Fifty shades of black: an analysis of Был черный небосвод светлей тех ног … in conjunction with its English translation

Following on from the successful past format of ‘collective analyses’, generally leading to articles on the pages of Essays in Poetics, the authors have taken an early, and so far little-investigated, poem by Brodsky as their subject for analysis, juxtaposing it with an English version by Brodsky’s distinguished translator, George Kline. The authors first examine the personal circumstances that lay behind the poem’s genesis and its publication history. They describe its remarkably plain structure in all relevant respects, including vowel tonality and rhythmic qualities, its repetitious nature and relation to other writings and pronouncements by the poet. They continue by investigating its relation to photography, and its effect on Anna Akhmatova, whose high regard for Brodsky was matched by his for a senior writer. They conclude by attempting to read deeper, perhaps sinister meanings into it.