Seamus Heaney and Joseph Brodsky: The Metaphysics of Death in the Context of the Christian Tradition

Abstract

This article analyses the poem “Audenesque” by Seamus Heaney, dedicated to the memory of Joseph Brodsky. The poem addresses the phenomenon of death in a transcendental way. Reminiscences from Dante’s Divine Comedy and the ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh give the text of the poem a metaphysical depth and allow us to pose those eternal questions about the posthumous fate of man and immortality. Contrary to the secularised outlook of his middle years, Heaney, a Catholic by upbringing, sees the solution to the problem of the ultimate meaning of being in the system of religious indications. In the poem, Heaney asserts the failure of language in the face of death, which is a characteristic of Brodsky’s “idolisation”, namely, when language replaces God and appears as the basis of all that exists. Drawing upon interviews, memoirs and statements by Heaney and Brodsky, the authors of the article reflect on the poets’ attitudes towards the spiritual life: Heaney’s religious searches, his profound intuitive rootedness in the Christian tradition, and Brodsky’s metaphysical nihilism, denying his belonging to any religion. In “Audenesque”, through the change of emotional registers and intertextual references, Heaney sharpens the metaphysical conflict. This conflict, which was implicit during Brodsky’s life, flared up in Heaney’s consciousness after his friend’s death. Heaney is certain that only in the context of ultimate spiritual meanings can the solution to this conflict be found.