Joseph Brodsky – 20 Sonnets to Mary Stuart | Alex Kosh
Joseph Brodsky's "20 Sonnets to Mary Stuart" is an attempt at a dialogue with the past and present, a search for self in a foreign land, without the woman he loved by his side.
The poem cycle was created in 1974. The poet was 34 years old at the time—and he spent two of those years in forced exile. He teaches and publishes, including in English. The genre is non-classical sonnets, with a complex, mixed rhyme scheme that also doesn't quite adhere to the canon of the sonnet. The intonation is also not elevated, but familiar, like a stream of consciousness that evokes a series of associations. The vocabulary is equally varied: it includes colloquialisms (tapnuli, syudy, baba), prose, literary expressions (firmament, in the declining years), obsolete words (usta, chelo, oprich), Soviet newspeak (general secretary, choir of the Red Banner), and coarse expressions (including obscene ones). The poems feature two planes, two addressees: the executed Scottish queen and the ever-present M. Basmanova, now unattainable. What they dreamed of together came true for him alone: Paris, the Luxembourg Gardens, where a statue of the queen is possible. The poet seems to converse casually with two female shadows. He quotes fellow writers casually, fending off "lofty meanings" like annoying flies (for example, in the very first section – "I Met You" by F. Tyutchev, then Dante, A. Pushkin, D. Salinger, W. Mozart with his "eine kleine nacht muzhik" ["a man who has no soul")).
For him, her image is essentially a myth. It is constructed from an old film from his childhood. The tragedy, long ago transformed into literature, is now also a detail of the park ensemble. The "charming idol" is just an object, a symbol. The fourth line contains another mirage – by M. Basmanov. The poet shares with "Mary" the motif of exile and unhappiness in love. "Everything is inhuman": he forgot to shoot himself, didn't want to wish for happiness with another. But the hero fiercely dreams of a family idyll with a medieval queen. The execution was somehow canceled ("the axe turned out to be wooden") – after all, he needs this woman so much. History is characterized by "bodies," while art is dominated by decapitated bodies. It seems that everyday life was quite a burden to people even in those heroic times. And "Mary" herself fought for Scotland, which, in essence, was not her home. In Sonnet 14, the poet declares: "Parting is longer than love." He sees the cause of Mary Stuart's death in the "beauty of her face" (as E. Baratynsky wrote, "her face with its uncommon expression"). Towards the end, the poet introduces the heroine to modern Scotland, its sated tranquility. In the final sonnet, like a seasoned minstrel, he announces that his song has come to an end, bows to the venerable audience, and asks them to consider the merits of the verse's form and content. There is no creative silence; the blank page is filled with sweeping lines. The poet expresses gratitude for the opportunity to at least express himself. Epithets: crimson forest, evil infinity. Similes: like a statue, like a rat, a blade sharper than a knife. Rows of enumerations, repetitions, metaphors (death on the parquet floor), sound painting, phraseological units (white crow), parentheses, intra-verse pauses, irony, toponyms, and names from various eras.
"20 Sonnets to Mary Stuart" by I. Brodsky is a synthesis of historical and literary myths, on the ruins of which the poet's own fate is formed.