Room of His Own

Daria Smirnova holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon and a degree in Linguistics from Russia. Inspired by years of traveling between languages and cultures, her research explores literary translation, bilingualism, and transmediation. Daria’s current archival research examines the role of translation in shaping literary canons.

“As playful and erudite as the title promises, the book cleans a window onto Brodsky’s life and work. The study explores how Brodsky integrated diverse foreign poetic traditions into his own distinctive voice, analyzes his idiolect and translingual poetic sensibility, and provides an illuminating overview of the critical reception, exposing the cultural and literary prejudices that influenced contemporary responses to Brodsky’s work. Personal and witty, it is a pleasure to read.” — Dr. Alexandra Berlina, author of Brodsky Translating Brodsky: Poetry in Self-Translation“In three substantial chapters, Daria Smirnova explores Joseph Brodsky's formation and literary production as a bilingual poet, auto-translator, and transformative essayist. She traces his appropriation and absorption of foreign and local poetic elements (especially and famously the English Metaphysical poets), his translations and self-translations in the context of critical reactions by Anglophone readers (including some of Brodsky's own translators), and the impact of his prose essays on readers of his poetry, as well as readers of the poets he wrote about. Smirnova argues that these writings and concerns bring formerly disparate poetic periods and movements into new kinds of contact and relationship. A Room of His Own (not a room and a half! and not less than one!) offers plentiful square footage for thought, and windows that look out in multiple directions.” — Sibelan Forrester, Susan W. Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages and Russian, Swarthmore College

• INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER 1: THE METAPHYSICAL ROOM: BRODSKY AND THE POETICS OF THE BRITISH BAROQUEThe Term “Metaphysical”: How Metaphysical Is Brodsky’s Poetry? The Topos of a Room: The Metaphysical Conceit Reinvented“Don’t leave the room . . .” “To L. V. Lifshitz” or “I kept saying that fate is a game . . .” “Noon in a Room” CHAPTER 2: BRODSKY’S SELF-TRANSLATIONS AS A BILINGUAL TEXTA Miracle or a Disaster: The “Dreyfus Affair” of the English BrodskyWriting from the Midzone: Continuity versus Dissimilarity in the Approach to (Self-)Translation    Polemics with Weissbort’s Approach to Brodsky’s Self-TranslationFrom Dekabrʹ to December: Continuity in Brodsky’s First Self-TranslationBirds of a Feather: Derek Walcott’s Translation as an Example of an Approach by a Multilingual PoetCHAPTER 3: EXPANSION OF ISOLATION: BRODSKY’S TRANSLATION BETWEEN GENRESSelf-Revealing ProseProse as the Laboratory of Poetic Creation/TranslationTransporting ImageryTransporting MotifsTransporting StructureTransporting Traditions: The Russian Shkaf in the Metaphysical RoomNew Genre, New Readership: The Reception of the Brodsky’s English ProseCONCLUSIONAPPENDIX AAPPENDIX B: “DECEMBER IN FLORENCE”: TRANSCRIPTION OF TRANSLATION DRAFTSAPPENDIX C: RHYME SCHEMEBIBLIOGRAPHY