This book focuses upon an aspect which has been little investigated to date in the poetics of Iosif Brodskij: the rich intertextual network that links his verses to classical literature. Brodskij's intertext never appears as imitation but rather as mimesis, like an inescapable mediation - at times concealed by the presence of cultures diachronically closer, the Russian in the first place - strongly impregnated with meaning and teaching: "(As for creation, the pen has created very little). / But how much light it casts in the night, / the ink, merging with the darkness!".
