PARTISAN REVIEW
621
longer poems high seriousness tends to alternate or blend with qualities
which bespeak intellectual playfulness or wit-the bilingual facetiousness of
"Two Hours in an Empty Tank," the wry irony of "To a Certain Poetess" and
"A Letter in a Bottle," the epigrammatic terseness of such lines as "No loneli–
ness is deeper than the memory of miracles," "Most seers are cripples," "Life is
but talk hurled in the face of silence."
The latter phrase occurs in what is to date Brodsky's most ambitious and
longest poem, "Gorbunov and Gorchakov," written between 1965 and 1968
and couched largely in the form of a dialogue between two patients in a
mental hospital. (Brodsky himself had a brief exposure to the political uses of
Soviet psychiatry.) To sustain throughout both the dialogue form and an
elaborate metrical pattern was a tall order. Yet in spite of occasional lapses
"Gorbunov and Gorchakov" is an impressive achievement and the remarkable
discursive sequence, "A Conversation on the Porch" from which the above
quotation is drawn a poetic and intellectual
tour de force.
Some three years ago Joseph Brodsky, in his own words, "accepted the
invitation" to leave Russia, offered, we will recall, in a rather peremptory
fashion. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, he voiced some concern
over enforced separation from his native linguistic environment only to con–
clude on a more optimistic note: "I hope that I will take the Russian language
wherever I go." I fully understand his concern, and I am glad to be able to
share his ultimate confidence. No bureaucratic fiat can break Brodsky's com–
pact with the Russian poetic idiom or impair his increasing mastery over it.
Moreover, the richness and versatility of his gifts, the liveliness and vigor of
his intelligence, and his increasingly intimate bQnd with the Anglo-American
literary tradition, augur well for his survival in exile, indeed for his further
creative growth.
Translating poetry is always a hazard: few Russian poets have survived
being rendered into English without significant distortion or diminution.
Considering the difficulty of his task, George Kline has performed very cred–
itably. To be sure, there are losses: some euphonic effects have been muf–
fled, some crisp lines flattened. But more often than not Professor Kline
manages to convey the tenor, the intent and the rhythm of the original with
intelligent fidelity and effectiveness. These are truly authorized translations, a
product of close collaboration and genuine affinity between the poet and the
translator. George Kline was one of the first serious Western students of
Russia to "discover" Brodsky and alert the rest of us to his promise.
It
is fitting
that he should be the one to introduce this judicious selection from Brodsky's
verse to a wider English-s.peaking audience.
Victor Erlich
