Less than one : [electronic resource] selected essays / Joseph Brodsky.

Less than one -- The keening muse -- Pendulum's song -- A guide to a renamed city -- In the shadow of Dante -- On Tyranny -- The child of civilization -- Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980): an obituary -- The power of the elements -- The sound of the tide -- A poet and prose -- Footnote to a poem -- Catastrophes in the air -- On "September 1, 1939" by W.H. Auden -- To please a shadow -- A commencement address -- Flight from Byzantium -- In a room and a half.

Includes essays on Russian writers, Western poets, politics, and the author's native city, Leningrad.