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Valentina Polukhina. Joseph Brodsky: A Poet for Our Time. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 324 pp. (cloth).

Valentina Polukhina. Joseph Brodsky: A Poet for Our Time. New York: Cambridge University Press,... In Joseph Brodsky: �L Poet for Our Time, Valentina Polukhina attempts to dissect Brodsky's poetry into what she perceives are its main ingredients -the man behind the poetry (chapter 1), the poetry.s connection to general cultural and literary developments (chapter 2), its metaphorical language (chapter 3), and its dominant images (chapters 4, 5, and 6). Polukhina's approach to poetry- that of close reading and "decoding" — has its definite strengths but also its definite weaknesses. At its best, the technique helps one to appreciate the poet's craft by revealing layer after layer of hidden mean- ings, masked images, intentional sound patterns and verbal plays. At its worst, it tends totrivialize poetry with tedious, unimportant (and often highly speculative) details which threaten to overtake art and make one forget the true merits of the original piece. Polukhina's book has a dangerous leaning towards the latter tendency. For example, in chapter 3, entitled "The Mask of Metaphor," Polukhina attempts to classify Brodsky's metaphors according to their "nature" ("meta- phors of substitution," "similarity in disparity," "a form of identity of two versions," and so on) and to compare them to metaphors used by ten other poets (some logical ones for Brodsky, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Canadian-American Slavic Studies Brill

Valentina Polukhina. Joseph Brodsky: A Poet for Our Time. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 324 pp. (cloth).

Diment, Galya
Canadian-American Slavic Studies , Volume 27 (1-4): 384 – Jan 1, 1993
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0090-8290
eISSN
2210-2396
DOI
10.1163/221023993X00504
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In Joseph Brodsky: �L Poet for Our Time, Valentina Polukhina attempts to dissect Brodsky's poetry into what she perceives are its main ingredients -the man behind the poetry (chapter 1), the poetry.s connection to general cultural and literary developments (chapter 2), its metaphorical language (chapter 3), and its dominant images (chapters 4, 5, and 6). Polukhina's approach to poetry- that of close reading and "decoding" — has its definite strengths but also its definite weaknesses. At its best, the technique helps one to appreciate the poet's craft by revealing layer after layer of hidden mean- ings, masked images, intentional sound patterns and verbal plays. At its worst, it tends totrivialize poetry with tedious, unimportant (and often highly speculative) details which threaten to overtake art and make one forget the true merits of the original piece. Polukhina's book has a dangerous leaning towards the latter tendency. For example, in chapter 3, entitled "The Mask of Metaphor," Polukhina attempts to classify Brodsky's metaphors according to their "nature" ("meta- phors of substitution," "similarity in disparity," "a form of identity of two versions," and so on) and to compare them to metaphors used by ten other poets (some logical ones for Brodsky,

Journal

Canadian-American Slavic Studies – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1993

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