Poetic Affairs

Celan, Grünbein, Brodsky

Michael Eskin

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780804758314
• eBook ISBN: 9780804786812
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

Poetic Affairs deals with the complex and fascinating interface between literature and life through the prism of the lives and works of three outstanding poets: the German-Jewish poet and Holocaust survivor, Paul Celan (1920–1970); the Leningrad native, U.S. poet laureate, and Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996); and Germany's premier contemporary poet, Durs Grünbein (born 1962). Focusing on their poetic dialogues with such interlocutors as Shakespeare, Seneca, and Byron, respectively—veritable love affairs unfolding in and through poetry—Eskin offers unprecedented readings of Celan's, Brodsky's, and Grünbein's lives and works and discloses the ways in which poetry articulates and remains faithful to the manifold "truths"—historical, political, poetic, erotic—determining human existence.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prefatory Note
• Introduction: On Poetry, Life, Method, and Sundry Affairs
• 1. Creative Fidelities
• 2. From Encounter to Tryst: Celan and Shakespeare
• 3. Metaphors of Subjectivity: Grünbein and the Philosophers
• 4. What’s in a Name? Brodsky and the English Muse
• Closing Remarks
• Appendix: Constellations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index