Afterword (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Joseph Brodsky
- First Published: 1987
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Death or dying, Life, philosophy of, Life and death, Consciousness, Space and time, Mortality, Senses or sensation, Eternity
The Poem
“Afterword” is a poem of forty lines divided into five numbered sections of eight lines each (two quatrains, in the English translation). As the title suggests, it is a look backward, but, in this case, over a life still in progress rather than a finished work. It is written in the first person. The speaker, at first, seems to be talking to himself or to no one in particular. By the end, he seems to be talking to a single interlocutor, but the “you” could be the distant reader just as easily as the person across the table. This move from singular experience to...
[The entire page is 1475 words long]
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