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Joseph Brodsky (24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996 / Leningrad)
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Joseph Brodsky was born in 1940, in Leningrad, and began writing poetry when he was eighteen. Anna Akhmatova soon recognized in the young poet the most gifted lyric voice of his generation. From March 1964 until November 1965, Brodsky lived in exile in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia; he had been sentenced to five years in exile at hard labor for "social parasitism," but did not serve out his term.
Four of Brodsky's poems were published in Leningrad anthologies in 1966 and 1967, but most of his work has appeared only in the West. He is a splendid poetic translator and has translated into Russian, among others, the English metaphysical poets, and the Polish emigre poet, ... more »
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Popular Poems
- A list of some observation...
- A Polar Explorer
- A Song
- Belfast Tune
- Bosnia Tune
- Daedalus in Sicily
- Dutch Mistress
- Elegy
- Folk Tune
- From A School Anthology
- Galatea Encore
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Quotations
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For aesthetics is the mother of ethics.... Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. I believe&#...
Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940), Russian-born U.S. poet, critic. Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1987.
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The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even—if you will—eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; som...
Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940), Russian-born-U.S. poet, critic. Address, 1984, delivered at Williams College. "A Commencement Address," Less Than One: Selec...
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A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of...
Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940), Russian-born U.S. poet, critic. (First published 1979). "A Poet and Prose," sect. 2, Less Than One: Selected Essays (1986).
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''Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.''
Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940), Russian-born U.S. poet, critic. "Flight from Byzantium," sct. 9, Less Than One: Selected Essays (1986).
What a beautiful poem 'A Song' is!
What a beautiful poem 'A Song' is!