Style and worldview in Joseph Brodskys Anno Domini

Abstract

Joseph Brodsky was an unique author of Russian literature of his time. He was a poet laureate with the Nobel Prize in 1987, owing this to his "clarity of thought and poetic character", which he has got from the legacy of the Russian and world literary tradition, his major references. Among these, the acmeists Anna Akhmatova and Ossip Mandelstam, and the American poet T. S. Elliot stand out. The metaphysical tradition also served as an enormous reference, in those of Evgieny Baratinsky and John Donne.The poet, who was born in Leningrad, grew up during the post-war period. At that moment, however, the large cities of Soviet Russia gave a period of openness, cultural effervescence, thanks to the easing of the regime and censorship, with the death of Stalin, in 1953. It was an opportunity for literature, and poetry, reborn with a new force, being able to restore the Russian poetic tradition, erased during the Stalin years. In this environment, Brodsky emerges as an already established name. As his activity was "clandestine", the persecution of the Soviet state and, at the age of thirty, he went into exile in the United States. Seeing his first book, Stop in the Desert, being released just twelve years after starting his poetic work.This work aims to study the "Anno Domini" section of his first book, Stop in the desert, from the point of view of the style (the influences of Brodsky and it's developments in the text), his form of writing his worldview, allowing us to see the texts from the point of view of his time, of his generation, refining the understanding of the world in the period. This work focuses, therefore, on the study of a poet who, even under pressure from an authoritarian regime, keeps firm the roots that help him to represent and show the world without hand from his own point of view. For this, a translation of the texts of the "Anno Domini" section will be carried out. The intention is to produce a literal translation, privileging the content, and a "poetic" translation, in an attempt to bring the Portuguese language all the strength and expressiveness of Joseph Brodsky's poetry.