English Rhythms in Russian Verse: On the Experiment of Joseph Brodsky Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 232 Editor Volker Gast Founding Editor Werner Winter Editorial Board Walter Bisang Hans Henrich Hock Heiko Narrog Matthias Schlesewsky Niina Ning Zhang Editor responsible for this volume Hans Henrich Hock De Gruyter Mouton English Rhythms in Russian Verse: On the Experiment of Joseph Brodsky by Nila Friedberg De Gruyter Mouton ISBN 978-3-11-023808-2 e-ISBN 978-3-11-023809-9 ISSN 1861-4302 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Friedberg,Nila,1972(cid:2) English rhythms in Russian verse : on the experiment of Joseph Brodsky/byNilaFriedberg. p.cm.(cid:2)(Trendsinlinguisticsstudiesandmonographs;232) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-3-11-023808-2(acid-freepaper) 1. Brodsky, Joseph, 1940(cid:2)1996 (cid:2) Criticism and interpretation. 2. Linguistics in literature. 3. English language (cid:2) Influence on foreign languages. 4. Russian poetry (cid:2) 20th century (cid:2) History andcriticism. I.Title. PG3479.4.R64Z665 2011 891.71144(cid:2)dc22 2011000755 BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternetathttp://dnb.d-nb.de. ”2011WalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin/Boston Typesetting:RoyalStandard,HongKong Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen (cid:3)Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany. www.degruyter.com To the other Joseph Acknowledgements This book focuses on the ‘‘English accent’’ of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. An anglophile and, eventually, Poet Laureate of the United States,BrodskywasabletoimportcertainEnglishfeaturesintohisRussian prosody long before becoming fluent in English and leaving the USSR. This subtle poetic foreign accent puzzled me for many years and seemed impossible to understand within the framework of one discipline or one theory. I therefore chose an alternative route, combining in a single study the methods of generative phonology, archival and biographical research, phonetics, statistics, readers’ surveys, and Russian verse theory. I would like to thank the researchers from various fields whose expertise and advice provided guidance along the way. (All errors, of course, are my own.) First and foremost, I am grateful to Elan Dresher, who introduced me to the field of linguistic analysis of poetry. Among the many talents that Elan possesses, one is to suggest to his students an area of research that later evolves into a defining interest, an indispensable part of their lives. I thank Elan for exemplifying how to analyze texts clearly and rigorously, and for conversations that were always inspiring. Thanks to Paul Kiparsky, Emily Klenin, Barry Scherr, and Michael Wachtel, who generously shared their time, expertise, and enthusiasm for metrics; in this regardIamalsoindebtedtoJeanLouisAroui,NigelFabb,KristinHanson, Bruce Hayes, Donka Minkova, Mikhail Lotman, Kirill Postoutenko, Gerald S. Smith, and Marina Tarlinskaja. I am grateful to Luba Golburt for her critical input on many parts of the book, and most importantly, for sharing her wisdom and intuition on what counts as an ‘‘interesting question.’’ Many thanks to Stephanie Sandler, Catherine Ciepiela, and MichaelWachtelforreassuringmeoftheimportanceoflinguisticanalysis for literary criticism; their encouragement, their comments, and their own example of dedication to poetics were crucial to me as I wrote the book. Yakov Klots provided invaluable help with locating the relevant manu- scriptsattheYaleUniversityBeineckeLibrary.TomasVenclova,Liudmila Shtern, and Lev Losev answered some important questions on Brodsky’s biography. Polina Barskova o¤ered valuable insights on meter – the sort that only a poet could give. I am grateful to all those who read, heard, or commentedonpartsofthisworkinwritingoratconferences:JohnBartle, David Bethea, Zhenya Bershtein, David Birnbaum, Aaron Beaver, Karen Evans-Romaine, Lazar and Ekaterina Fleishman, Michael Gorham, Olga Kagan, Christoph Kueper, Cynthia Martin, Valentina Polukhina, Karen viii Acknowledgements Rice, Joseph Schallert, Yael Schonfeld Abel, Alexandra Smith, Rebecca Smollett,AleksandrStepanov,andDeanWorth.MycolleaguesatPortland State University o¤ered their input as well, and for that I thank Sandra Freels, Martha Hickey, Laurence Kominz, Suwako Watanabe, Fernando Sanchez,JonathanPease,andPatWetzel.BruceHayes,LeonidKasatkin, Svetlana Stepanova, Alexei Kochetov, Henry Rogers, and Kie Zuraw answered various questions on phonetics, while Todd Leen gave advice on statistics at the early stages of this work. Friends and colleagues from the Middlebury College Russian School, Toronto, and Oregon agreed to read Brodsky’s poetry for this project, and I was particularly honored to have recorded the famous Russian actor Veniamin Borisovich Smekhov. Avram Brown provided assistance with editing, proofreading, and transla- tion;unlessotherwisenoted,all glossesinthebookwerecreatedincollabo- rationwithAvram.ThankstoAnkeBeck,AngelikaHermann,HansHenrich Hock, Wolfgang Konwitschny, and Birgit Sievert of Mouton de Gruyter for their support of the project. I am particularly thankful to Ann Kjellberg and theBrodskyEstatefor supportwithoutwhichthis publication wouldhave been impossible. I thank the Estate for permission to use literal glosses of Brodsky’s individual lines and titles which diverge from authorized trans- lations; this helped me to clarify elements of the original not obvious in a literary translation. (In those cases where existing published title transla- tions are used, the source is indicated in Appendixes V and VI). I am also gratefultotheEstateforpermissiontoreproduceandquoteexcerptsfrom the manuscripts held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Yale University), and for permission to quote excerpts from poems appearing in ‘‘Sochineniia Iosifa Brodskogo’’ (2001). I have used the 2001 edition of Brodsky due to its broad coverage, even though many poems appearing in this publication (as opposed to Brodsky’s Ardis editions) were not considered part of his mature canon by the poet. My thanks go toMichaelNaydanforpermissiontousetranslationsofMarinaTsvetaeva’s poemtitlesappearinginAfterRussia(1992);andtoOxfordUniversityPress, Henry Holt and Company, Random House, and Farrar Strauss Giroux for permission to quote the texts acknowledged in the Copyright section. Parts of the Introduction, Conclusion, and Chapter 2 have previously appeared in Friedberg (2009a), while sections 3.2, 3.3, footnote 3 (Chapter 3), and Appendix V are a revised version of the analysis presented in Friedberg 2002b. Most of all, thanks to my family – to my supportiveparents Zhenya and Isaak, and to Arie Baratt for his patience, encouragement and mathe- matical skills; thanks also to Yakov, Ira, and Sasha. Finally, I am grateful to the other Joseph – my son Os’ka, whose birth proved to be the best book deadline an academic could ever wish for. A note on copyright and transliteration Excerpts from ‘‘The Sound of the Tide,’’ ‘‘Footnote to a Poem,’’ and ‘‘In a Room and a Half’’ from LESS THAN ONE by Joseph Brodsky. Copy- right 6 1986 by Joseph Brodsky. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Excerpts from the undated manuscripts of ‘‘Mukha,’’ ‘‘P’iatstsa Mattei,’’ and ‘‘Zagadka angelu.’’ Copyright 6 by the Brodsky Estate. Reprinted by permission of the Brodsky Estate. Excerpts from ‘‘Zagadka angelu’’ from ‘‘Maramzinskoe sobranie,’’ samiz- datskoe sobranie sochinenii Brodskogo podgotovlennoe Vladimirom Maramzinym [The ‘‘Maramzin collection,’’ a samizdat collected works of Brodsky prepared by Vladimir Maramzin 1972–74]. Copyright 6 1972 by the Brodsky Estate. Reprinted by permission of the Brodsky Estate. Facsimile of an excerpt from the undated manuscript of ‘‘Mukha.’’ Copy- right 6 by the Brodsky Estate. Reprinted by permission of the Brodsky Estate. Excerpts from ‘‘Ia vsegda tverdil, chto sud’ba igra,’’ ‘‘Odnoi poetesse,’’ ‘‘Novye stansy k Avguste,’’ ‘‘Zagadka angelu,’’ ‘‘Mukha,’’ ‘‘P’iatstsa Mattei,’’ ‘‘Muzhchina, zasypaiushchii odin,’’ ‘‘1 sentiabria 1939 goda,’’ ‘‘Posviashchaetsia Ialte,’’ ‘‘Pered pamiatnikom A. S. Pushkinu v Odesse,’’ ‘‘Nichem, Pevets, tvoi iubilei,’’ ‘‘Peschanye kholmy, porosshie sosnoi,’’ ‘‘Meksikanskii divertisment. Zametka dlia entsiklopedii,’’ ‘‘Biust Tiberiia,’’ ‘‘Reki,’’ ‘‘Arkhitektura,’’ ‘‘Ia pozabyl tebia, no pomniu shtukaturku,’’ ‘‘Ritratto di Donna,’’ ‘‘Pen’e bez muzyki,’’ ‘‘Dvadtsat’ sonetov k Marii Stiuart,’’ ‘‘V semeinyi al’bom,’’ ‘‘Gvozdika,’’ ‘‘Pokhozh na golos golovnoi ubor,’’ ‘‘Flammarion,’’ translations of Donne’s ‘‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,’’ ‘‘The Flea,’’ ‘‘The Storm,’’ ‘‘The Will,’’ and translation of Richard Wilbur’s ‘‘The Agent’’ from SOCHINENIIA IOSIFA BRODS- KOGO by Iosif Brodskii. Copyright 6 2001 by the Brodsky Estate. Reprinted by permission of the Brodsky Estate. Excerpt from EUGENE ONEGIN by Alexander Pushkin, translated from theRussianbyJamesFalen.Copyright61998byOxfordUniversityPress. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.