Brodsky Translating Brodsky: Poetry in Self-Translation (English and Russian Edition)

Winner of the Anna Balakian Prize 2016 Is poetry lost in translation, or is it perhaps the other way around? Is it found? Gained? Won? What happens when a poet decides to give his favorite Russian poems a new life in English? Are the new texts shadows, twins or doppelgangers of their originals-or are they something completely different? Does the poet resurrect himself from the death of the author by reinterpreting his own work in another language, or does he turn into a monster: a bilingual, bicultural centaur? Alexandra Berlina, herself a poetry translator and a 2012 Barnstone Translation Prize laureate, addresses these questions in this new study of Joseph Brodsky, whose Nobel-prize-winning work has never yet been discussed from this perspective. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Foreword Notes on the Text 1 What is it All About? 2 “December in Florence” 2.1 The matter of meter and the force of form 2.2 “The doors take in air, exhale steam; you, however, won’t . . .” 2.3 “Sunk in raw twilight, the pupil blinks but gulps . . .” 2.4 “Cats check at noon under benches . . .” 2.5 “A man gets reduced to pen’s rustle on paper . . .” 2.6 “Quays resemble stalled trains . . .” 2.7 “In a dusty café, in the shade of your cap . . .” 2.8 “Taking in air, exhaling steam . . .” 2.9 “The stone nest resounds with a piercing squeal . . .” 2.10 “There are cities one won’t see again . . .” 3 Three Nativity Poems 3.1 “Star of the Nativity” 3.2 “Nativity” 3.3 “Lullaby” 3.4 A delicate balance: Brodsky’s Nativity poetry 4 Poèmes à Clef: M.B.’s Birthday 4.1 “The Polar Explorer” 4.2 “Minefield Revisited” 5 Elegies 5.1 “In Memoriam” 5.2 “In Memory of my Father: Australia” 5.3 “August Rain” 5.4 “To a Friend: In Memoriam” 6 Beyond Translation: “Centaurs” and Other Hybrids 6.1 Wordplay in translation and the Centauric self-portrait 6.2 “Centaurs” 6.3 A matter of (con-)sequence 6.4 Beyond translation: “Epitaph for a Centaur” 7 Further Beyond Translation: “Sextet” and Other Excavations 7.1 “An eyelid is twitching . . .” 7.2 “Sometimes in the desert you hear a voice” 7.3 “For thirty-sixyears I’ve stared at fire” 7.4 “Where’s that?” 7.5 “Was the word ever uttered?” 7.6 “And I dread my petals’ joining the crowned knot” 7.7 “Letter to an Archaeologist” and the Translation-Creation-Continuum 8 Themes Taking Root in Translation and Other Tendencies 8.1 Wet dreams 8.2 Hurtful horizons 8.3 More tendencies in translation Bibliography Index 1. What Is It All About? -- 2. December In Florence -- 3. Three Nativity Poems -- 4. Poèmes à Clef: M.b.'s Birthday -- 5. Elegies -- 6. Beyond Translation: Centaurs And Other Hybrids -- 7. Further Beyond Translation: Sextet And Other Excavations -- 8. Themes Taking Root In Translation An Other Tendencies. Alexandra Berlina. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Includes Poems In Russian, With Parallel Translations Into English.