J. Brodsky vs G. Sapgir: the Ways to Fill the Emptiness

Abstract

The goal of comparison of J. Brodsky’s and G. Sapgir’s ideas is to show the variety of the creative life search in the poetry of the late third of the XX century. The contribution of poetry to the XX century paradigm of uncertainty –from the relativistic physics to axiology – is to fill the emptiness. The existential
 and mental task is to poetically feel the transcendent deeper and bring it closer via «blending ethics with metaphysics».
 The contrast of the artistic systems is described as a controversy between the apolloniс and dionysian, mediumistic and voluntarist principles of creation. Brodsky’s neoclassicism is comparable to Sapgir’s discrete dynamics – both poets perceived the otherness via sharp perception of life in its dialogue with the emptiness. Poetry was seen as an adequate way to achieve transcendent
 knowledge; creative life was looking for the images convincing that one recognized
 the otherness in the form of the emptiness and for the means to transmit
 one’s perceptions about it. The dialogue with the emptiness is presented as a
 visionary intrusion into otherness and a search for resonance with it.
 Brodsky’s contemplation sees the transition as immersion into the multidimensionality;
 chrono-sensory perception unfolds metaphorically. Sapgir’s
 mystical propensity is sensual, it engages readers in the reflection through performances, spontaneous associations open the emptiness as the fullness. The authenticity of the cognition is felt by the poets in flesh, viscerally (anxiety, vertigo,
 exertion, pain).