Language as Antisentimental Procedure: The Essay In a Room and a Half by Iosif Brodsky
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15291/csi.4617Keywords:
literature in exile, Iosif Brodskij (Joseph Brodsky), literary bilingualism, English essays, antisentimental deautomatizationAbstract
One of the most important representatives of the extraterritorial literature (G. Steiner’s term) and literary bilingualism of the 20th century was undoubtedly Russian-American writer Iosif Brodsky, whose work is written in two languages – Russian and English. During Brodsky’s lifetime in Russia, the English language was the language of “spiritual exile” (as pointed out by S. Boym in the book Obščie mesta. Mifologija povsednevnoj žizni, 2002). This study seeks to investigate not only the contextual factors, but also the textual changes that occur in the English essays written by Brodsky. The aim of this paper is to investigate the textual consequences of such a linguistic turn, that is, the writer’s decision to write his autobiographical prose – the essay In a Room and a Half (1986) – in English. One of the conclusions reached by the research is that Brodsky’s choice of English is an anti-sentimental linguistic confrontation with the former homeland that resulted in formalistic astonishment, that is, deautomatization of the memory of his parents as victims of the totalitarian regime.
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