SOURCE: "The Child of Civilization," in Less Than One: Selected Essays, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986, pp. 123-44.

Brodsky was a Russian poet and critic who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 and became an American citizen in 1977. His work has been well-received by English and American critics, many of whom once called him the greatest living poet. In the following essay, originally published as the introduction to Fifty Poems by Osip Mandelstam, he explores the uniquely Russian characteristics of Mandelstam's work.

For some odd reason, the expression "death of a poet" always sounds somewhat more concrete than "life of a poet." Perhaps this is because both "life" and "poet," as words, are almost synonymous in their positive vagueness. Whereas "death"—even as a word—is about as definite as a poet's own production, i.e., a poem, the main feature of which is its last line. Whatever a...