Afterlife Beyond Translation: Joseph Brodsky

Abstract

"Having introduced semantic traits of his favorite Anglophone poets (such as John Donne’s juxtaposition of sexuality and philosophy) into Russian, [Brodsky] went on to inject formal aspects of Russian poetics into English-first in self-translations, and then in original poems. Soon he became the main translator of his own poetry and also began to write in English, trying - first unconsciously, and then deliberately - to accommodate Russian poetics within the foreign language."