“A Part of Speech” by Joseph Brodsky: Bilingualism as a Creative Method in Poetry

Abstract

This article is an attempt of textological conceptualization of an interlingual transfer (doubling) of a literary text. This transfer, in case it has been done by the author him/herself, is traditionally called self-translation, yet it can also by qualified as an adaptation of the “old” text to the perceptive abilities of the “new” recipient, i.e. a collective reader representing a different national and cultural medium and bearing its values as a prevalent aesthetic waymark. Special
importance in the above process is attached to such a significant feature of any literary text of high quality as its elasticity. The textological approach to the scientific understanding of the differentlanguage text binary is often complemented by the bilinguological categorization of the subject, i.e. a text of poetry and, at the same time, a poetic cycle. From this standpoint, the mode of primary/secondary character of the two interconnected texts might lose its substantial preciseness. Further on, the article scrutinizes a landmark (for the Russian culture) literary text and its self-translation: the poetic cycle “A Part of Speech” by Joseph Brodsky. Four conceptual dominants of the cycle, with regard to their axiological hierarchy, are distinguished: 1) space/distance – location – oblivion;
2) time (epoch) – history – event – oblivion; 3) love – breakup – oblivion; 4) speech – art – extension – immortality. Further, a comparative analysis of their different-language verbalization is carried out. It is stated that Brodsky’s creation of this bilingual cycle reflects his striving for a cultural adaptation
of each version to the background knowledge, historical experience, principles, traditions, aesthetic attitudes and, generally, sentiments of different groups of readers. In some cases this is done by means of the national language only, in other cases by the general complication of the poems’ figurative fabric.