Motif of Mask in Joseph Brodsky’s ‘Great Elegy for John Donne’

This article offers an interpretation of the well-known poem by Joseph Brodsky, ‘Great Elegy for John Donne’ (1963). While traditionally elegy is analyzed in comparison with texts of the English medieval poet and preacher, where echoes of poetic and prose lines of John Donne are identified in Brodsky’s verses, the authors propose a different approach — viewing ‘Great Elegy...’ as an independent work by Brodsky, loosely connected to the verses and sermons of the abbot of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is shown that at the time of creating the elegy, the young poet knew very little about Donne, leading the elegy to be an extension of Brodsky’s own ideas and beliefs that were already present in his previous works. None of the allusions to Donne suggested by critics were genuinely Donnesque but rather organic to the poet’s worldview at that time. The genre specificity of “Great Elegy for John Donne” is clarified during the analysis, demonstrating its connection to Brodsky’s genre of “great poems.” It is argued that the elegy was not a model of discipleship to Donne but an embodiment of the painful reflections prompted by a terrifying early diagnosis of “heart defect.” In this grand elegy, Brodsky donned Donne’s mask and through such mystification attempted to touch upon the mysteries of life-death, sleep-death, and grasp that “choral height” which transcends the Lord. 

Joseph Brodsky, Great Elegy for John Donne, discipleship and originality, tradition and innovation, metaphysics and metaphorics, sleep-death