellectual seriousness.
Reasoning about existence instead of a declaration of love - another paraphrase, which is manifested not only in the substitution of terms itself, but also in the roll call of words what with appearing further to the one who. This phrase apparently has a direct source - the lines that complete Baratynsky’s message to “Delvig” (also written in 5th iambic, but rhymed):
Let me also utter one desire: I pray to fate, So that I became for you although from now on, what you have become for me a long time ago.
However, having been translated by Brodsky from a complimentary friendly mode to a negative love one, the antithesis-periphrasis changes its halo. Brodsky's idea sounds depressingly evasive and at the same time intellectually stimulating: we are left to guess what exactly the first term of the equation was in order to figure out what the other one never became. However, this riddle is not very difficult, and the introduction of words into poetic speech existence again dries out the emotional immediacy of lamentation ( What a pity...), giving the text the character of reflection on existential themes.
By the way, the very verbal content of the formula, which directly connects existence With love:
There was an eccentric among the sages: “I think,” he writes, “so, I, undoubtedly, I exist" No! you love you, and therefore you you exist, - I will understand rather this truth (“I notice with ecstasy...”, 1824).
What is the tonality of twice repeated existence? The reductive replacement of love by a more prosaic concept can take extreme forms; Wed Oberiut variation on the theme of the antithetical formula in “Henrietta Davydovna” by Oleinikov (1928/1982):
I in love V Henrietta Davydovna, A she's into me, Seems, No- She Schwartz receipt issued, Receipts for me, Seems, No. <…> Love me, love me! Stop loving him, stop loving him!(beginning and the end).
Existence(s) are not as shocking as receipt, but to some extent disparaging, so to speak, purely biological, connotations of this word are characteristic - along with quite serious, natural-philosophical and even sublime ones, akin to the word that sometimes appears next to it, and sometimes replaces it being. Wed. the range of semantic overtones of “existence” in the following examples, as well as the appearance next to it of other words that echo “Postscriptum”:
[My] careless ignorance of the Evil Onethe demon has outraged, and he is mine existence Connected with mine forever(Pushkin, “It happened in a sweet blindness...”, sketch, 1823);
And somewhere there they are restless in the middle of the fire. That’s how I am , without counting or name, And someone’s youth for me Ends in melancholy existence (Annensky, “Harmony”, publ. 1910);
And there is a knock from below, and a rumble from the side, And everything is more aimless, more nameless... And Chaos is disgusting to those who do not fall asleep half-existences! (Annensky, “ Winter train ” , publ. 1910);
And why recognition, When irrevocably Mine existence Have you decided? (Mandelshtam, “Don’t ask: you know...”; 1911) ;
To want, unlike the whip in his existence briefly, Labor together with everyone and at the same time with the rule of law (Pasternak, “More than a century is not yesterday...”, 1931);
I don’t remember clearly, / it was all black and proud. / I forgot/ existence / words, animals, water and stars. / The evening was many miles away / from me<…>/ The man became a demon / and until / like a miracle / he disappeared after an hour. / I forgot existence, / I contemplated / again / the distance (Vvedensky, “Guest on a Horse”, 1931-1934 /1974);
And Pushkin’s voice was heard above the leaves, And Khlebnikov’s birds sang by the water, And I met a stone. The stone was motionless, and the face of Skovoroda appeared in it. And that's all existence all nations kept the imperishable being, And I myself was not the child of nature, but her thought! But her unsteady mind! (Zabolotsky, “Yesterday, thinking about death...”, 1936/1937);
I am not a sage at all, but why do I so often it's a pity the whole world and man it's a pity? <…>The universe is noisy and asks for beauty<…>Is it just me? I am just a brief moment of Aliens existences. Dear God, why did you create world, both sweet and bloody, And gave me the mind so that I could comprehend it! (Zabolotsky, “In many knowledge there is considerable sadness...”, 1957/1965);
How ghostly is mine existence! What next? And then - nothing... The body will forget the name and nickname, - No creature, but only substance. So be it. I don't feel sorry for the flesh perishable, Although she has been serving as a mirror for seventy years universe, Witness that exists light. To me it's a pity my love, my loved ones. Your short century, departed friends, will disappear without a trace in countless, unconscious centuries. nothingness(Marshak, “How illusory is my existence!..”, 1958);
And music shared my peace with me, There is no one more accommodating in the world. She often took me away towards the end existence mine (Akhmatova, “And this summer was so joyful...”, 1963/1969).
At Brodsky's existence(ye) occurs several times in poetry - according to the concordance Patera 2003: 311, 13 more times in addition to “Postscriptum”, but before it, apparently, only once:
Life around is going like clockwork<…>I don't know in whose favor the balance is. My existence paradoxical. I make a somersault out of the era... (“Speaking of Spilled Milk,” January 14, 1967).
In meaning, the use of this word in “Vertumnus” is closer to “Postscriptum” (1990), dedicated to the memory of Gianni Buttafava:
In a poorly furnished but large apartment, / like a dog left without a shepherd, / I get down on all fours / and scratch the parquet floor with my claws, as if there was something buried underneath - / because the warmth comes from there - / your present existence.
Having accumulated a whole range of philosophical connotations, existence“Postscriptum” immediately sets an emphatically serious, prosaic tone for the conversation. This is facilitated by its large length (6/5 syllables), reinforced by almost exact repetition (accepted in antitheses, but here greatly overloading the lines), and the emphasized asymmetrical placement along the lines of almost all compared members of the antithesis, in particular, the fact that it does not fall under the logical accent (or in the final positions in poetry) of the most important of them (say, words became / did not become, Wed You knew- I don't like you knew! ).
The syntactic design of the key antithesis works in the same direction, replacing rhetorical flashiness with the deliberate awkwardness of a diligent search for truth. Let's look at this aspect of the structure.
What is unusual is that the poem immediately begins with a high level of syntactic complexity - with a doubly complex sentence ( How it's a pity, that by what... became..., Not became... ). What is more common is a gradual development from a simple syntax to an increasingly branched one, and then Brodsky will also increase complexity - to truly Gothic proportions. At the same time, the complexity is immediately balanced by the simplicity of the attack What a pity and the tautology of verbal repetitions.
The order in which the first sentence unfolds is also dual.
On the one hand, this is done in the reverse order to normal. It would be more natural to arrange the available verbal material as follows: What a pity that my existence did not become for you what your existence became for me. By the way, then repetition of words existence And became would be completely redundant and could be omitted. But in the chosen inverted version, repetition is necessary, so the complexity of the beginning increases both qualitatively (inversion makes it difficult to understand) and quantitatively (repetitions lengthen the text).
On the other hand, the chosen order is in some sense correct, since it corresponds to the deep logic of the statement being made: What a pity, that I love you, but you don’t love me(= ...that you don’t respond to my love with love/reciprocity). Indeed, love is primary and real subject to the heroine (so to speak, I loved you...), and it is logical to start counting from her, in particular to state that she, unfortunately, is unrequited.
This is the internal inconsistency of the syntactic structure describing the situation.
A similar duality also occurs within each of the turns that make up the antithesis. Instead of simple and straightforward the way I love you said what your existence has become for me. It is said not only longer and more boringly (that’s why it’s a paraphrase), but also with a sophisticated syntactic twist (not to say a twist) from among the so-called conversion transformations. The simplest type of conversion is replacing the active voice with the passive voice, for example, the verb (to) love its conversions to fall in love/to be loved. Thus, in Baratynsky’s already quoted “Tiff”, the antithesis (and next to Brodsky’s related words about pity) features exclusively passives:
Whom should I feel sorry for? Whose fate is sadder? Who is burdened with direct loss? Easy to solve: I was not loved; You, May be, was loved by me.
Already the translation into the passive voice (that is, the operation seems to be purely formal, not affecting the essence of the matter) is semantically not entirely sterile. It deprives the subject (and in “mirror” cases, like Baratynsky’s, both partners) of an independent role in what is happening and, therefore, responsibility for it, introducing a characteristic “passive” aura of fatal predetermination. But Brodsky goes even further in his conversion strategy. He makes the subject of a pair of contrasting sentences (that is, their main syntactic actant) not any of the partners at all, but the predicate itself that connects them - an even more impersonal, inanimate, but philosophically significant existence. As a result (and in combination with other complicating and aggravating syntactic factors), the situation appears to be a completely objective - “cold” - natural-philosophical reality, calling for meditative comprehension, but not personal influence. This achieves maximum distance from what is happening, the simple meaning of which, however, clearly shines through the bizarre description, creating the effect of double exposure.
Such periphrasticism, aimed not at lush ornamentation, but, on the contrary, towards “poor”, tautological understatement, borders on the technique of defamiliarization. I will give an example close to those considered by Shklovsky (in his seminal article “Art as a Technique”) and also from Tolstoy, notable for the way almost all of its constituent words are repeated two or even more times:
“└Obviously, he knows something that I don’t know,” I thought about the colonel. “If I knew what he knows, I would understand what I saw, and it would not torment me.” But no matter how much I thought, I could not understand what the colonel knew […] Well, do you think that I then decided that what I saw was a bad thing? Not at all. “If this was done with such confidence and was recognized by everyone as necessary, then, therefore, they knew something that I did not know,” I thought and tried to find out. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find out. And without knowing...” (“After the Ball”, 1903/1911).
Compared to the Tolstoyan truth-seeking (and, in the language of Brodsky’s favorite poetry of English metaphysicals, metaphysical) beginning of “Postscriptum,” the subsequent text looks relatively traditional. The poem begins on the strongest note - with its “prosaism”, which then flows into a more familiar, although performed with the virtuosity characteristic of the poet, “poetic” melody.
A melodramatic ending, only slightly touched by irony, with its scream[s]...in the night, closes the compositional frame, which also opened with a “spiritual”, but already tuned to retirement What a pity.
Each of the poets overcomes an unpleasant experience in his own way: Pushkin - with a generous (on the verge of subtle mockery) concession of a woman to another, Baratynsky - by reading morality to her, Lermontov - with angry accusations, Pasternak - with Christian sympathy for the tormentor, Limonov, following Mayakovsky - with defiant defenselessness, Brodsky - a combination of several traditional poses at once, of which he is best able to achieve philosophical self-detachment.
LITERATURE
Bethea D. and Brodsky I. 2000. Blatant preaching of idealism / Interview with David Bethea with Joseph Brodsky // New Youth, 1 (40) (http://infoart.udm.ru/magazine/nov_yun/n40/brodsky.htm).
Brodsky I. 2000. Big book of interviews / Ed. I. Zakharov, V. Polukhina. M.: Zakharov, 2000.
Brodsky I., in press. Poems and poems in 2 volumes / Comp., comm. and entry Art. Lev Losev. SPb.: Academic project.
Venclova T. 2002 . “Konigsberg text” of Russian literature and Konigsberg poems by Joseph Brodsky // How Brodsky’s poem works. From studies of Slavists in the West / Ed.-comp. L. V. Losev and V. P. Polukhina. M.: New Literary Review. pp. 43-63.
Gasparov M. 1993. Russian poems of the 1890s - 1925 in the comments. M.: Higher school.
Gorelik L. 2006 . “Mysterious poem └Telephone” by O. Mandelstam // News of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Series of Literature and Language, 65, 2. pp. 49-54.
Zholkovsky 2005. Selected articles on Russian poetry: Invariants, structures, strategies, intertexts. M.: RSUH.
Zyryanov O. 2003. Sonnet form in the poetry of I. Brodsky: genre status and evolutionary dynamics // Poetics of Joseph Brodsky: Collection. scientific tr. / Comp. V. P. Polukhina, I. V. Fomenko, A. G. Stepanova. Tver: Tver State University. pp. 230-241.
Kreps M. 1984. About the poetry of Joseph Brodsky. Ann Arbor: Ardis.
Lekmanov O. 2008 . “I will go to the sparrows and to the reporters...” Late Mandelstam: portrait on a newspaper background // Toronto Slavic Quarterly, 25. http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/25/lekmanov25.shtml.
Mandelstam O. 1990. Works in 2 volumes. T. 1. Poems and poems / Comm. A. D. Mikhailov and P. M. Nerler. M.: Fiction.
Mandelstam O. 1995. Complete. collection poems / Comp. and approx. A. G. Mets. SPb.: Academic project.
Panova L., in press. Portrait with consequences: to the technique of portraiture of contemporaries by Mikhail Kuzmin and Georgy Ivanov.
Patera T. 2003 . A concordance to the poetry of Joseph Brodsky. Vol. 5. The Edwin Mellen Press: Lewiston, N.Y.; Queensboro, Ontario; Lampeter, Wales.
Pronin V. 1999. Theory of literary genres. Tutorial. M.: MGUP. http://www.gumer.info/bibliotek_Buks/Literat/Pronin/04.php
Timenchik R. 1988 . On the symbolism of the telephone in Russian poetry // Works on sign systems. 22. Tartu: TSU, 1988. pp. 155-163.
Yust D.[nickname] 1988 .Sonnet // Twenty-two, 59. pp. 169-181.
Jacobson R. 1983. Poetry of grammar and grammar of poetry // Semiotics / Comp. Yu. S. Stepanov. M.: Rainbow. pp. 462-482.
NOTES
For discussion and tips, I am grateful to Mikhail Bezrodny, N. A. Bogomolov, Thomas Venclova, Alexander Kushner, O. A. Lekmanov, N. N. Mazur, L. G. Panova, V. Z. Paperny, V. P. Polukhina , A. A. Raskina and I. P. Smirnov.
Wed. from Pasternak: And I would like that after death, when we close up and leave, Closer than the heart and atrium, the two of us would rhyme(“Beloved, - sweet rumors...”, 1931).
For Brodsky's sonnet form, see Venclova 2002: 56-57; Zyryanov 2003(about its almost complete absence in this poem, see pp. 238-239). However, according to I. Bulkina (http://opus-incertum.livejournal.com/10729.html), in “Postscriptum” one can see a special type of game with a sonnet form - a sonnet with a reverse order of tercets and quatrains (i.e. .inverted, or overturned, sonnet, see Gasparov 1993: 211). This idea is developed (in an email to me on October 2, 2009) by N. N. Mazur:
“The importance of the postscript key is indicated by the very title of the poem. If the expected key (the first 3 lines) is moved to the end, then the correct sonnet form will be restored: two times four and two times three lines. That is, we have before us a poem with a key inserted on the wrong side (cf. a key that fits many doors, stunned by the first turn). With this reading, the playing boundary between the first and second quatrain will be clearly defined: exalt / moment of connection.
The last terzetto, moved to the beginning, strengthens the idea of repetition, rotation (of a disk, table). The image of a circle is generally consistent throughout the entire text: presumably both space and the world have the shape of a ball, and a penny, a crown, the Soviet coat of arms, a telephone dial, a table used by spiritualists are circles. This circle, however, has a flaw: the crown of ears of grain on the Soviet coat of arms is open, and there is a telephone disk to pandan to him - gap-toothed. And the crown itself is not a wedding one, but a parody - made from heraldic ears of corn. The inconsistency of the heroes is indicated in this way on a metaphorical level.”
An example of an overturned sonnet is A. N. Pleshcheev’s sonnet “There is no rest, my friend, on the path of life...”; The same thing, upon closer examination, is Pushkin’s “Elegy” (“The Faded Fun of Crazy Years,” 1830/1834; see Pronin 1999). Nabokov’s “University Poem” was written with the reversed Onegin stanza (1927; see Gasparov 1993: 164), and it could serve as a direct challenge to Brodsky.
In terms of Jacobson 1983.
This refers to a copper (not silver) colored two-kopeck coin, or two-kopeck coin.
Cm. Kreps 1984: 55-56. Brodsky told Thomas Venclova, “that the words: in a desperate attempt to exalt / the moment of connection are ambiguous - we are also talking about the state’s attempt to exalt the moment of the unification of the republics in the USSR” (Ventslov’s email to me on October 10, 2009).
Kreps mistakenly uses the term “paraphrase”.
Disk will appear later in Samoilov’s poem “Lark” (1962-1963):
AND disk telephone, purring in a booth - about the worst, about the best, about the past? about future? Roulette. Heads or tails. Not at home. What a pity. Organ organ. Or a birdhouse, a birdhouse for a lark; Let us note in passing the “coin” motif: heads or tails.
For telephone topos, see Timenchik 1988; the pay phone offshoot naturally accentuates its negative aspects.
The image of a telephone (in the context of philosophical reflections on the century, existence, love and separation) repeatedly appears in V. Lugovsky’s poetic book “Mid-Century” (1943-1956/1958), “which Brodsky very much praised in 1958 or 1959 ”To I.P. Smirnov (Smirnov’s email to me, 09.27.2009); However, later Brodsky spoke rather negatively about “Mid-Century” ( Brodsky 2000: 349-350). Lugovsky's book is written in white 5th century. trochaic and could influence the formation of Brodsky’s poetic tastes, among other things, with its verbosity: these are 25 long lyric epic poems, in total more than 80,000 lines. About the phone: Scattered red mattresses, Strings and a telephone receiver, Filled with former friends, Cooled passion, old conversation, Left behind...(“First candle”).
As an example of spiritual openness, I will cite Limonov’s “Message” (1968/1979), which would sound absolutely heartbreaking if it were not orchestrated by agrammatical delights, deliberate tautologies and rhyme failures, which simultaneously enhance and undermine the lyrical prestige of the subject:
When in this earthly life I was completely tired of myself Then, along with everyone else, you were sadly tired of me And you decided to leave Me, the insignificant one. Tell me - can’t you stay? Perhaps you can stay? I will improve my character And distinguish myself in front of you With my subtle eyes With my gentle hand And my word of honor in this life There is no need for you and me to quarrel After all, the rains knock harshly When someone lives alone But if you firmly leave Having decided not to change Your decision You can still you will come back in two days or from the doorstep I can’t call you and cry My law doesn’t allow me But you could feel it That I’m asking you inside Tell me, can’t you stay? Perhaps you can stay?
For this poem, see Timenchik 1988, Lekmanov 2008,Gorelik 2006.
If hysterical call- about the home phone, then silver ten-kopeck piece in pocket, most likely, about the possibility of calling a pay phone: in those days the pay phone accepted ten-kopeck coins, cf. in a poem by Leonid Martynov “ Have you noticed a passerby walking around the city?..” (1935/1945) lines: He lowers ten-kopeck piece into the crack machine gun, He twists the shaky circle of the dial with his finger(there is other evidence). The time for 15-kopeck coins came in 1947-1961, after which two-kopek coins began to be used, but instead of a two-kopeck coin, a ten-kopeck piece of the same size could be used, which brought Brodsky’s situation closer to Mandelstam’s. It is more doubtful that the machine gun could have anything to do with celluloid, cf.: “ Celluloid films thieves- celluloid horn; with its help it was possible to call a pay phone without dropping a 15-kopeck note (sic! - A. Zh.) coin; reported by N. L. Pobol” ( Mandelstam 1990: 515), but in other commented editions of Mandelstam, Pobol’s testimony is not reproduced; For the literal meaning of this line (a piece of film given to Mandelstam by B. Lapin), see Mandelstam 1995: 584, for its cinematic implications see Lekmanov 2008.
However, the basis for the interweaving of the love-automatic motif with space, a coin and the state emblem could serve as a characteristic complex of the then Soviet realities. In Galich’s song about an Ethiopian prince who falls in love with a simple Soviet traffic policewoman (“Lenochka”; 1962), the distinguished guest Sits with a pennant model - that pentagonal pennant with the coat of arms and the inscription “USSR”, which was thrown onto the Moon in 1959. And the other, later one, from 1966, was even more like a coin: inside the pentagon there was a circle, and in it the state emblem. Many coins are from the 1960s. were dated 1961 - the year of Gagarin's flight into space.
Wed. Petrarch's sonnets XXXVIII (“Orso, e' non furon mai fiumi n stagni...” - “No, Orso, not to the rivers running from the mountains...”), XCVII (“Ahi, bella libertа, come tu m’ai… ” - “Oh, the highest gift, priceless freedom...”), C (“Quella fenestra, ove l'un sol si vede...” - “And that window of my luminary...”), all three - in the translation. E. Solonovich;
Balmont’s sonnet “The sun will go out” (1919): The sun will go out in the visible heights, And there will be no stars in the invisible air, The whole world will be covered in thick smoke, All thunder will be silent in eternal silence, On the black and invisible moon Inside, the heat will arise like a scorching fire And along paths forever unexplored, All life will go to the unknown side, - Suddenly, all the grass will turn to dust, And the nightingales will forget how to love, Wars and fun will melt away like sound, - With a sigh, the evil spirit will disappear in the world, And it will be equal to be or not to be - Sooner than I can forget you...;
as well as Ronsard’s sonnet - XXVI from the book “Love for Cassandra” (the beginning of which could serve as a starting point for Balmont’s): Plus tost le bal de tant d'astres divers Sera lass, plutost la Mer sans onde, Et du Soleil la fuitte vagabonde Ne courra plus an tournant de travers<…>Plutost sans forme ita confus le monde, Que je…(Sooner the starry choir will go out in the sky And the sea will become a stone desert, Sooner there will be no Sun in the blue firmament, Sooner the Moon will not illuminate the expanse of the earth, Sooner the masses of snowy mountains will fall, The world will turn into a chaos of shapes and lines, Than...; lane V. Levika).
In essence, Shakespeare’s 66th sonnet is built on the same rhetorical principle, only with the opposite sign; If the usual rhetorical move is: “the world is magnificent, but the beloved is even more magnificent,” then in Shakespeare “the world is terrible, but the beloved redeems all its imperfections.”
Paired with the telephone topos, the motif of the beloved’s irreplaceability appears in “About This”: Will you replace her?! / No one!
About this Pushkin effect and its reflection in the sixth of “Twenty Sonnets to Mary Stuart”, see Zholkovsky 2005: 295-296, 527.
The reliance on “I loved you: love still, perhaps...” (but at the same time also on Komsomol-tourist poetry of the 1950s) is quite transparent - in the poem “Farewell...” (1957), which opens Brodsky’s collected works:
Farewell, / forget / and don’t blame me. / And burn the letters / like a bridge. / May your path be courageous, / may it be straight / and simple. / Let the starry tinsel / shine in the darkness / for you, / let hope / warm your palms / by your fire. / May there be blizzards, / snow, rain, / and a mad roar of fire, / may you have more luck ahead / than I have. / May the battle / thundering in your chest be powerful and beautiful. / I am happy for those / who are / perhaps / along the way with you.
There is a curious anticipatory echo - in rhythm and sound, and partly in mood - with such hits of the 1960s as the two “Songs about a Friend” from the films “The Path to the Pier” (1961; words by Pozhenyan) and “Vertical” (1966; words by Pozhenyan), respectively. words and music by Vysotsky). Brodsky quickly moved away from such aesthetics.
According to N.A. Bogomolov (e-mail to me, September 21, 2009), this “unnoticeable and pompously romantic poem is probably essential for └Postscriptum” as a parallel (and perhaps as a negation of the early self); in it, instead of a coin, there are letters, instead of a wire space, there is a straight path and a bridge, etc.”
An even more schematized version of the collision is in the ditty, known from the film “It Was About Penkov” (1958): My dear friend came up to me: “I found myself a Milk!” He found it and I found it - the struggle for quality has begun!
Wed. considerations about the inverted sonnet form in the note. 2.
And also by the discrepancy between the variants of the leitmotif word: existence/existence and emphasized by a dull quasi-rhyme me/you.
Losev, in his comments to “Postscriptum,” thanks V.P. Polukhina for this observation ( Brodsky, in press); for the same correlation, see http://opus-incertum.livejournal.com/10729.html (11/22/2005).
In one enthusiastic essay on “Postscriptum” ( Just 1988: 169) these lines are cited as a probable subtext-source, however, Mandelstam’s early poem “Don’t ask: you know...” (1911), from which they were taken, was first published only in 1974; Of course, Brodsky’s acquaintance with his manuscript or list cannot be ruled out.
Zabolotsky's poem ends like this: Some little boy wandered around with me, chatted with me about a lot of trifles. And even he, like fog, was more material than spiritual. The boy and I went to the lake, He threw a fishing rod down somewhere And something that flew from the ground, slowly, with his hand he pushed it away. These lines bring to mind Brodsky’s poem “I hugged these shoulders and looked...” (1962/1970), addressed, by the way, to the same beloved as the sonnet “Postscriptum”, only five years earlier, cf.: I hugged those shoulders and looked / at what happened behind your back, / and saw that the pulled out chair / merged with the illuminated wall<…>But the moth circled around the room, / and he shifted my gaze from real estate. / And if a ghost once lived here, / then he left this house. Left.
Vertumnus is a Roman deity of Etruscan origin, capable of transformations; Brodsky compares his late friend with him in his message.
Another almost inaudible overtone existence in “Postscriptum” - this is an implied orientation towards love not for some merit (cf. above about the motive of replacement in Korzhavin and Lermontov), but for the very fact of existence, for what the object of love is in itself. An influential prototype in this line is “We were four sisters, we were four sisters...” Kuzmina (1906): We were four sisters, we were four sisters, / we all loved four, but we all had different “because”:/ one loved because her father and mother told her to do so, / another loved because her lover was rich, / a third loved because he was a famous artist, / and I loved because I loved ... etc. (see Panova, in press).
In a broader sense, this is comparable to the well-known topos of an emphatically modest, but honest, celebration of the beloved/muse - as opposed to the pompous rhetoric of other poets; such, for example, are Shakespeare’s 21st and 130th sonnets, “I am not blinded by my muse...” by Baratynsky (1830) and “She is not proud of beauty...” (Lermontov, 1832/1876).
It is curious that the motive of love as such is dictated by the striking lines of the grateful “Word to Comrade Stalin” by Isakovsky (1945): For being who you are And Because you live on earth! True, they coexist with many thanks for specific merits ( Thank you that in the days of great disasters you thought about all of us in the Kremlin, for the fact that you are with us everywhere and many more etc.), but they are the ones who are placed in the strongest positions - at the ends of the last two quatrains.
An interesting parallel to this “damage” of the traditional formula is provided by Kushner’s poem, where the rejection of “correctness” is proclaimed directly, but in emphatically correct verses: Dear friend, I love you, And you love him, and he loves another. And she, the handkerchief, is fiddling with me, but I don’t even blow my breath<…>What would be simpler: I - you, And you - me, and he - another, And she - him... But who, loving, Will tolerate such correctness?(“Dear friend, I love you...”, 1968).
In the forms of the romantic tradition of the 19th century. such a distancing transfer of syntactic, and with it semantic emphasis from partners to a nominalized predicate was tested in Pushkin’s prototype; Wed shift from I loved you ... To Love faded away and further to let she... (Zholkovsky 2005: 55-56).
On Brodsky’s correlation of his syntactic technique with the technique of the poets of Pushkin’s time, see his answers to questions from an American researcher:
“David Bethea. [Even such a poet of paradoxes and supreme irony as Baratynsky is inferior to you in syntax. Your syntax is more complicated. In other words, his poetry maintains a balance in a poetic tradition that has since come very far.
Joseph Brodsky […] This language has long died, this mental pathos is also dead, but in the case of Baratynsky, take at least the poem “Death” [...] Death in this poem plays the role of limiting chaos: You tame the rebel... there's something there... hurricane, you turn back the ocean on your shores. And he says: You give limits to plants, so that the mighty forest of the earth does not overshadow the mighty forest with a destructive shadow, and the grass does not rise to the skies. This is metaphysics bordering on the absurd. And this is from Baratynsky - a century before it became fashionable. The same with Pushkin, for example, and T. S. Eliot...” ( Bethea and Brodsky 2000; textual criticism and source punctuation. - A. Zh.).
