Brodsky: The reason for civilization is to understand the uniqueness of a person in the world and the autonomy of his existence

As a Russian-speaking poet, Brodsky became famous at a young age and established himself very early in the Leningrad underground literary circle. He was a guest of honor at the home of the literary godmother Akhmatova and was highly regarded. His poetry collection was translated and published abroad, foreworded by the great poet Auden, and attracted the attention of the Anglo-American Slavic academic community. Isaiah Berlin said that reading Brodsky's Russian poems, "from the very beginning you can see a genius." Nabokov read the long poem "Gorbnov and Gorchakov", said the poem was "written in a rare grammar in the Russian language", and sent the poet a pair of jeans as a gift (jeans were a rare item in the Soviet Union in 1970). Solzhenitsyn said he never missed Brodsky's poems published in Russian-language publications and always admired his "outstanding poetry". In Russia, poets held high status —Pushkin's glory seemed palpable even during the Soviet era—and brodsky was seen as Pushkin's heir in the elite circle of Russian poetry.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) was a Russian-American poet who won the National Book Review Award in 1986, the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987, and the American Poet Laureate in 1991. Representative works include the poetry collection "Selected Poems", "Word Categories", "To Urania", the prose collection "Less than one", "Sadness and Reason", the prose "Watermark" and so on.

Brodsky's fame in the West did not come entirely from poetry, but from his legendary experiences. In the 1960s, he was sentenced for writing poetry for "social parasites." This sensational event led him to later exile in the West. Claude Simon's novel The Botanical Garden depicts a photograph of the poet in a northern labor camp and a fragment of the trial. Coetzee's autobiographical novel, Youth, in which the protagonist listens to Brodsky's conversations on BBC radio in London, fantasizing about how to get in touch with the poets in the labor camps. The imprisoned poet became the heroic embodiment of the dedicated muse. The ideological game between the East and the West during the Cold War gave him a strong light and created his prominent reputation as a "poet in exile", which was a bittersweet fate he received. He went into exile in the West in 1972 and has not returned to his homeland ever since. The family was never reunited until their deaths.

Original author | Xu Zhiqiang

Excerpts | Zhang Jin

Source of this article: "Part of Poetics and Ordinary Readers", by Xu Zhiqiang, Edition: Zhejiang University Press, Qizhenguan, December 2021

The world's attention was noted for a trial

In his biography of the poet, Lev Loshev sneered that the arrest and trial of Brodsky was politically inappropriate, that the arrest and sentencing of a young poet who had no social influence in the first place, the international uproar, and the eventual need for the highest authorities to come forward and remove the poet and lose face, was a foolish bureaucratic act.

The poet's poems before 1972, mostly on the theme of love, parting or loneliness, are nothing more than deviations from optimism and collectivist concepts, and are incompatible with mainstream ideology. Under this kind of high pressure, the creative space of writers is indeed too small, not only is it difficult to guarantee material well-being, but also there is a risk of life. Brodsky, in his essay "Air Disaster", said that the living conditions of the Soviet underground writers were abnormal, and that the "middle ground" occupied by writers "in countries with better political systems" (such as Günter Grass, Michel Boutol, etc.) did not exist in the Soviet Union: they were faced with either an either-or choice, either to automatically retreat in aesthetic style, to suppress their metaphysical abilities, and to reduce their artistic pursuits; or to become experimental writers with a very small readership, expecting so-called fair evaluations in the future. Masturbate by occasionally publishing his works abroad. In this way, the Brotz basic person is a special case, because of a trial case that attracted the world's attention, to be able to fulfill the name of "poet in exile", which is the luck of misfortune.

Brodsky, 1970.

Today, the exiled American poet is ancient. When it comes to that dusty history, it is only when people look back at the difficult fate of that generation of Russian writers that they relive the "historical nightmare" they experienced. The book "Less than one" is filled with a cold and tough iron gray throughout, which is largely due to the author's experience. Two self-narrated biographical essays, like a naturalistic narrative processed with anti-corrosion techniques, portray the tedious and barren Soviet living environment and are unforgettable to read. "A Half Room" writes of two crows, lingering in the gaps between the narratives, as if to hint at the undead of the author's parents; the condensed and repressive tone of the passage gradually conveys a certain elegy tone. Elegy always tends to lose, to speak of death and loss, to dialogue with the undead who conceived of their existence. It is a deliberately suppressed, cold and touching narrative, with an iron gray tone that shows a high degree of sanity and stems from the coarse grayness of the pores of everyday life magnified by politics. The so-called elegy is actually broken, always intermittent, as if stumbled by substantial death and loss.

The two most graphic reminiscence essays in "Less than One" show the pain caused by totalitarian politics, with an ironic and restrained attitude, the writing is a bit of George Orwell,around the influence of Bardinsky, whose proportion is greater. That is, the author prefers to comment rather than narrate, adding a sober commentary to the existing tragic life, rather than just a kind of recollection and introduction. This technique has profound metaphysical significance. The poet does not see himself as a victim (he does not mention anything about the experience of labor reform), but uses an ironic mirror to see the image of the soul frozen. Speaking of Bardinsky's work, the author says that the latter's poetic theme is always "far from the perfection of the soul" and that the poet must "write this soul according to his own experience". This is the formula he summed up. He saw in Baradinsky's poetry a "near-Calvinic diligence," a Calvinistic rigorous self-examination. The imperfect consciousness of the individual soul can, to some extent, create a clearness and sensitivity of conscience; in other words, when there is a crack in the conscience, the poet does not have to embroider the seam with gold thread (at best, it is a stuffed straw). In short, this kind of interest does not emphasize subjectivity and self-justification; its "perfection far from the soul" is more intrinsically authentic than Camusian existentialism.

The title of the essay "Less than one" with the same title as the collection indicates this creative philosophy. "Less than one", translated by Chinese translators as "less than one", is inaccurate. According to Lev Loseff's biography of Brodsky (translated by Liu Wenfei, Oriental Publishing House, 2009), less than one is derived from the sentence one is less than one, which means "you are less than yourself" or "man is less than himself", where "one" means "one". The so-called "man is smaller than himself" refers to the fact that man usually exists far from the perfection of the soul. It can be said that the unfolding of the theme of this article, from metaphysical reflections to aesthetics, culture, ethics, to the function of memory and the state of life, all originate from this consciousness. The broken elegy, intermittent style and rhythm of "Less than one" also developed from the theme of "perfection far from the soul".

"Less than one", by Joseph Brodsky, translator: Huang Canran, edition: Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2014

Essays and commentaries embody the "style of the wise man"

Brodsky absorbed the poetic nourishment of Russia, Britain and the United States, and formed an original tone and style in prose writing, and his narrative also transcended the usual ideological accusations and painful displays, which seemed intriguing. Transcendence does not come from a morally high posture, from the use of fiction to obtain relief or comfort (Less than one adheres to its anti-fiction principles), but depends on some metaphysical literary expression. Brodsky's best poetry and prose are struggling to pursue this formulation.

Although his poetic talent is recognized, he is also seen as a sort of "alternative" among mainstream and non-mainstream literary groups. As Elena Schwartz and others have pointed out, the metaphysical pursuit of its language brought "completely new voices, even completely different new ways of thinking" to Soviet poetry, but Russian literature tended to be enthusiastic "talking" and "soothing", which seemed to be less suitable for the lyrical style of favoring irony and analysis. His essays and commentaries also embody a "wise man's demeanor". To some extent, it can be said that he also explained his metaphysical tendencies through literary criticism articles.

The literary criticisms included in Less than One are best known for their introductions to Russian poetry, introductory commentaries on the creations of Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, and others, each of which is very alert and impressive, and as Coetzee puts it, "Literary criticism can be said to be Brodsky's best play." If the essence of criticism is preaching, Brodsky's articles are exemplars of aesthetic preaching, like occupying an evangelistic pulpit and talking in a monologue under a vertical dome. His expression is a series of ideas composed of instantaneous climaxes, with a upward trend in the writing. The analysis is thorough and condensed, forming a semantically rigorous critical text, and disdainful of pragmatism and cheap preaching. The language is occasionally a little grotesque, such as "acceleration", "common denominator", "instrument method", "longitudinal diaphragm", such as the vocabulary collected from the encyclopedia, and even slightly abrupt slang and witty words, which are based on the Baroque (British metaphysical) ingenuity in his poetry creation, pursuing strange and dissonant effects (Kuche's essay "Brodsky's Essays" is a wrong analysis of this, see Coetzee's "The Land of the Foreigner", translated by Wang Hongzhang, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, 2010). His poetic teachings are bold, sometimes condensed like aphorisms, and his conclusions are always straightforward and indisputable, such as "aesthetics is the mother of ethics", "death is the perfect touchstone of poet ethics", "sound is better than reality, essence is better than existence", and so on. Its poetic philosophy tends to be a certain fundamentalist view of language: "Poetry is the beginning of the language's denial of its own laws of mass and gravitation, and the beginning of the upward pursuit of language— or to one side—the creation of the written word." And the following sentence is an evocative definition of the poetic generation: "Memory usually departs only at the end, as if it were trying to preserve a record of the departure itself, so that a poem may be the last word of the lips of a person who has left." ”

Brodsky's poetic formulation contains a metaphysical tendency and intensity of horn-forwarding. He emphasized the transcendental function of language, arguing that poetry is the exploration of the limits of language, poetry is an accelerated idea, and prosody is the key to accomplishing this work. The concept of "spiritual acceleration" became an indicator of the poet's work and the quality of his revelation, and it was probably limited to give his Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, and Mandelstam a stronger Brodsky consciousness. However, from this mixture of doctrine and excite exclamation, the reader's gains are still incalculably greater. He allows people to reach the enlightenment and essence of the Silver Age Petersburg poetic tradition through the limitations of analytical language.

Sadness and Reason, by Joseph Brodsky, translated by Liu Wenfei, edition: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, April 2015

Consciously follow and maintain the great cultural traditions

It can be said that the essence of Brodsky's literary criticism is to preach rather than argue. It is the means of transport that takes people to the other shore, and it is also the appearance of his return from the other shore. Of course, it is also the product of responses, rebuttals, and controversies in cultural debates. Unless you stand at his height, with such profound poetic cultivation and practice, you cannot produce these inspired chapters; and inspiration is always combined with some doctrine, just as the apostle Paul's body was enriched. Thus, Brodsky's critical writing is imbued with Russian-style redemption and passion, a spirit that is almost to be lost in Western literary criticism, and it is really eye-catching.

Brodsky arrived in the West at a time when postmodernism was in its infancy, facing an overarching intellectual climate that opposed elites and deconstructed the classics. Coming from the Soviet Union to postmodern America, it seems that the poet had to experience some sort of "anachronism," which made his Russian character even more distinct. He emphasized spiritual hierarchy, despised postmodern value relativism, and set strict standards for literary writing, claiming that writing was meant to be in line with the masters of a bygone era, arguing that "the past was the source of various standards, the source of higher standards that are not available now" His position was very different from the popular style of Anglo-American literary criticism. This is not so much a conservative elitist taste as it is a conscious follow-up and maintenance of the grand cultural tradition.

In addition to introducing the Silver Age Petersburg poetic tradition and commenting on the creation of Dostoevsky, Platonov and others, "Less Than One" also devotes a lot of time to European and American poets, including Auden, Cavafis, Montale, and Walcott; especially two articles on Auden, "Pleasing a Shadow" and "On W. H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" is a weighty exposition. These two essays make clear another aspect of the author's poetic tradition, illuminating what he calls the "source of higher standards" of ethics and aesthetics in his life and creation. Auden (and Frost, Hardy, etc.) were masters of English poetry who had a profound influence on him. In fact, the elegance, irony, and balance of the essays included in his other essay collection, On Grief and Reason, is a bit Auden's flavor. Late Brodsky, integrated into the English literary tradition, became more and more like a therapist of late middle-class civilization, cautiously suppressing "doubt" and euphemistically expressing "love" and "generosity", which can also be seen as an attempt to learn from Oden and try to "please a shadow".

Wittgenstein, in his Book of Culture and Values (translated by Xu Zhiqiang, Zhejiang University Press, 2020), said, "Tradition is not something that a person can learn, not a thread that he can pick up when he wants; just like a person cannot choose his ancestors"; "a person who lacks tradition wants to have a tradition, just like a person sadly falls in love."

From either angle, Wittgenstein's words are a pertinent admonition. In Brodsky's case, neither "sad love" nor "happy love" may have a decisive meaning, but in the final analysis, the decisive meaning of the poet always lies in the word or rhyme at the beginning of the language. The essence of this seemingly arrogant metaphysical assertion that "sound is superior to reality, essence is superior to existence" points to a position of modesty, i.e., that the poet is merely an occupant of ideas or sounds, whose existence is tantamount to an inner state of exile. Tradition can be an actual possession or an idea of appropriation, and to some extent, the meaning of active choice is not less than the meaning of spontaneous possession. If the metaphysical dimension of this choice is a sign of mental suffering (as Wittgenstein points out), it also means that conceptual appropriation is a practical way of unfolding that can be presented as a kind of "time-misplaced" psychological landscape, a profound connection between the individual and culture.

Culture and Values: Wittgenstein's Notes (Revised Edition), by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Xu Zhiqiang, Edition: Zhejiang University Press, September 2020

A skeptical poet obsessed with language and exquisite thoughts

The language and ideological span of "Less than One" is partly due to the tension created by the separation and intersection of Eastern and Western traditions, injecting overloaded density into the author's expression. The essay "Escape from Byzantium" in the collection reflects this quality. This travelogue, translated in Chinese at 47 pages long, is perhaps the most uncertain article to write, and the subject matter is so large that it is sweaty, but it is well worth reading. It explains the meaning of the word "civilization" in the author's mind, that is, the meaning of the existence of a "great tradition" for Westernized Russians like him. To understand the essence of this "great tradition", it is necessary to show its vast genealogy, starting from the First Roman Empire and the Second Roman Empire, with the eastward expansion of Christianity and the westward expansion of Islam as the main line, to distinguish the complex changes in history, culture and ethical politics, for which it is necessary to play the role of historian and ethnographer, which is probably difficult for the author to be competent, and the result is to write a travelogue monologue, like a long poem written in prose style, recording his trip to Istanbul with a spiral-like lyrical structure that haunts the reply. Transform complex reflections on cultural morphology into a series of voices of fear and hope.

As a Westernized Russian, Brodsky's identity and hope points to the legacy of the First Roman Empire, an ethical political system that evolved from the union of Roman law and the Roman Church, giving birth to the Western conceptual basis for the existence of the state and the individual. What he feared and rejected was the historical aftermath of the Second Roman Empire, namely the disastrous consequence of Constantine's eastward expansion, which not only separated the Western Church from the Eastern Church, but also integrated the Eastern Church with the Patriarchal society of Asia and its ethical customs, the essence of which was "anti-individualism", "the belief that human life is inherently inadequate, that is, the lack of the idea that 'human life is sacred because every life is unique'". Contrary to the theme of Yeats's famous poem "Sailing to Byzantium", Brodsky's article, as the title suggests, is disgust and escape: Russia's geography is doomed to be inseparable from Byzantium; as a "victim of geography", as a former subject of the "Third Roman Empire" (i.e., the Soviet Union), he is not really interested in istanbul at the moment; his arrival is for reckoning and farewell, a geocultural gesture of escape.

Brodsky

How much historical basis does Brodsky's depiction of Constantine's psychological consciousness have? Can historians and Christian scholars agree with him? Is there a certain representation of his genius, walking on thin ice, grand and scathing exposition? Solzhenitsyn, who had always admired Brodsky, was greatly dissatisfied with this article, believing that it was a slander against the Orthodox Church. This criticism also reflects the long-standing differences between the Western and Slavic factions in Russia. Brodsky's position cannot be considered isolated, and the liquidation of non-Western elements in the Russian political and cultural tradition, Solovyev, Gorky and others, has even more explicit and scathing expressions. Ironically, Brodsky revered Dostoevsky, who belonged to the Slavics; presumably Dostoevsky, having read this long article, would he have rejected it indignantly?

The rationale for civilization, Brodsky claimed, is to "understand the uniqueness of a person on earth and the autonomy of his existence." In his "Graduation Speech," he offers options for resisting evil, which are "extreme individualism, originality, whimsy, and even— if you will—quirks."

It is a secularization solution that eliminates religious consciousness and embodies the liberal consciousness of literary enlightenment. Brodsky was a language-obsessed, beautifully thought skeptical poet, not a passionate apologist for Western political ethics like Ayn Rand. His defense of the great tradition of humanism and liberalism is based on his creative and life experiences, stemming from aesthetic and ethical choices. The book "Less than One" is an exposition of this point throughout.

His disagreement with Solzhenitsyn also lies in the fact that his attitude towards the "nightmare of historicity" he experienced together was existential, while the latter was traditional realism. The main difference between him and Dostoevsky is that he accepts Western rationalism, albeit with doubts, while the latter expresses mockery and hatred, denying any solution to secularization based on rationalism.

Brodsky's quest for great cultural traditions deserves recognition. But it didn't come without some doubts. As a historical child of the "Third Roman Empire", did his emphasis on individual uniqueness and autonomy, in terms of the logic of the Enlightenment, mean more about the realization of some kind of "commonality"? Is the so-called "personality" still a diffuse illusion or nothingness for things to be formed?

Such doubts are especially difficult for writers to avoid. Brodsky's answer shows the true colors of the poet. "Between a thing and an idea, I'd always rather choose the latter," he said. ”

The appropriation of ideas, or monologues, has its own extraordinary spiritual significance. Thus, exile is the fate of the poet for the rest of his life.

In 2015