God as a House Spirit in Joseph Brodsky’s Poem “God Does Not Live in Village Corners...”

Abstract

The article proposes an interpretation of the well-known, but rarely analyzed elegy by I. Brodsky, “In the village, God does not live in corners...” (1964). While traditional analyses of Brodsky’s text focus on its “dark places,” “difficulties,” and “inconsistencies,” and note its “eclecticism of worldview,” the authors suggest a different perspective — the need to view the text as the realization of a verbal metaphor, which allows us to abandon notions of “secret writing” and “encryption” in the text. This approach removes critics’ claims regarding the “chaotic” and “overloaded” nature of the verse, and instead demonstrates the coherence and clarity of the lyrical subject’s reflections. According to Brodsky, in villages, God lives in the hearts of ordinary people, participating in all the most mundane events of life (construction, plowing, cooking, weddings, etc.), sharing their joy, helping them in times of trouble, and comforting them in grief. Brodsky creates a unique image not of the canonized biblical God, but of a “folk” house spirit, a host God, a friendly and companionable God who accompanies the Russian person in all their endeavors. It is argued that the poem “In the village, God does not live in corners...” was not an attempt at “seeking God,” but rather an awareness of a “sense of community” with the common people and an understanding of important “foundations of life” for the young poet.