The subject of analysis in this article is the poem by Joseph Brodsky “I said fate plays a game without a score…”, first of all, his lines “I kept saying that in a light bulb the horror of floor [or: of sex], / that love, like life, is devoid of a verb”. It is shown that the lexeme “pol” connects two homonymous meanings – “lower covering, flooring in a room, in a house” and “a set of features associated with childbearing, distinguishing men and women”. It is proved that the main value is the second one. It is directly connected with the metaphysics of sex characteristic of Brodsky’s poetry and with the idea of the sexual act, depersonalizing and incapable of providing psychological and spiritual contact.
I.A. Brodsky; homonymy; metaphysics; existential motives; sexual code.
Ranchin, A.M. “Why is there a horror of the floor/sex in the light bulb? To the interpretation of the poem by Joseph Brodsky ‘I said fate plays a game without a score…’ˮ. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 2(56), 2022, pp. 78–88. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2022.56.05
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