Joseph Brodsky’s Poem «San Pietro»: an Example of Analysis

Abstract

The article considers the poem «San Pietro» (1977) by Joseph Brodsky. The paper analyzes the poem written by a free accentual verse and its metric features in their correlation with semantics: fuzziness of objects, indistinguishability of things in Venetian fog and the «fuzziness» in the metric syllabic-accentual basis of the text.
 The author traces features of the poem composition, which combines freedom and
 certain organizing principles. It is shown that the poem contains the key motifs for
 the alienation of I from its own past and the surrounding world (a description of the
 lyrical self as an anonymous guest, a hidden likeness of I to a can kicked by foot).
 Fog is one of the alienation signs.
 The poetics of the time in the poem «San Pietro» is characterized by the
 identification of the triad «the past – the present – the future», the elements of which
 correspond to the three-part structure of the text. For the lyrical hero, it is impossible
 to return to his own Petersburg / Leningrad past or to join the historical past.
 There is no genuine continuity between the past, the present and the future. Time (its
 symbols are sea and water) in the poem is characterized by contradictory properties:
 it seems to freeze, although it also moves forward (from two o'clock in the afternoon
 to evening twilight) and (in the lyrical I imagination) rushes back to the
 moment of the world creation. Water and images of sea inhabitants become signs of
 this prehistoric state. One of the implications of «San Pietro» is the legend in the Book of Genesis about the creation of the world by God. The poem depicts the almost colorless, invisible and soundless world that is similar to the still formless land like in the Bible.