Brodsky's On Grief and Reason : Malina Serrano

In Joseph Brodsky's essay, "On Grief and Reason" he explicates several of Robert Frost's poems in order to reveal prevalent themes and purpose. Brodsky, employs New Criticism to evaluate Frost's poetry; however, he does begin his essay with a brief introduction into Frost's personal life. Nevertheless, Brodsky does not intend for people to use this information to dissect the poems, which would alter their perspective. He states, "Hence a certain breeziness to the pace; hence, too, the paucity of biographical material-- irrelevant, in my view to the analysis of a work of art in general, ...". The structure of the essay is interesting because of the complexity, yet easy comprehensibility. Brodsky deftly jumps from line to line and poem to poem, while continuing to offer evidence to his claims and ideas. Unfortunately, the ability to understand Frost's purpose for each piece is eclipsed by the focus of understanding the poem in its entirety. This essay needs to be read twice in order to separate the readers attention between Frost's poetry and Frost himself. The comparison between Frost and other poets creates confusion because the reader must know certain poets or poems. Otherwise, the relationship or juxtaposition could be lost due to lack of prior knowledge on the particular subject. Brodsky states, "that I do like this poet enormously and I am going to try to sell him to you as he is,". Even though he holds a positive bias towards Frost the information continues to remain practical. Overall, Brodsky's understanding of Frost's poetry is seen throughout his substantial amount of evidence for each claim, as well as, the background knowledge of Frost himself.