Brodsky in Great Britain

[Olga Meerson]

I rather feel that Poluxina's narrowing down so much the circle of those who could really appreciate the English of Brodsky's endeavours has an element of tongue-in-cheek irony in it--like many scholars' saying that Nabokov's translation of "Onegin" works for philologists and Slavists when they need help with Pushkin's text, rather than for the average enlightened English reader. It is rather careless to see Poluxina as naive when she engages in irony. It is, in general, a bit dangerous to assume that those colleagues of ours who engage in irony are stupider than ourselves. Poluxina loves Brodsky despite his arrogant pretense that English is as native a language to him as Russian--not because of this pretense. And she indeed has the right to assess the peculiar poetic and linguistic result of this pretense as subject to her philological hermeneutic. Why treat her insight into this paradoxical linguistic, and even poetic, effect as necessarily stupider-than-thou?
o.m.   

----- Original Message -----
From: Boris Dagaev <boris.dagaev at GMAIL.COM>
Date: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:04 pm
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Brodsky in Great Britain

> It is truly fascinating how desperate her love for Brodsky is. She 
> eveninvites philologists to become critics: "???????? ???????????? 
> ???????????????? ?????? ????????? ????? ?? ???? ????????, ??? 
> ?????????? ????
> ??????, ??? ????????? - ??????? ??????????, ? ????????????? - ???????
> ??????." ("naibolee avtoritetnuju ocenku anglijskih stihov 
> Brodskogo mogli
> by dat' filologi, chej anglijskij jazyk rodnoj, ch'ja professija - 
> russkajaliteratura, a special'nost' - russkaja pojezija.")
> 
> However painful it is for her to agree with Craig Raine et al, 
> Polukhinashould have kept a wide berth of criticism. Instead, she 
> pushes ridiculously
> vacuous (supposedly uplifting?) justifications: "[??] ????????? ? 
> ???????????????????? ????????? ????? ?????????? ??????. ? ??? 
> ????????? ????? ?????,
> ?? ??? ???? ????? ???????? ? ?????, ?????? ? ??????????." ("[On] 
> nahodilsjav sostojanii postojannogo izumlenija pered anglijskim 
> jazykom. I kak
> predannyj sluga jazyka, on nes svoe bremja smirenno i gordo, 
> uprjamo i
> blagorodno.") Had Brodsky's trademark forced humility, boundless
> stubbornness and affected nobleness run a little longer, he 
> would've become
> another McGonagall. She should humbly thank God Brodsky didn't live 
> as long.
> 
> Boris
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 5:46 PM, Alexandra Smith 
> <Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk>wrote:
> 
> > Dear colleagues,
> >
> > Those of you who are interested in Brodsky might be curious to read
> > Valentina Polukhina's fascinating article on the reception of 
> Brodsky in
> > Great Britain. It was published in the journal on poetry "Storony 
> sveta":> http://www.stosvet.net/9/polukhina/
> >
> > All best,
> > Alexandra
> >
> >
> 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------