“Mexican Divertimento” by Joseph Brodsky: a Culture-TroughLanguage Analysis

Abstract

Te article provides a comprehensive culture-through-language analysis of the poetical cycle “Mexican Divertimento” by Joseph Brodsky. It describes the basic principles of its poems’ construction, their stylistic features, interconnections between them, as well as with further elements of the poet’s creative heritage and other authors’ works. Te author of the article analyzes the place and role of the IberoAmerican theme in Brodsky’s poetry, which has not previously been reflected in experts’ works. Brodsky’s reception of Mexican culture and history episodes from different periods demonstrates his deep knowledge of these issues, which before the trip to Mexico could hardly have been familiar to him. At the same time, the author of the article outlines a number of inaccuracies and errors in history, toponymy, onomastics and other areas, wondering about their intentional or accidental character. Based on the results of the analysis, the article concludes that the cycle under study, while remaining self-sufcient and self-valuable in form and content, organically fts into Brodsky’s stylistic and ideological paradigm of the 1970s-1980s. At the same time, the analyzed text not only has a high artistic value, but also in linguo-cultural terms reflects the peculiarities of Mexican culture, its history, as well as Russian-Mexican cultural ties.