Religious Metaphysics and Poetics of the Language of Joseph Brodsky (to the 80th Anniversary of the Poet’s Birth)

Abstract

An article dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Joseph Brodsky examines the meta­physical and religious aspects of the poet’s understanding of the language. The au­thor explores the problem of the evolution of Brodsky's attitude to religion through the material of his numerous interviews and essays, showing that his particular po­etic religiosity, the underlying metaphysics of the language and the assessment of religious denominations were shaped under the direct influence of the ethos of the English language and its specific incarnations in the works of J. Donn and es­pecially W. Auden. The order of the English language (ordo lingua), which entered into a dialogue with the structural forms characteristic of the Russian poetic tradi­tion (metrics, rhythmics, caesura, etc.), determined the original warehouse of poet­ics, aesthetics, world view, religious metaphysics and even the external image of J. Brodsky, making for him, Calvinism and Judaism are closest to him in the mat­ter of understanding God, the world and man. Of particular importance in this context was for Brodsky the creativity and creativity of Marina Tsvetaeva and the philosophers S. Kierkegaard and L. Shestov, which was highly valued by him. For the author of the article, it was important to emphasize that both religious-metaphysical and, on the whole, the values and ideological views of J. Brodsky were determined precisely by the aesthetics of the language, to which the poet de­voted himself to unquestioning service to himself.