On Grief and Reason: Essays

By Joseph Brodsky

Book Overview

On Grief and Reason is the second volume of Joseph Brodsky's essays, and the first to be published since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987. In addition to his Nobel lecture, the volume includes essays on the condition of exile, the nature of history, the art of reading, and the idea of the poet as an inveterate Don Giovanni, as well as a homage to Marcus Aurelius and an appraisal of the case of the double agent Kim Philby (the last two were selected for inclusion in the annual Best American Essays volume). The title essay is a consideration of the poetry of Robert Frost, and the book also includes a fond appreciation of Thomas Hardy, a Letter to Horace, a close reading of Rilke's poem Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes, and a memoir of Stephen Spender. Among the other essays are Mr. Brodsky's open letter to Czech President Vaclav Havel and his immodest proposal for the future of poetry, an address he delivered while serving as U.S. Poet Laureate. In his Nobel lecture, Mr. Brodsky declared that verse really does, in Akhmatova's words, grow from rubbish; the roots of prose are no more honorable - but his own prose's flowering in these essays gives us thought and language at their noblest.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374234159
• ISBN13: 9780374234157
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Length: 484 Pages
• Weight: 1.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

On Grief and Reason: An essential book difficult to find at a reasonable price.

I haven't read this yet, only quotes. I have read poetry by Brodsky, and have also yet to read "Runaway Soul." This is an essential part of my education, and I was so happy to find it and I anticipate reading it with joy.

Brodsky on Frost

I do not know whether I will be able to read the pieces in On Grief and Reason. I had read the title essay, which says that Frost is rough and goes through his "Home Burial," in the New Yorker, I think, and saved it, and it had deteriorated. I bought the book for the essay. It is that important, Brodsky is that important. It is the best single reading of a Frost poem that I have ever seen, but good-better-bests is not the issue. It is full of assumptions that everyone should have about what poetry is. It is how to read poetry. Stuart Filler