List of Brodsky for reading: reviews

List of Brodsky - what is it? This is not just a list of books, born by the stroke of the pen of an outstanding poet and essayist. This is his own way of learning literature. It is optimized for a person living in the 70s of last century. After all, a person must read many good books before becoming a poet or writer. Brodsky considered the value and virtue of the aesthetes of his generation that the people of him, acting "exclusively by intuition", paved the way for creativity in a hostile humanity, in principle, a totalitarian environment.

Iosif Alexandrovich is a wonderful man. His biography is also unique. Is not it true that it looks somehow special - to be a poet and essayist, who are simultaneously creating for two diametrically opposite countries, the USSR and the US and, having passed the poet's way to the end, to be buried in Venice, the birthplace of the Renaissance and the Xth region of the Roman Empire !!

Nadezhda Mandelstam, an elderly woman, once tried to predict the fate of young Brodsky: "He is a nice ... small, but I'm afraid that he will end badly." So it turned out with Joseph Alexandrovich: in the USSR he stopped publishing, after which he was in the United States.

Recognition of Brodsky Abroad

Brodsky's list was known to have been written by him in the mid-seventies of the last century, during forced emigration to the United States. Over the ocean, he was in the status of a professor at five American colleges. Assignment of academic titles to a person who has been engaged in self-education since the age of 15 was a precedent for the recognition of his mighty intellect.

In the US, the professor consistently resided in three cities: first in Ann Arbor, then in New York and finally in South Hadley.

Criterion for selecting books in Brodsky's list

The teacher did not just try to turn his students into people who are versed in literature. He tried to transform their attitude to language.

The starting point for the map developed for him by the adherents (Brodsky list) is a quotation from the poem of the British William A. Auden "In Memory of WB Yeats", stating that only a developed sense of language can "plunge" a person into poetic art.

And it is impossible to carry out this spiritual activity without stimulating the desire for self-education. An American professor of Soviet descent acquired the fame of an eccentric from the students. He was a unique teacher, demanding from students creative reading of many works, in each of them young people needed to catch author's aesthetics. Evaluate the wise pedagogical reception of the professor should not from the point of view of the schoolboy, but from the position of the practical poet.

A sense of language like the Alpha and Omega of the poet's becoming

Having had a great personal poetic experience and a long-held hand on the pulse of world culture, Iosif Aleksandrovich proved conclusively that the formation of a real poet does not come about from "thirst for creativity" and not from a clear understanding of the laws governing the creation of poems. The main feature of such a person, according to Brodsky, is precisely the "sense of language". Without it poetry is dead.

Russian-speaking Internet users sometimes express bewilderment, which arises from the absence of Pushkin's and Lermontov's poems in the list of works, seeing in it some political insinuations. In reality, however, they can hardly be talked about.

After all, Brodsky's list was written by an American teacher for his students. And the students were English speakers. Therefore, in the list compiled by the poet, authors who gravitate toward Western values are represented. In the end, we are to blame: poets, "walking barefoot on the blade of a knife" and "cutting their living souls into the blood", should be heard at home, perceived, understood by its people. Then Brodsky would not have been arrested and exiled, and he would have written his list for Russian-speaking students. And in the latter, for sure, there would have been Pushkin, Lermontov, and many others ...

Brodsky and the beginning of poetic activity

Joseph Alexandrovich did not make his way to poetry under the secret of seven castles. He told the students that in his youth, up to 15 years, he wrote poems episodically and casually. Once, when he was 16 years old, he enrolled in a geological expedition. He worked near the Chinese border, north of the river. Amur.

In the expedition, he read a volume of poetry by Baratynsky, a 19th-century poet (Pushkin's companion). It was the poetry of Yevgeny Abramovich, in his influence on Brodsky, that activated his "sense of language". The impression of Baratynsky's creativity prompted him to develop, made the poet write really good poems.

Later the St. Petersburg young writer took note of the advice of his elder colleague, the poet Yevgeny Rein, who until the end of his days considered one of the best in Russia.

By the way, in his first reference Joseph Alexandrovich was sent because he was in the sphere of the special services (they constantly followed Anna Akhmatova, with whom the poet met).

The most original teacher and his list

His student Sven Birkets, who became a well-known literary critic, recalls that Brodsky remembered his classmates at the same time as the worst teacher, on the one hand, and the most charismatic on the other.

Why is the worst (it is unusual to hear this word in the context of the famous poet's name)? Sven thoroughly answers this question. The fact is that Joseph Alexandrovich did nothing at all to attract the bulk of the students to literature.

He was an individualist, and Brodsky's list presupposed the individual mastery of it by each adept. But those students who have bothered to read the books indicated in it, could always hope for a consultation, a conversation with the Master. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Brodsky's voice was unusually saturated with shades. He spoke slightly in the nose and always told interesting stories. Friends jokingly called him "man-brass band."

For minutes of his frank conversation with the students there was no price.

The pedagogical method of Joseph Aleksandrovich, according to the memoirs of Sven Birkets, was unique. The teacher, rather, did not teach literature, but tried to convey the attitude towards it.

Illusion of immersion in literature

At the beginning of the pair he briefly presented one of the outstanding works with which the list of Brodsky's horrific students was littered. And then he asked about the feelings caused by the poem of Akhmatova or Montale, led the student to the arena, saying the famous quotation of Sergei Diaghilev: "Surprise me." It was not easy for an American youth or a girl to explain, for example, whether Akhmatova successfully managed to depict the scene of a fire, or to reveal the imagery of the Iliad.

Far from all the highest praise of Brodsky was addressed: the only word is "remarkable." Most often, the average student routinely exposed his misunderstanding. And Brodsky at that time was hammering an unlit cigarette in his hand ...

But behind all this action there was a considerable share of humor. After listening to the efforts of the student, Joseph Alexandrovich produced his famous deep exhalation, looked around the whole class, and then began to talk. He asked questions and answered them himself. He led his followers through thickets of sounds and associations, filled the imagination of his listeners with the realization of the striking power of language. Sven Birkets and students like him left the meetings with the sensation of invisible forces swirling around them, but unclaimed in ordinary life.

American humanists appreciated the list

Brodsky's list for reading was an innovative step in the formation of young Americans. They, previously trained in the John Dewey system, had the skills of independent thinking, the ability to critically evaluate social phenomena. But Iosif Alexandrovich did not recognize this system. At the first lessons he gave his students an impressive list, briefly informing the adherents that the next two years of their life should be devoted to this canon.

Indeed, starting with the outstanding canonical texts, Brodsky's list for reading and ending with the works of art of the 70s of the last century.

It is obvious that for modern students this list can be supplemented. Among the sea of fiction, which appears annually and in abundance on the bookshelves, it is necessary to choose books that have real artistic value. Recall that the main criterion in this case should remain the feeling of language, which was interpreted by Brodsky.

Contents list Brodsky. "Bhavat-gita", "Mahabharata"

The list of Joseph Brodsky begins with "Bhavat-gita" (God's song). The value of this work lies in its focus on the development of human spirituality. It helps him to solve the primary question: "Who am I?", Contributes to the achievement of the inner state necessary to achieve spiritual values. At the same time Bhavat-gita covers life from everyday life to spiritual life, and is also closely connected with reality.

The second work that mentions Brodsky's list for reading is the Mahabharata. It depicts an epic reflecting the problems of the social essence of the individual, the relationship of her freedom and destiny (destiny). The Mahabharata, on the one hand, welcomes unselfishness, and on the other hand, condemns the total renunciation of personal benefits.

Old Testament

Joseph Alexandrovich in the third position among the main books that open the famous list of Brodsky, mentions the Holy Scripture of Christians and Jews - the Old Testament. As you know, it was originally written in Hebrew. The central philosophical and philosophical part of it is the Sinaitic Covenant, - the obligations imposed by God on the people of Israel, which became the basis of the Torah (the law for execution).

There is in the list of the famous poet and the first bestseller that has come down to us - a book about the hero of the ancient world, the adventurer, the lucky and charismatic king Gilmagesh.

Ancient literature

Brodsky's list is a voluminous list of literature that can be classified. The poet was not the first person to make such a list. The well-known list of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is more balanced in chronology, in the direction of the impact on the readers. The list of Joseph Aleksandrovich is aimed at maintaining a "basic conversation" with them.

Immediately after the spiritual works, according to Brodsky's logic, there follows the volume of ancient literature: Sophocles, Homer, Herodotus, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, Aristophanes ... This list is incomplete, there are about 20 names in it. Brodsky himself in one of his interviews characterized his adherence to the literature of the ancient world with the development of "sense of time." So he called his understanding of the nature of time and its influence on people.

Why did he give so much attention to Greek and Roman literature Iosif Aleksandrovich? It's no secret that in literary circles he was called a Roman. The poet used a conceptualizing and liberating literary mask. Arguing about the USSR, he allegorically called him "Rome."

A deep understanding of the essence of the empire (the cult worship of Caesar, despotic power) was peculiar to him, identifying himself with the disgraced and exiled poet Ovid.

The poet presented an account not so much of the Soviet (Roman) power as of the intelligentsia, resigned to the lack of freedom.

Brodsky's list contains, after the ancient times, several consecutive blocks of books. The next is Renaissance literature. The books of Francois Rabelais and Dante Alighieri, a knight of platonic love, are presented.

Western and Russian poetry

The next block in the list is the West European literature of the times of the bourgeois social formation and the Russian poetry of the Silver Age. The authors are selected with taste, according to their talent and significance of literary heritage:

• Russian: Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Vladislav Khodasevich;
• British and American: Thomas Hardy, Thomas Eliot, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Wisten Auden, Elizabeth Bishop;
• German: Rainer Rilke, Ingeborg Bachmann, Georg Tracl, Gottfried Benn;
• Spanish: Frederico Garcia Lorca, Antonio Machado, Rafael Alberti, Juan Ramon Himenos;
• Polish: Zbigniew Herbert, Czeslaw Milosz, Leopold Staff, Wisława Shimborsk;
• French: Jules Sepervier, Blaise Cendrars, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Henri Michaud;
• Greek: Yorgos Seferis, Constantine Cavafy, Yannis Ritsos;
• Swedish: Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekeleph.

Conclusion

So far, the list of Brodsky is resonating. Reviews of true lovers of books are unanimous in that this list is certainly worthy of attention, proceeding from the genius of Brodsky himself.

Arise and controversy. Some readers dispute the advisability of reading a huge array of ancient literature. Others reply that the value of ancient literature lies in the elaboration of human relations (now they do not write so).

Many of the readers' remarks are of a formal nature. Someone recalls that structurally Bhavat-gita is part of the Mahabharata. Someone doubts the authenticity of the list, motivating their position by the presence in it of the works of Nikolai Klyuyev, a man of anti-Semitic and partisan orientation.

Summing up what has been said, it is worth noting the main thing: the books from Brodsky's list served as steps to the work of Joseph Aleksandrovich himself. It is his way to understanding the beauty of poetry that Brodsky offers his readers.

For whom is it of practical value? Not all people have a special philological and literary education. But in some of them lies a poetic or prosaic talent. How to wake him up? The answer is obvious: you should read a lot of good books. And from this point of view Brodsky's list is complete - a good option for starting.