Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/csi.4617
Language as Antisentimental Procedure: The Essay In a Room and a Half by Iosif Brodsky
Ivana Peruško
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
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* Corresponding author.
Abstract
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
Keywords
Literature in exile; Iosif Brodskij (Joseph Brodsky); literary bilingualism; English essays; antisentimental deautomatization
Hrčak ID:
324989
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2024.
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