Figures of poetic speech and their functions. Syntax of poetic speech

The writer achieves expressiveness and emotionality of speech not only by choosing suitable words, but also by the structure of sentences, their intonation. Features of syntax due to the content of the work. In the descriptions, stories about events that unfold slowly, the intonation is calm, full sentences dominate: "Carts creak, oxen chew, days and nights pass, and Chumat songs sound between the high graves. They are voluminous, like the steppe, and slow, like the step of oxen , sad and cheerful, but still more sad, because on every road a tragic adventure could befall the Chumaks "(M. Slaboshpitsky).

Where dynamic events are described, sharp disputes, conflicts, deep experiences of characters, short, sometimes incomplete, fragmentary sentences prevail:

Mom, where are you? It's me, Vasily, alive! Ivana is killed, mother, but I am alive! .. I killed them, mom, about two hundred... Where are you?

Vasily ran up to the yard. There was a yard under the mountain itself. - Mommy, my mommy, where are you? My dear, why don't you meet me? (A. Dovzhenko)

Features of the syntax depend on the writer's creative intent, the author's attitude to the depicted, type, type, genre, as well as how the work is written (in verse or prose), to whom it is addressed (children or adult readers).

The originality of poetic syntax is due to the peculiarities of the writer's talent. V. Stefanik strove for brevity and dynamism of the narrative. His speech is simple, precise, economical: “I will speak to you about myself with white lips in an undertone. You don’t hear any complaints, sadness, or joy in the words. I went in a white shirt, I myself was white, they laughed from a white shirt. And I walked quietly, like a little white cat ... A leaf of white birch on the garbage "(" My word "). The writer repeats the word "white" several times, it sounds in a different tone.

The syntactic unit of the language is the sentence. A sentence is grammatically correct in which the main members are placed in direct order: the subject group is in the first place, the predicate group is in the second place. In our language, this rule is not mandatory, it is not always respected, especially by writers.

Figures provide the intonational-syntactic originality in a work of art. Stylistic figures are of different types.

Inversion (lat. Inversio - permutation). With inversion, the direct word order in the sentence is violated. The subject group can stand after the predicate group: "/ the noise of the spring noise is a wide path, majestically and easily rising above the boundless freedom that has subsided before awakening" (M. Stelmakh).

A common type of inversion is the postpositive setting of adjectives: adjectives come after nouns. For example:

I'm on a steep creamy mountain

I will lift a heavy stone.

(Lesya Ukrainka)

Ellipsis, ellipse (Greek Elleirsis - omission, lack) is an omission in a sentence of a word or phrase that is clear from a particular situation or context. Ellipsis provides the language with conciseness and emotional richness:

There will blow violently,

How does the brother speak?

(T. Shevchenko)

Unfinished, broken sentences are called a break. Cliffs convey the speaker's excitement:

Go... measure... Andrey stared at her.

She could not speak, pressed her hand to her heart and breathed heavily ...

Go ahead, measure...

Who is measuring? What?

Lord, oh! They came, they will divide the land.

(M. Kotsiubinsky)

Sometimes sentences are cut short because the one who speaks does not dare to say everything. The heroine of the poem "The Servant" cannot tell her son Mark that she is his mother:

"I'm not Anna, not a maid,

And numb.

Incompleteness, evasion of a sentence in order to convey the excitement of the language, is called aposiopesis (Greek Aposiopesis - defaults). Aposiopesis performs the following functions:

1. conveys the excitement of the character.

I was already thinking of getting married

And have fun and live

Praise the people and the Lord,

And I had to...

(T. Shevchenko)

2. aposiopesis reveals the mental failure of the character. The heroine of Mikhail Kotsyubinsky's short story "Horses are not to blame" begins her lines and does not express any thought: "I think that...", "I probably forgot that...", "As for me, I...".

3. aposiopesis testifies to the confusion of the protagonist, tries to hide the reasons for the corresponding behavior. Gsrr comedy Ivan Karpen-ka-Kary "Martin Borulya" Stepan says: "You know: not because the one that ..., but from the fact that ... that one, then there was no time, a short vacation."

4. Sometimes the heroes do not finish what is well known to everyone: "The people are hungry, but no one will take care of ..., one enjoys, and the second ..." ("Fata morgana" by M. Kotsiubinsky).

5. Often the aposiopesis is designed for the reader to continue the thought: "For several hours I have already been driving, it is not known what ..." ("Unknown" by M. Kotsiubinsky).

Anakoluf (Greek Anakoluthos - inconsistent) is a violation of grammatical consistency between words, members of a sentence. A textbook example of an anacoluf is the chskhiv phrase: "Approaching the station and looking at the nature through the window, my ishyapa flew off." Anacoluf creates a comic effect. The hero from the comedy of the same name by M. Kulish “Mina Mazaylo” reads: “Not a single schoolgirl wanted to walk - Mazaylo! They refused love - Mazailo! They didn’t take a tutor - Mazailo! They didn’t take on the service - Mazailo! They refused love - Mazailo!

With the help of the anacoluf, one can convey the excitement of the character; it is used to enhance the expression of the poetic language.

Close to anacoluf - eyleps (Greek Syllepsis) - a figure of avoidance. Sileps - an association of heterogeneous members in a common syntactic or semantic subordination: "We love fame and drown riotous minds in a glass. (A. Pushkin)." In Kumushka, eyes and teeth flared up "(I. Krylov).

Unionlessness (Greek Asyndeton - bezspoluchnikovity) - a stylistic figure consisting in the omission of unions linking individual words and phrases. Unionlessness makes the narrative brevity and dynamism: "The regiment was then advancing in the mountains on the northern bank of the Danube. An uninhabited gloomy land. Bare helmets of hills, dark forests. Precipice. Abyss. Roads washed out by heavy rains" (O. Gonchar).

Polyunion (Greek Polysyndeton from polys - numerous and syndeton - connection) is a stylistic figure consisting in the repetition of identical unions. Polyunion is used to highlight individual words, it provides the language of celebration:

And take him by the hand

And take him to the house

And welcomes Yarinochka,

Like a sibling.

(T. Shevchenko)

To enhance the expressiveness of speech, syntactic parallelism is used.

Parallelism (Greek Parallelos - walking side by side) is a detailed comparison of two or more pictures, phenomena from different spheres of life by similarity or analogy. Parallelism is used in folk songs, it is associated with folk poetic symbolism.

Chervona viburnum leaned over.

Why is our glorious Ukraine depressed.

And we will raise that red viburnum.

And we are our glorious Ukraine Gay, gay, and cheer.

(Folk song)

Besides direct parallelism, there is a parallelism objection. It is built on negative comparison. For example: "This was not a gray-haired cuckoo forging, // But it was not a small bird chirping, // A pine tree was noisy near the forest, // So a poor widow in her house // spoke to her 3 children ..." (People's Duma).

Antithesis (Greek Antithesis - opposite) is a turn of speech in which opposite phenomena, concepts, human characters are opposed. For example:

It's hard to even tell

What a misfortune has become in the region, -

People suffered like hell

The master was comforted as in paradise.

(Lesya Ukrainka)

The antithesis, reinforced by verbal or root repetition, is called antimetabola (Greek: Antimetabole - the use of words in the opposite direction).

As there is no leader in a nation,

Then the leaders of her poets.

(E. Rice a shock)

The antimetabola acts as a chiasmus (permutation of the main members of the sentence). This is reverse syntactic parallelism.

There has not yet been an epoch for poets, but there have been poets for epochs.

(Lina Kostenko)

In order to highlight the desired word or expression, repetitions are accepted. The repetition of one and that or a word close in meaning or sound is called a tautology (Greek Tdutos is just logos - a word). Synonyms characteristic of folk art are tautological. For example: early early, down the valley.

Kill enemies, thief thieves,

kill without remorse

(P. Tychina)

Development, development, nightingale,

My tight.

(Grabovsky)

Anaphora (Greek Anaphora - I take out on a mountain, I highlight) - the repetition of the same sounds, words or phrases at the beginning of a sentence or poetic line, stanza. There are lexical, strophic, syntactic, sound anaphora.

Lexical:

Without wind, rye will not give birth,

Without wind, the water does not make noise,

You can't live without a dream

It is impossible to love without a dream.

Strophic: in B. Oliynyk's poem "Mother sowed sleep", the stanzas begin with the phrase "Mother sowed sleep, flax, snow, hops."

Sound: "I compose songs for our love: // Dear, love, love, lyublyanochka" (Lyubov Golota).

Syntactic: "And you are somewhere beyond the evening, // And you are somewhere beyond the sea of ​​silence" (Lina Kostenko).

Epiphora (Greek Epiphora - transfer, assignment, etc.) is a stylistic figure based on a combination of the same words at the end of sentences, poetic lines or stanzas. For example:

Your smile is the only one

Your flour is the only one

Your eyes are alone.

(V. Simonenko)

Symploka (Greek Symphloke - plexus) is a syntactic construction in which anaphora is combined with Epiphora. Symploka is often used in folklore.

Didn't the same Turkish sabers cut me down as you?

Not the same Janissary strilchaks shot me as you?

Tomorrow on earth Other people walk, Other people love Good, affectionate and evil.

(V. Simonenko)

In addition to the term "simploka", there is also the term "composition" (lat. Сomplehio - combination, totality, complektor - I cover).

Joint, (collision), anadiplosis (Greek Anadiplosis - doubling), epanastrdfa (Greek Epanastrephe - going back) - repetition of a word or phrase at the end of one sentence and at the beginning of the next.

Why the stylus was my stylus. And the stylet was a stylus.

(S. Malanyuk)

The joint is also called a pickup, because each new line would pick up, reinforce, expand the content of the previous one.

Poetic ring (Greek Epistrophe - torsion) - the repetition of the same words at the beginning and at the end of a sentence, paragraph or stanza.

We think of you on fine summer nights,

In frosty mornings, and in the evening,

And on noisy holidays, and on working days

We think, great-grandchildren, of you.

(V. Simonenko)

Anastrophe (Greek Anastrophe - permutation) - repetition of a phrase.

I embrace you. I hug you.

(M. Vingranovsky)

Refrain (Greek Refrain - chorus) - repetition of one line at the end of a stanza, sentence. The refrain expresses an important idea. In P. Tychyna's poem "The ocean is full" after each stanza the line "the ocean is full" is repeated.

Pleonasm (Greek Pleonasmos - redundancy, exaggeration) is a stylistic turn that contains words with the same or similar meanings: on the sly, do not forget us Yatai, storm-bad weather.

Paronomasia (Greek Para - about, circle, near and onomazo - I call)

A stylistic figure built on the comic convergence of consonant words, different in meaning: vote - make noise, experienced

Educated.

Love the blade of grass and the animal and the sun of tomorrow.

(Lina Kostenko)

Paronomasia is used to create puns: "How is your draft power, does it carry anything? - It drags! For two days I took chickens to the steppe" (A. Klyuka, "Telephone Conversation").

Vocal type of paronomasia: words differ only in sounds: howl - branches, trap - emptiness.

The metathetic type of paronyms is formed by permutations of consonants or syllables: voice - logos.

A palindrome is associated with paronomasia (Greek Palindromeo - running back, werewolf or cancer). These are words, phrases, verses that, when read from left to right and vice versa, have the same meaning: the flood. Here is Velichkovsky's cancer poem:

Anna asks we, I'm a mother girl,

Anna is a gift to the world given.

Anna we have and and we are manna.

There is an anagram close to werewolf and metathetic paronomasia (Greek Ana - erases and gramma - letter). This is a rearrangement of letters in a word, which gives a word with a new content: ash is a vine, summer is a body. The Ukrainian folklorist Simonov chose the pseudonym Nomis, formed from the abbreviated surname Simon. With an anagram, a related metagram is a change in the first letter in the word, due to which the content changes. In Anna's poem Pod "let's organize" there are the following lines:

The writers created the MUR, The journalists will have the JUR The theater is united in the TOUR - The echo went all around: gur-gur! Already the rats are squeaking from the kennels: we are also connected, like a wall, and we will call that union - the Rat.

Gradation (lat. Gradatio - increase, strengthening, gradus - step, step) is a stylistic figure in which each subsequent homogeneous word means strengthening or weakening of a certain quality. There are two types of gradation: rising and falling. Increasing indicates a gradual increase, an increase in the quality of the depicted phenomenon. Ascending gradation: "And withers, dries, dies, dies, your only child" (T. Shevchenko). The type of grace is built on the amplification of meanings called straight, ascending or climax (Greek Klimax - stairs):

Anyway,

one goes out

the executioner should be memorized for a long time:

you can shoot the brain,

that gives birth to a soul

thoughts after all not to drive!

(V. Simonenko)

Gradation descending, descending, which reproduces a gradual decrease in the quality selected by the author in the objects of the image, is called reverse, descending or Anti-climax. In Anticlimax, there is a softening of the semantic tension:

I look: the king is coming

To the eldest ... and in the face

How to flood him! ..

The poor fellow licked his lips;

And less in the belly

It's gone!., And then to yourself

Even less ace

In the back; then the smaller

And less than small.

And the small ones.

(T. Shevchenko)

The gradation in which the increase is changed by a narrowing, a recession is called a broken climax. An example of a broken menopause is given in A. Tkachenko's textbook "The Art of the Word. Introduction to Literary Studies":

Already the clouds wash over my shoulders,

I'm already in the sky

Already chest-deep in the sky, already waist-deep,

Already I can see all of Ukraine,

And the world, and the universe, full of mystery,

And everything is blessed in life

Waiting with open arms

So that I jumped up to him below!

And I jumped up... And the woman laughed

A transparent insult to me

That I also didn’t jump up for her

From the stack of gold to the stubble.

(M. Vingranovsky)

Amplification (lat. Atrifsio - increase, spread). This is a stylistic device, which consists in the accumulation of synonyms, homogeneous expressions, antitheses, homogeneous members of a sentence to enhance the emotional impact of poetic language.

I will tear those wreaths that were woven in a heavy day, trample, sweep them into ashes, into dust, into garbage.

(V. Chumak)

Sometimes the prepositions are repeated:

By the clear laughter of a child,

By youthful singing happy

Glorious work is hot.

Forward, the shelves are strict,

Under the flag of freedom

For our clear stars

For our still waters.

(M. Rylsky)

Amplification may consist of individual sentences that are repeated:

I'm still so small, I can only see

I want to see my mother as a cheerful mother,

I want to see the sun in a golden hat,

I want to see the sky in a blue scarf,

I still don't know what Virtue smells like

I still don't know what Meanness tastes like

What color is Envy, whose dimensions are Troubles,

Which is salted Longing, which is indestructible Love,

Which blue-eyed Sincerity, which shimmering Insidiousness,

I still have all the schedules on the shelves ...

Amphibolia (Greek Amphibolia - duality, ambiguity) is an expression that can be interpreted ambiguously. The perception of amphibole depends on the pause:

And I'm on my way - to meet a new spring,

And I'm setting off on a new journey - to meet spring.

(M. Rylsky)

Depending on the pause (comma), the expression "execution cannot be pardoned" can be interpreted differently.

Allusion (lat. Allusio - joke, hint) - a hint at a well-known literary or historical fact. V. Lesin, A. Pulinets, I. Kachurovsky consider allusion to be a rhetorical, stylistic figure. According to A. Tkachenko, this is "the principle of a meaningful interpretation of the text, comparable to its allegorical one. Sometimes it is used as a kind of allegory:" Pyrrhic victory "(accompanied by great sacrifices and was tantamount to defeat), Homeric And such (homeland). Sources of allusion are myths ("Augean stables"), literary works ("The Human Comedy" by O. Balzac).

Aphorism (Greek Aphorismos - a short sentence) is a generalized opinion expressed in a concise form, which is marked by expressiveness and unexpectedness of the judgment. Proverbs and sayings belong to aphorisms.

A proverb is a figurative expression that formulates a certain life pattern or rule and is a generalization of social experience. For example: without asking for a ford, do not go into the water. Not all that glitters is gold. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

A proverb is a stable figurative expression that characterizes a certain life phenomenon. Unlike a proverb, a saying does NOT formulate life patterns or rules. The proverb states events, phenomena, facts or indicates a constant feature of an object. For example: there was no sadness, so I bought a piglet. Every dog ​​has his day. The fifth wheel in the cart. Seven Fridays in a week.

Literary aphorisms distinguish:

2) according to the method of expression (definitive - close to definitions, and slogan - invocative)

M. Gasparov calls anonymous literary aphorisms the Greek term "gnome" (Greek Gnomos - thought, conclusion) and the Latin "maxim", author's - the Greek term "apophegma". In the ancient tragedy of the gnomes, tragedy ended. Today, the dwarves call a compressed poem with an aphoristic thought: rubai, quatrains.

Sententia (lat. Sententia - thought, judgment) - an expression of aphoristic content. It is common in works of instructive content (tales) and meditative lyrics. In L. Glebov's fable "Titmouse" there is such a maxim:

Never brag until you've done a good job.

Apophegma (Greek Apoph and thegma - a summary, the exact word) - a story or remark of a sage, artist, witty person, gained popularity in polemical and instructive oratorical literature. An example of the apothegm A. Tkachenko finds in Lina Kostenko: "we eat the fruits from the tree of ignorance."

The moral aphorism is also called a maxim.

Maxima (lat. Maxima regula - the highest principle) is a kind of aphorism, a maxim moralistic in content, expressed as a statement of fact or in the form of teaching: "Defeat evil with evil."

A. Tkachenko proposes to divide aphorisms into three groups:

2) anonymous (gnome)

3) transferable (hriya).

Chreia (Greek Chreia from chrad - I inform). According to M. Gasparov's definition, this is a short anecdote about a witty or instructive aphorism, an act of a great man: "Diogenes, seeing a boy who behaved badly, beat his teacher with a stick."

A kind of aphorism paradox. Paradox (Greek Paradoxos - unexpected, strange) - a poetic expression in which an unexpected judgment is expressed, at first glance contradictory, illogical: fair punishment is mercy. Elderberry in the garden, and uncle in Kyiv. If you want your enemy not to know, don't tell your friend. "Don't trust me, I don't know how to lie, // Don't wait for me, I'll come anyway" (V. Simonenko).

Traditional poetics does not consider the forms of attracting previous texts to one's own, in particular paraphrase (a), reminiscence, figurative analogy, stylization, travesty, parody, borrowing, processing, imitation, citation, application, transplantation, collage. A. Tkachenko believes that they should be attributed to interliterary and intertextual interactions.

Paraphrase (a) (Greek Paraphasis - description, translation) - retelling in your own words other people's thoughts or texts. Parodies and imitations are built on paraphrase. This stylistic figure is essentially a transfusion of the previous formismist into a new one. L. Timofeev and S. Turaev identify paraphrase with periphrase. Often prose is translated into verse, and verse into prose is shortened or expanded. For example, there is a translation for children of "1001 Nights", in an abbreviated form of the novel by F. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel".

Reminiscence (lat. Reminiscencia - mention) - an echo in a work of art of images, expressions, details, motives from a well-known work of another author, a roll call with him. Borrowed words and expressions are rethought, acquiring a new meaning. Based on reminiscences from the "Forest Song" by Lesya Ukrainsky, Platon Voronko's poem "I am the one who tore the dams" is built:

I'm the one that tore the dams

I didn't live in a rock.

The one that tears the dams, and

The one that sits in the rock is the characters of the "Forest Song".

Application (lat. Applicatio - attachment) - the inclusion in the literary text of quotations, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms, fragments of a work of art in an altered form. Mounted from other people's poetic texts, the work is called centbn (lat. Cento - patchwork clothes). I. Kachurovsky uses the term "Kenton". In the "Literary Dictionary-Reference" centone is understood as a stylistic means "which consists in introducing fragments from the works of other authors to the main text of a certain author without reference to them." Yuri Klen in the poem "Ashes of Empires" introduces the lines of M. Zerov's sonnet "Pro domo", Dry-Khmara - from the sonnet "Swans", Oleg Olzhych - "There was a golden age." In addition to the term "centon", the French term "collage" is used (French Collage - gluing).

In addition to the creative use of other people's texts, there is an uncreative, devoid of originality - compilation (lat. Compilatio - plunder) or plagiarism (lat. Plagio - steal).

Among the figures forgotten by literary critics, A. Tkachenko recalls imprecation (curse). it was successfully used by A. Dovzhenko in "The Enchanted Desna": "As he wiggles that carrot from the damp earth, he will pull it out, the queen of heaven, and twist his arms and legs, break him, holidays to the Lady, fingers and knuckles."

The study of poetic syntax consists in the analysis of the functions of each of the artistic methods of selection and subsequent grouping of lexical elements into single syntactic constructions. If, in the immanent study of the vocabulary of a literary text, the role of the analyzed units is words, then in the study of syntax, sentences and phrases. If the study of vocabulary establishes the facts of deviation from the literary norm in the selection of words, as well as the facts of the transfer of the meanings of words (a word with a figurative meaning, i.e. a trope, manifests itself only in context, only during semantic interaction with another word), then the study of syntax obliges not only the typological consideration of the syntactic units and grammatical relationships of words in a sentence, but also the identification of facts of correction or even a change in the meaning of the whole phrase with the semantic correlation of its parts (which usually occurs as a result of the writer's use of the so-called figures).

It is necessary to pay attention to the author's selection of types of syntactic constructions because this selection can be dictated by the subject and general semantics of the work. Let us turn to examples that will serve as fragments of two translations of the “Ballad of the Hanged” by F. Villon.

There are five of us hanged, maybe six.

And the flesh, which knew a lot of delights,

It has long been devoured and has become a stench.

We became bones - we will become dust and rottenness.

Whoever smiles will not be happy himself.

Pray to God to forgive us.

(A. Parin, "The Ballad of the Hanged")

There were five of us. We wanted to live.

And they hung us. We blackened.

We lived like you. We are no more.

Do not try to condemn - people are insane.

We will not object in response.

Look and pray, and God will judge.

(I. Ehrenburg, "Epitaph written by Villon for him and his comrades in anticipation of the gallows")

The first translation more accurately reflects the composition and syntax of the source, but its author fully showed his poetic individuality in the selection of lexical means: the verbal series are built on stylistic antitheses (for example, the high word “delights” collides within one phrase with the low word “gorged”) . From the point of view of the stylistic diversity of vocabulary, the second translation seems to be depleted. In addition, we can see that Ehrenburg filled the text of the translation with short, "chopped" phrases. Indeed, the minimum length of the phrases of Parin's translator is equal to a line of verse, and the maximum length of Ehrenburg's phrases in the above passage is also equal to it. Is it by chance?

Apparently, the author of the second translation sought to achieve the utmost expressiveness through the use of exclusively syntactic means. Moreover, he coordinated the choice of syntactic forms with the point of view chosen by Villon. Villon endowed the right of the narrating voice not with living people, but with the soulless dead who speak to the living. This semantic antithesis should have been emphasized syntactically. Ehrenburg had to deprive the speech of the hanged of emotionality, and therefore there are so many uncommon, vaguely personal sentences in his text: bare phrases tell bare facts ("And we were hanged. We turned black ..."). In this translation, the absence of evaluative vocabulary, in general, of epithets is a kind of “minus-reception”.

An example of Ehrenburg's poetic translation is a logically justified deviation from the rule. Many writers formulated this rule in their own way when they touched upon the issue of distinguishing between poetic and prose speech. A.S. Pushkin spoke about the syntactic properties of verse and prose as follows:

“But what can be said about our writers, who, considering it base to explain simply the most ordinary things, think of enlivening children's prose with additions and languid metaphors? These people will never say friendship without adding: this is a sacred feeling, of which a noble flame, etc. Should have said: early in the morning - and they write: as soon as the first rays of the rising sun illuminated the eastern edges of the azure sky - oh, how new and fresh it all is. , is it better just because it is longer. Accuracy and brevity are the first virtues of prose. It requires thoughts and thoughts - without them, brilliant expressions are of no use. Poems are another matter ... ”(“ On Russian Prose ”)

Consequently, the "brilliant expressions" about which the poet wrote - namely, lexical "beauties" and the variety of rhetorical means, in general types of syntactic constructions - are not an obligatory phenomenon in prose, but possible. And in poetry it is common, because the actual aesthetic function of a poetic text always significantly sets off the informative function. This is proved by examples from the work of Pushkin himself. Syntactically brief Pushkin the prose writer:

“Finally, something began to turn black in the side. Vladimir turned there. Approaching, he saw a grove. Thank God, he thought, it's close now. ("Blizzard")

On the contrary, Pushkin the poet is often verbose, building long phrases with rows of periphrastic phrases:

The philosopher is frisky and piit,

Parnassian happy sloth,

Harit pampered favorite,

Confidant of the lovely aonids,

Pochto on a golden-stringed harp

Silenced, joy singer?

Can it be you, young dreamer,

Finally broke up with Phoebus?

("To Batyushkov")

E.G. Etkind, analyzing this poetic message, comments on the periphrastic series: "Piit" - this old word means "poet". "Parnassian happy sloth" - this also means "poet." "Kharit pampered favorite" - "poet." "Confidant of the lovely aonids" - "poet". “Joy singer” is also a “poet”. In essence, a "young dreamer" and a "frisky philosopher" are also a "poet." “I almost fell silent on the golden-stringed harp ...” This means: “Why did you stop writing poetry?” But then: “Have you really ... parted with Phoebus ...” - this is the same thing, ”and he concludes that Pushkin’s lines“ modify the same thought in every way:“ Why don’t you, poet, write more poems?“.

It should be clarified that lexical "beauty" and syntactic "longness" are necessary in poetry only when they are semantically or compositionally motivated. Verbosity in poetry may be unjustified. And in prose, lexico-syntactic minimalism is just as unjustified if it is raised to an absolute degree:

The donkey put on a lion's skin, and everyone thought it was a lion. The people and cattle ran. The wind blew, the skin opened up, and the donkey became visible. The people fled: they beat the donkey."

("Donkey in a lion's skin")

The sparing phrases give this finished work the appearance of a preliminary plot plan. The choice of elliptical-type constructions (“and everyone thought it was a lion”), the economy of significant words, leading to grammatical violations (“the people and the cattle ran”), and finally, the economy of official words (“the people ran away: they beat the donkey”) determined the excessive schematism of the plot of this parables, and therefore weakened its aesthetic impact.

The other extreme is the overcomplication of constructions, the use of polynomial sentences with different types of logical and grammatical connections, with many ways of distribution. For example:

“It was good for a year, two, three, but when is it: evenings, balls, concerts, dinners, ball gowns, hairstyles that expose the beauty of the body, young and middle-aged courtiers, all the same, everyone seems to know something, they seem to have the right to use everything and to laugh at everything, when the summer months at the dacha with the same nature, which also only gives the upper hand to the pleasantness of life, when music and reading are also the same - only raising questions of life, but not resolving them - when all this lasted seven , eight years, not only not promising any change, but, on the contrary, losing her charms more and more, she fell into despair, and a state of despair, a desire for death began to come over her ”(“ What I saw in a dream ”)

In the field of Russian language studies, there is no established idea of ​​what maximum length a Russian phrase can reach. However, readers should feel the extreme protractedness of this sentence. For example, the part of the phrase "but when all this" is not perceived as an inaccurate syntactic repetition, as a paired element to the part "but when it is." Because we, reaching the first indicated part in the process of reading, cannot keep in memory the already read second part: these parts are too far apart from one another in the text, the writer complicated our reading with too many details mentioned within one phrase. The author's desire for maximum detail when describing actions and mental states leads to violations of the logical connection of the parts of the sentence (“she fell into despair, and a state of despair began to come over her”).

The study of poetic syntax also involves an assessment of the facts of the correspondence of the methods of grammatical connection used in the author's phrases to the norms of the national literary style. Here we can draw a parallel with passive vocabulary of different styles as a significant part of the poetic vocabulary. In the field of syntax, as in the field of vocabulary, it is possible barbarisms, archaisms, dialectisms etc., because these two areas are interconnected: according to B.V. Tomashevsky, "each lexical environment has its own specific syntactic turns."

In Russian literature, syntactic barbarisms, archaisms, and vernacular are the most common. Barbarism in syntax occurs if the phrase is built according to the rules of a foreign language. In prose, syntactic barbarisms are more often identified as speech errors: “Approaching this station and looking at nature through the window, my hat fell off” in A.P. Chekhov’s story “The Book of Complaints” - this gallicism is so obvious that it causes the reader to feel comic . In Russian poetry, syntactic barbarisms were sometimes used as signs of high style. For example, in Pushkin's ballad "There was a poor knight in the world..." the line "He had one vision..." is an example of such barbarism: the link "he had a vision" appears instead of "he had a vision". Here we also encounter syntactic archaism with the traditional function of raising the stylistic height: “There is no prayer to the Father, nor to the Son, / Nor to the Holy Spirit forever / It has not happened to a paladin ...” (it would follow: “neither to the Father, nor to the Son”). Syntactic vernacular, as a rule, is present in epic and dramatic works in the speech of characters for a realistic reflection of the individual speech style, for the autocharacterization of characters. To this end, Chekhov resorted to the use of vernacular: “Your dad told me that he was a court adviser, but now it turns out that he is only a titular one” (“Before the Wedding”), “Are you talking about which Turkins? Is it about those that the daughter plays the pianos? ("Ionych").

Figures of speech

Of particular importance for identifying the specifics of artistic speech is the study of stylistic figures (they are also called rhetorical - in relation to the private scientific discipline in which the theory of tropes and figures was first developed; syntactic - in relation to that side of the poetic text, for the characteristics of which they are required). description).

The doctrine of figures took shape already at the time when the doctrine of style was taking shape, in the era of Antiquity; developed and supplemented - in the Middle Ages; finally, it finally turned into a permanent section of normative "poetics" (textbooks on poetics) - in modern times. The first attempts to describe and systematize figures are presented in ancient Latin treatises on poetics and rhetoric (more fully in Quintilian's The Education of an Orator). The ancient theory, according to M.L. Gasparov, “assumed that there is some simplest,“ natural ”verbal expression of any thought (as if a distilled language without stylistic color and taste), and when real speech somehow deviates from this unimaginable standard , then each individual deviation can be taken separately and taken into account as a “figure”.

Tropes and figures were the subject of a single doctrine: if “trope” is a change in the “natural” meaning of a word, then “figure” is a change in the “natural” word order in a syntactic construction (rearrangement of words, omission of necessary or use of “extra” - from the point of view of “ natural" speech - lexical elements). We also note that within the limits of ordinary speech, which does not have an orientation towards artistry, figurativeness, the detected “figures” are often considered as speech errors, but within the limits of artistically oriented speech, the same figures are usually distinguished as effective means of poetic syntax.

Currently, there are many classifications of stylistic figures, which are based on one or another - quantitative or qualitative - differentiating feature: the verbal composition of the phrase, the logical or psychological correlation of its parts, etc. Below we list the most significant figures, taking into account three factors:

1. Unusual logical or grammatical connection of elements of syntactic constructions.
2. Unusual mutual arrangement of words in a phrase or phrases in a text, as well as elements that are part of different (adjacent) syntactic and rhythmic-syntactic structures (poems, columns), but with grammatical similarity.
3. Unusual ways of intonational markup of the text using syntactic means.

Taking into account the dominance of a single factor, we will single out the corresponding groups of figures. But we emphasize that in some cases in the same phrase one can find both a non-trivial grammatical connection, and the original arrangement of words, and devices that indicate a specific intonational “score” in the text: within the same segment of speech, not only different paths, but also different figures.

Groups of methods of non-standard connection of words

The group of methods of non-standard connection of words into syntactic units includes:

• ellipse, anacoluf, sylleps, alogism, amphiboly(figures distinguished by an unusual grammatical connection),
• catachresis, oxymoron, gendiadis, enallaga(figures with an unusual semantic connection of elements).

One of the most common syntactic devices not only in fiction, but also in everyday speech is ellipse(Greek elleipsis- abandonment). This is an imitation of a break in a grammatical connection, consisting in the omission of a word or a number of words in a sentence, in which the meaning of the omitted members is easily restored from the general speech context. This technique is most often used in epic and dramatic works when constructing character dialogues: with its help, the authors give life-likeness to the scenes of communication of their characters.

Elliptical speech in a literary text gives the impression of being reliable, because in a life situation of a conversation, an ellipse is one of the main means of composing phrases: when exchanging remarks, it allows you to skip previously spoken words. Consequently, in colloquial speech, an exclusively practical function is assigned to ellipses: the speaker conveys information to the interlocutor in the required volume, while using a minimum vocabulary.

Meanwhile, the use of the ellipse as an expressive means in artistic speech can also be motivated by the author's attitude to the psychologism of the narrative. The writer, wishing to depict various emotions, psychological states of his hero, can change his individual speech style from scene to scene. So, in F.M. Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" Raskolnikov often expresses himself in elliptical phrases. In his conversation with the cook Nastasya (Part I, Ch. 3), ellipses serve as an additional means of expressing his alienated state:

- ... Before, you say, you went to teach children, but now why don't you do anything?

“I am doing [something]…” Raskolnikov said reluctantly and sternly.

- What are you doing?

- [I do] Work...

What kind of work [are you doing]?

“[I] think,” he answered seriously after a pause.

Here we see that the omission of some words emphasizes the special semantic load of the remaining others.

Often ellipses also denote a rapid change in states or actions. Such, for example, is their function in the fifth chapter of Eugene Onegin, in the story of Tatyana Larina's dream: “Tatyana ah! and he roar ... "," Tatiana into the forest, the bear behind her ... ".

Both in everyday life and in literature, a speech error is recognized anacoluthon(Greek anakoluthos - inconsistent) - incorrect use of grammatical forms in coordination and management: “The smell of shag and some sour cabbage soup felt from there made life in this place almost unbearable” (A.F. Pisemsky, “Sin of the Elderly”). However, its use can be justified in cases where the writer gives expression to the character's speech: “Stop, brothers, stop! After all, you don’t sit like that! ”(in Krylov’s fable“ Quartet ”).

On the contrary, it turns out to be more of a consciously applied technique than a random error in the literature. sylleps(Greek syllepsis - conjugation, capture), which consists in the syntactic design of semantically heterogeneous elements in the form of a number of homogeneous members of the sentence: “This sexual one wore a napkin under his arm and a lot of blackheads on his cheeks” (Turgenev, “A Strange Story”).

European writers of the 20th century, especially representatives of the "literature of the absurd", regularly turned to alogism (Greek a - negative particle, logismos - reason). This figure is a syntactic correlation of semantically inconsistent parts of a phrase with the help of its service elements, expressing a certain type of logical connection (causal, genus-species relations, etc.): “The car drives fast, but the cook cooks better” (E. Ionesco, “Bald Singer”), “How wonderful the Dnieper is in calm weather, so why are you here, Nentsov?” (A. Vvedensky, “Minin and Pozharsky”).

If anacoluf is more often seen as a mistake than an artistic device, and sylleps and alogism are more often a device than a mistake, then amphibolia (Greek amphibolia) is always perceived in two ways. Duality is in its very nature, since amphiboly is the syntactic indistinguishability of the subject and direct object, expressed by nouns in the same grammatical forms. "Hearing sensitive sail strains ..." in the poem of the same name by Mandelstam - a mistake or a trick? It can be understood as follows: “A sensitive ear, if its owner desires to catch the rustle of the wind in the sails, magically acts on the sail, forcing it to strain,” or as follows: “A wind-blown (i.e. tense) sail attracts attention, and a person strains his hearing” . Amphibolia is justified only when it turns out to be compositionally significant. Thus, in D. Kharms' miniature "The Chest", the hero checks the possibility of the existence of life after death by self-suffocation in a locked chest. The finale for the reader, as the author planned, is unclear: either the hero did not suffocate, or he suffocated and resurrected, as the hero ambiguously sums up: “It means that life defeated death in a way unknown to me.”

An unusual semantic connection between the parts of a phrase or sentence is created by catachresis (see the section "Paths") and oxymoron (Greek oxymoron - witty-silly). In both cases, there is a logical contradiction between the members of a single structure. Catachresis arises as a result of the use of an erased metaphor or metonymy and is assessed as a mistake in the framework of “natural” speech: “sea voyage” is a contradiction between “sailing on the sea” and “walking on land”, “oral prescription” - between “oral” and “ in writing", "Soviet Champagne" - between "Soviet Union" and "Champagne". Oxymoron, on the contrary, is a planned consequence of the use of a fresh metaphor and is perceived even in everyday speech as an exquisite figurative tool. "Mum! Your son is very sick!” (V. Mayakovsky, “A Cloud in Pants”) – here “sick” is a metaphorical replacement for “in love”.

Among the rare in Russian literature and therefore especially notable figures is gendiadis(from the Greek hen dia dyoin - one through two), in which complex adjectives are divided into their original constituent parts: “longing for the road, iron” (A. Blok, “On the railroad”). Here the word "railroad" was split, as a result of which the three words entered into an interaction - and the verse acquired an additional meaning. E.G. Etkind, referring to the issue of the semantics of the epithets "iron", "iron" in Blok's poetic dictionary, noted: two definitions, striving towards each other, as if forming one word "railroad", and at the same time starting from this word - it has a completely different meaning. "Iron Anguish" is a despair caused by the dead, mechanical world of modern - "iron" - civilization.

Words in a column or verse receive a special semantic connection when the writer uses enallaga (Greek enallage - movement) - the transfer of a definition to a word adjacent to the one being defined. So, in the line "Through the meat, fat trenches ..." from N. Zabolotsky's poem "Wedding", the definition of "fat" became a vivid epithet after being transferred from "meat" to "trench". Enallaga is a sign of verbose poetic speech. The use of this figure in an elliptical construction leads to a deplorable result: the verse "A familiar corpse lay in that valley ..." in Lermontov's ballad "Dream" is an example of an unforeseen logical error. The combination "familiar corpse" was supposed to mean "the corpse of a familiar [person]", but for the reader it actually means: "This person has long been known to the heroine precisely as a corpse."

Figures with an unusual arrangement of parts of syntactic constructions

Figures with an unusual arrangement of parts of syntactic constructions include various types of parallelism and inversion.

Parallelism(from the Greek. parallelos - walking side by side) suggests the compositional correlation of adjacent syntactic segments of the text (lines in a poetic work, sentences in a text, parts in a sentence). Types of parallelism are usually distinguished on the basis of some feature possessed by the first of the related constructions, which serves as a model for the author when creating the second one.

So, projecting the word order of one syntactic segment onto another, they distinguish between direct parallelism (“The animal Dog is sleeping, / The bird Sparrow is Dozing” in Zabolotsky’s verse “The signs of the Zodiac are fading ...”) and reversed (“Waves are playing, the wind is whistling” in “ Sail" Lermontov). We can write the columns of the Lermontov string vertically:

waves are playing

the wind is whistling

And we will see that in the second column the subject and predicate are given in reverse order with respect to the arrangement of words in the first. If we now graphically connect nouns and - separately - verbs, we can get the image of the Greek letter "". Therefore, reversed parallelism is also called chiasm (Greek chiasmos - -shape, cruciformity).

When comparing the number of words in paired syntactic segments, they also distinguish parallelism complete and incomplete. Complete parallelism (its common name is isocolon; Greek isokolon - equinoxity) - in Tyutchev's two-word lines “Amphoras are empty, / Baskets are overturned” (verse “The feast is over, the choirs are silent ...”), incomplete - in his unequal lines “ Slow down, slow down, evening day, / Last, last, charm ”(verse“ Last love ”). There are other types of parallelism.

The same group of figures includes such a popular poetic device as inversion(lat. inversio - permutation). It manifests itself in the arrangement of words in a phrase or sentence in an order that is different from the natural one. In Russian, for example, the order “subject + predicate”, “definition + defined word” or “preposition + noun in case form” is natural, and the reverse order is unnatural.

“Erota of lofty and dumb wings on...”, - this is how the parody of the famous satirist of the early twentieth century begins. A. Izmailov to the verses by Vyacheslav Ivanov. The parodist suspected the symbolist poet of abusing inversions, so he oversaturated the lines of his text with them. “Erota on wings” is the wrong order. But if a separate inversion of "Erota's wings" is quite acceptable, moreover, it is felt as traditional for Russian poetry, then "wings on" is recognized as a sign not of artistry of speech, but of tongue-tied tongue.

Inverted words can be placed in a phrase in different ways. With contact inversion, the adjacency of words is preserved (“Like a tragedian in the province of Shakespeare’s drama ...” by Pasternak), with distant inversion, other words are wedged between them (“Old man obedient to Perun alone ...” by Pushkin). In both cases, the unusual position of a single word affects its intonation. As Tomashevsky noted, "in inverted constructions, words sound more expressive, more weighty."

Figures marking the unusual intonational composition of the text

The group of figures that mark the unusual intonational composition of the text or its individual parts includes various types of syntactic repetition, as well as tautology, annomination and gradation, polysyndeton and asyndeton.

Distinguish two subgroups of repetition techniques. The first includes techniques for repeating individual parts within a sentence. With their help, authors usually emphasize a semantically tense place in a phrase, since any repetition is intonational emphasis. Like inversion, repetition can be contact (“It's time, it's time, the horns are blowing ...” in Pushkin's poem “Count Nulin”) or distant (“It's time, my friend, it's time! The heart asks for peace ...” in Pushkin's verse of the same name. ).

Simple repeat apply to different units of the text - both to the word (as in the above examples) and to the phrase ("Evening ringing, evening ringing!" translated by I. Kozlov from T. Moore) - without changing the grammatical forms and lexical meaning. The repetition of one word in different case forms, while maintaining its meaning from ancient times, is recognized as a special figure - polyptoton (Greek polyptoton - polycase): “But a man / He sent a man to the anchar with an imperious look ...” (Pushkin, “Anchar”). On polyptotone, according to R. Yakobson's observation, Mayakovsky's "The Tale of the Little Red Riding Hood" is built, in which a complete paradigm of case forms of the word "cadet" is presented. Antanaclasis (Greek antanaklasis - reflection) is an equally ancient figure - the repetition of a word in its original grammatical form, but with a change in meaning. “The last owl is broken and sawn. / And, pinned with a clerical button / Head down to the autumn branch, // Hanging and thinking with his head ... ”(A. Eremenko,“ In dense metallurgical forests ... ”) - here the word“ head ”is used directly, and then in a metonymic sense.

The second subgroup includes repeat figures extended not to the offer, but to a larger part of the text(stanza, syntactic period), sometimes for the whole work. Such figures mark the intonation equalization of those parts of the text to which they were extended. These types of repetition are distinguished by their position in the text. So, anaphora (Greek anaphora - pronouncement; the patristic term is mononaming) is the fastening of speech segments (columns, verses) by repeating a word or phrase in the initial position: “This is a sharply poured whistle, / This is the clicking of squeezed ice floes, / This is the night chilling the leaf, / This is the duel of two nightingales" (Pasternak, "Definition of Poetry"). Epiphora (Greek epiphora - additive; paternal term - one-sidedness), on the contrary, connects the ends of speech series with lexical repetition: “Scallops, all scallops: || scalloped cape, | scalloped sleeves, | scalloped epaulettes, | bottom scallops, | festoons everywhere” (Gogol, “Dead Souls”). Projecting the principle of epiphora onto a whole poetic text, we will see its development in the phenomenon of a refrain (for example, in a classical ballad).

Anadiplosis(Greek anadiplosis - doubling; native term - joint) is a contact repetition that connects the end of a speech series with the beginning of the next. This is how the columns are connected in the lines of S. Nadson “Only the morning of love is good: | Only the first, timid speeches are good, ”Blok’s poems are connected in this way“ Oh, spring without end and without edge - / Without end and without edge is a dream. Anaphora and epiphora often act in small lyrical genres as a structure-forming device. But anadiplosis can also acquire the function of a compositional core around which speech is built. From long chains of anadiplosis, for example, the best examples of early Irish lyrics are composed. Among them, perhaps the oldest is the anonymous "Spell of Amergin", presumably dating from the 5th-6th centuries. AD (below is its fragment in a syntactically accurate translation by V. Tikhomirov):

Erin I call loudly

The deep sea is fat

Fat on the hillside grass

Herbs in oak forests are juicy

Moisture in the lakes is juicy

Moisture rich source

The source of the tribes is one

The only lord of Temra...

Opposite to Anadiplosis prosapodosis(Greek prosapodosis - addition; Russian term - ring, coverage), a distant repetition, in which the initial element of the syntactic construction is reproduced at the end of the following: "The sky is cloudy, the night is cloudy ..." in Pushkin's "Demons". Also, prosapodosis can cover a stanza (Esenin’s verse “Shagane you are mine, Shagane ...” is built on ring repetitions) and even the entire text of the work (“Night. Street. Lantern. Pharmacy ...” A. Blok).

This subgroup also includes complex a figure formed by a combination of anaphora and epiphora within the same piece of text, simplock(Greek symploce - plexus): “I do not want Falaleus, | I hate Falaley, | I spit on Falaley, | I will crush Falaley, | I will love Asmodeus rather, | than Falaley!" (Dostoevsky, "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants") - this example from Foma Opiskin's monologue serves as clear evidence that not only repetitive elements are accentuated intonation: with a simplock, words framed by anaphora and epiphora stand out in each column.

When repeated, it is possible to reproduce not only the word as a single sign, but also the meaning torn off from the sign. Tautology(Greek tauto - the same, logos - a word), or pleonasm(Greek pleonasmos - excess), - a figure, when using which the word is not necessarily repeated, but the meaning of any lexical element is necessarily duplicated. To do this, the authors select either synonyms or periphrastic phrases. The deliberate use of tautology by the writer creates in the reader a feeling of verbal excess, irrational verbosity, forces him to pay attention to the corresponding segment of speech, and the reciter to isolate this entire segment intonationally. Yes, in verse. A. Eremenko "Pokryshkin" double tautology intonationally highlights the "evil bullet of gangster evil" against the background of the general flow of speech.

In order to highlight the intonation of a semantically significant speech segment, they also use annomination(lat. annominatio - subscript) - a contact repetition of the same-root words: "I think my own thought ..." in N. Nekrasov's "Railway". This figure is common in song folklore and in the works of poets, whose work was affected by their passion for stylization of speech.

*****************************************************

Close to repetition figures gradation(lat. gradatio - change in degree), in which words grouped into a series of homogeneous members have a common semantic meaning (of a feature or action), but their location expresses a consistent change in this meaning. The manifestation of a unifying feature can gradually increase or decrease: “I swear by heaven, there is no doubt that you are beautiful, it is undeniable that you are beautiful, it is true that you are attractive” (“The Fruitless Labours of Love” by Shakespeare in the translation of Yu. Korneev). In this phrase, next to "undoubtedly-indisputably-true" is the strengthening of one feature, and next to "beautiful-beautiful-attractive" - ​​the weakening of another. Regardless of whether the sign is strengthening or weakening, the graduated phrase is pronounced with increasing emphasis (intonational expressiveness): “It sounded over a clear river, / It rang in a faded meadow, / It swept over a mute grove ..." (Fet, "Evening").

In addition, the group of means of intonation marking includes polysyndeton(Greek polysyndeton - polyunion) and asyndeton(Greek asyndeton - non-union). Like the gradation that both figures often accompany, they suggest an emphatic emphasis on the part of the text corresponding to them in sounding speech. Polysyndeton in essence is not only a polyunion ("and life, and tears, and love" in Pushkin), but also a multi-sentence ("about valor, about deeds, about glory" from Blok). Its function is either to mark the logical sequence of actions (“Autumn” by Pushkin: “And the thoughts in the head agitate in courage, And the light rhymes run towards them, / And the fingers ask for a pen ...”) or to encourage the reader to generalize, to perceive the series details as an integral image (“I erected a monument to myself not made by hands ...” by Pushkin: the specific “And the proud grandson of the Slavs, and the Finn, and now wild / Tungus, and the Kalmyk friend of the steppes” is formed when perceived in the generic “peoples of the Russian Empire”). And with the help of asyndeton, either the simultaneity of actions is emphasized (“Swede, Russian stabs, cuts, cuts ...” in Pushkin’s “Poltava”), or the fragmentation of the phenomena of the depicted world (“Whisper. Timid breathing. / Trills of the nightingale. / Silver and swaying / Sleepy Creek "by Fet).

The use of syntactic figures by the writer leaves an imprint of individuality on his author's style. By the middle of the 20th century, by the time the concept of “creative individuality” had significantly depreciated, the study of figures had ceased to be relevant, which was recorded by A. Kvyatkovsky in his “Dictionary of Poetic Terms” of 1940 edition: “At present, the names of rhetorical figures have been preserved behind the three most stable phenomena of style, such as: 1) a rhetorical question, 2) a rhetorical exclamation, 3) a rhetorical address ... ". Today, interest in the study of syntactic techniques as a means of artistic stylistics is being revived. The study of poetic syntax has received a new direction: modern science is increasingly analyzing phenomena that are at the junction of different sides of a literary text, for example, rhythm and syntax, meter and syntax, vocabulary and syntax, etc.

Artistic speech, its specificity. Poetic Syntax and Poetic Figures of Language.

Classifying F., the Roman theorist Quintilian identified four ways to create them:

1) addition of components, i.e., different types of repetitions (anaphora, anticlimax, climax, polysyndeton, simplock, epistrophe, epiphora);

2) subtraction of components: asyndeton, zeugma, ellipse;

3) permutation of components: inversion, chiasm, etc.;

Addition of components

REPEAT - 1) one of the basic principles of the organization of poetic speech, carried out at all its structural levels: phonetic, lexical, syntactic, rhythmic; 2) a concept that combines a significant part of syntactic and stylistic figures, called by ancient rhetoricians Per adiectionen (addition). It includes amplification, anastrophe, anaphora, anticlimax, epistrophe, epiphora, climax, pleonasm, polysyndeton, symploc, tautology, and others. P. is of exceptional importance in folk poetry.

REFRAIN (French refrain from Latin refrengere - to break, break) - compositional repetition, verbatim or with minor changes, regular repetition in a poetic work of a word, expression, line or stanza in constant places in the text (mainly at the end). It can be the bearer of the leitmotif, be associated with the emotional dominant of the poem, etc. Genetically, R. arose from the refrain, with which he is sometimes identified.

ANAPHORA (Greek anaphere - elation) - monophony, lexical-syntactic figure, repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of adjacent syntactic or rhythmic units. In a broad sense - a repetition at the beginning of adjacent units of any level of the text (see: Sound Anaphora). The figure opposite to A. is an epiphora.

EPIFORE (Greek epiphora - repetition, from epi - after + phoros - bearing) - a lexical-syntactic figure opposite to anaphora, a repetition of a word or phrase at the end of adjacent - syntactic or versification - text units. The combination of anaphora and e. creates one of the variations of simploki.

SIMPLOKA (Greek symploke - plexus) - a lexical-syntactic figure, the combination of anaphora with epiphora - the repetition of initial and final words in the syntactic units of poetic lines or stanzas. Sometimes, as the second option, S. is called the repetition of words in the middle of a poetic line.

Black eyes, passionate eyes!

Eyes burning and beautiful!

How I love you] How I fear you!

Know that I saw you at an unkind hour!

(E. Grebenka)

POLYSYNDETON, or MULTIPLE UNION (Greek polysyndeton - multiply connected) - a syntactic figure, redundant, excess repetition of the union. Contributes to the creation of speech solemnity, the coherence of syntactic units. It is a characteristic stylistic feature of the Old and New Testaments; it can be used to stylize the lively speech of uncultured characters.

a) Oh, summer is red! I would love you

If it weren't for the heat, and dust, and mosquitoes, and flies.

(A. Pushkin)

CLIMAX (Greek klimax - stairs) - a stylistic figure, a type of gradation, an arrangement of words or expressions in accordance with the increase in their semantic and / or emotional meaning. Often plays the role of a compositional figure, for example, the reception of folklore tripling in Russian fairy tales, in particular, in "Sivka-burka", the increase in the desires of an old woman in Pushkin's "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", etc.

Examples: lexical K.

Approximations, rapprochements, combustions, -

The azure silence does not accept ...

Rolls from afar.

First with the thunder of the horse carriage

On the bridge. The hum of a draft.

Then the fall of heavy barrels from the cart.

ANTICLIMAX (tren, anti - against + klimax - stairs) - a stylistic figure, a kind of gradation, the arrangement of words or expressions in descending order of their meaning. Unlike menopause, it is rarely used in poetry. In a broad sense - the compositional order of the semantic phases of the work in descending order.

And if you went to another

Or just was not known where,

It was enough for me that your

The cloak hung on a nail.

When, our fleeting guest,

You sped off, looking for a new fate,

I had enough of that nail

Remained after the raincoat.

The flow of days, the rustle of years, -

Fog, wind and rain...

And in the house the event is no more terrible:

A nail was pulled out of the wall!

Fog, and wind, and the sound of rain ...

The flow of days, the rustle of years...

It was enough for me that from the nail

There is a small trace left.

When the trace of the nail disappeared

Under the brush of an old painter, -

It was enough for me that

The nail was visible - yesterday.

(N. Matveeva)

Component subtraction

ASINDETON, unionlessness (Greek asyndeton - unrelated) - a syntactic figure, the absence of necessary unions (for example, with homogeneous members of a sentence). Used to express static phenomena or events, as well as psychological stress.

ELLIPSE, ELLIPSIS (Greek elleipsis - omission, loss) - a syntactic figure, omission of a word or phrase restored by the speech context. Being a syntactically incomplete construction, E. violates the normative grammatical connections between the members of the sentence while maintaining the general semantics of the statement. As a reflection of the general attitude of speech towards economy, E. is characteristic of colloquial speech (usually, easily implied, supporting for the statement, and not nuanced by its meaning, members of the sentence - subject, predicate, object - are usually elliptical). In a literary text, it is mainly used to convey physical or psychological excitement.

Either you love me

and then it doesn't matter. And snow

Falls upward, dissolving into the sky-high distance.

Or ... [...] Here follows a dash about duty, freedom and gift -

And it remains - to love for two, omitting the details

Overweight flights along the sky backhand in the spring ...

(P. Untitled)

ZEVGMA (Greek zeugma - a bunch) is a syntactic figure, the subordination of a number of homogeneous secondary members of a sentence to one, logically uniting them to the main member of the sentence (mainly a verbal predicate).

Gratitude

For everything, for everything, I thank you:

For the secret torment of passions,

For the bitterness of tears, the poison of a kiss,

For the revenge of enemies and slander of friends;

For the heat of the soul, wasted in the desert,

For everything I've been deceived in my life...

Arrange only so that from now on you

It didn't take long for me to say thank you.

(M. Lermontov)

BREAK - a stylistic figure, interrupted or incoherent speech. Usually O. indicates the exhaustion of speech reflection, the excitement of the subject of speaking, etc. Most often it is indicated by ellipsis.

Didn't know the rolling stream yet

From what heights does he need to break ...

And get ready to jump!

(S. Marshak)

DEFAULT, or APOSIOPEZA (Greek aposiopesis - silence) - a stylistic figure, a pronounced concealment of thought. Unlike the break, U. creates the effect of understatement, it contains a hint of the author’s conscious unwillingness or indecision to express his thought in the speech volume corresponding to its content due to various psychological motivations (dislike, shame, fear, etc.), thereby it initiates the reader to demand semantic subtext.

I don't regret anything, I don't regret anything, I don't regret anything

No borders over my heart are free,

So why do I suddenly go crazy at the mere thought.

That never, never...

My God, never!

(A. Galich)

ALLUSION (lat. alludere - to play with someone, to joke, to refer) - a stylistic figure, a hint at certain circumstances, a person, an image, etc. with an installation on the reader's memory of them. According to the source of origin, A. mythological (Augean stables), biblical (Global Flood), historical (Hannibal's oath), political and journalistic (Black Hundred), literary.

literary

You just play

And already from the deck - jump! -

Not a seven, not an ace, not a three.

Cursed lady of spades!

(A. Galich)

Rearrangement of components.

TRANSFER, SYNAPHIA (Greek sinaphia - contact), or ANZHAMBEMANT (French enjambement from enjamber - to step over, jump over) - a syntactic figure, an expressive discrepancy between the syntactic articulation of poetic speech and its metric articulation. There are hyphenations of syllables and even letters. It is used for the author's selection of a word or phrase, which brings P. closer to inversion and other figures of speech accentuation. It is widely used in the colloquial type of poetic speech, as well as in blank verse. When pronouncing P., the final pause in the verses is necessarily preserved.

Shining, the clouds run

Through the blue sky hill steep

Illuminated by the autumn sun. River

Runs down the stones with speed.

(M. Lermontov)

PARCELLATION (lat. pars - part) - a syntactic figure, the division of a single statement into a number of separate words or phrases. The main methods of such segmentation are service parts of speech (prepositions, conjunctions), as well as interjections; in writing, P. is often indicated by punctuation marks, and when pronounced, by intonation. P. is used mainly for stylistic purposes - to convey speech excitement, to accentuate each word in a sentence, etc. There is also P. of the word.

a) Oh, how great is On-the-field-he!

He is cunning and quick and firm in battle;

But he trembled, as he extended only his hands

To him with a bayonet God-rati-he.

(G. Derzhavin)

b) That is my love in response

You lowered your eyelids -

O life! oh forest! Oh the light of the sun!

O youth! oh hope!

(A. K. Tolstoy)

c) Distance: miles, miles ...

We were placed, they were planted,

To be quiet

On two different ends of the earth.

(M. Tsvetaeva)

d) I would surround her with a blockade of rhymes,

get lost, then turning pale, then blushing,

but woman! me! thanks!

for being me! the male! gentle with her!

(E. Evtushenko)

INVERSION (lat. inversio - permutation, inversion) - a syntactic figure, a violation of the normative order of the members of a sentence. The redeployment of words or phrases ensures their logical and emotional marking, more broadly, it weakens the automaticity of text perception. The most common variation of I. is the castling of the subject-noun and adjective-definition, which have an increased ability to express the author's assessment, the author's modality.

I dreamed of an azure, clear morning,

I dreamed about the vast expanse of the motherland,

The sky is ruddy, the field is dewy,

My freshness and youth are irrevocable...

(K. Sluchevsky)

SYNTACTICAL PARALLELISM (Greek parallelos - walking side by side) - a lexical-syntactic figure, an identical arrangement of the same type members of a sentence in adjacent syntactic or rhythmic segments. Often coincides with psychological parallelism. Ancient rhetoric distinguished P.: according to the number of commensurate speech segments (colon) included in it - dicolon, tricolon, etc .; by the parallelism of the members of the sentence (isocolon), by the structural similarity / dissimilarity of the colons (anthropodosis / chiasm), by the consonance (homeotelevton) or dissonance of the endings of the columns, by the similarity (homeoptotone) or dissimilarity of the case endings of the columns, etc.

What are you, white birch,

There is no wind, but are you making noise?

What, zealous heart,

There is no grief, but are you in pain?

(Folk song)

Crazy nights, sleepless nights

Speech incoherent, tired eyes ...

Nights lit by the last fire,

Autumn dead flowers belated!

(A. Apukhtin)

CHIASM (Greek chiasmos from the letter "X" - xi - crosswise arrangement) - a syntactic figure covering two adjacent sentences, phrases, as well as poetic lines in which the same type members of the sentence are arranged in relation to each other in reverse order ( mirroring principle).

X. with syntactic parallelism

To a ripe ear - a remote sickle,

For an adult girl - a young groom!

(Y. Nekrasov)

ANTITHESIS (Greek contrapositum - opposition) - a stylistic figure of convergence of two opposite images, concepts, thoughts. In oratory and artistic creativity A. is carried out through the collision of words (antonyms), phrases, sentence segments, verbal micro-images, which are similar in formal terms, but opposite in meaning.

You are rich, I am very poor;

You are a prose writer, I am a poet;

You are blush, like a poppy color; I am like death, and thin and pale.

(A. Pushkin)

There are two misfortunes in Russia:

Below is the power of darkness,

And above - the darkness of power.

(V. Gilyarovsky)

"Happiness is in effort," says youth.

"Happiness in peace," says death.

“I will overcome everything,” says youth.

"Yes, but it will all end," says death.

(V. Rozanov)

Poetic "liberties".

SOLECISM (or Greek Soloi - colony cities in Asia Minor, whose inhabitants distorted the Greek language) - a grammatically incorrect use of the word. Most often it is explained by the stylization of vernacular or the absence of the morphological form proposed by the author, which is necessary for him to solve a specific stylistic problem. In ancient rhetoric, S. called incorrectly constructed phrases.

I'll leave without asking anything

Because my pulled out lot,

I didn't think the moon was beautiful

So beautiful and disturbing in the sky.

(I. Annensky)

The destiny of things: hurry somewhere far away.

Yesterday, in the evening, they gave me a shawl -

in the morning the shawl is chilly and bored,

she can't bear to hug shoulder other.

(B. Akhmadulina)

AMPHIBOLIA (Greek amphibolos - deceptive, ambiguous) - the semantic ambiguity of the image.

Empty and smooth my long way ...

Only in black villages

Endless is sadder

Like rain oblique wattle.

(I. Annensky)

ANAKOLUF (Greek anakoluthos - inconsistent) - a speech figure, syntactic inconsistency of sentence members in a meaningful statement. A common phenomenon in oral speech, A. in a literary text can be a reproduction of a conversational style, or a way of emotional expressiveness, or a consequence of the author's inattention (author's deafness). The terminological synonym for A. is hyperbaton (Greek - transition), denoting a change in the course of speech of its syntactic order, most often the separation of two related words.

Nature has not woken up yet

But through thinning sleep

She heard spring

And she smiled involuntarily.

Artistic speech requires attention to its shades and nuances. “In poetry, any speech element turns into a figure of poetic speech”158.

The figurativeness of artistic speech depends not only on the choice of words, but also on how these words are combined in a sentence and other syntactic constructions, with what intonation they are pronounced and how they sound.

The figurative expressiveness of speech is facilitated by special techniques for constructing phrases and sentences, which are called syntactic figures.

Figure (from Latin figura - outline, image, appearance) (rhetorical figure, stylistic figure, figure of speech) - a generalized name for stylistic devices in which the word, unlike tropes, does not necessarily appear in a figurative sense. Their selection and classification were started by ancient rhetoric. The figures are built on special combinations of words that go beyond the usual "practical" use and are intended to enhance the expressiveness and descriptiveness of the text. Since the figures are formed by a combination of words, they use certain stylistic possibilities of syntax, but in all cases the meanings of the words forming the figure are very important.

Syntactic figures individualize speech, give it an emotional coloring. We can talk about the organizational role of syntactic figures in a particular fragment of a work of art and even in the whole text. There are various classifications of syntactic figures. Nevertheless, with all the variety of approaches to their selection, two groups can be defined: 1)

figures of addition (decrease), which are associated with an increase (decrease) in the volume of the text and carry a certain semantic load; 2)

amplification figures that are associated with an increase in emotionality and expansion of semantic content. Within this group, one can distinguish such subgroups as "pure" figures of amplification (gradation), rhetorical figures, figures of "displacement" (inversion), figures of "opposition" (antithesis).

Let's consider the figures of addition (decrease). These include all types of repetitions that serve to highlight and emphasize important points and links in the subject-speech fabric of the work.

R.O. Jacobson, referring to the ancient Indian treatise "Natyashastra", where repetition, along with metaphor, is spoken of as one of the main figures of speech, argued: "The essence of the poetic fabric consists in periodic returns"1. All sorts of returns to what has already been said, indicated are very diverse in lyrical works. Repeats have been investigated

V.M. Zhirmunsky in the work "Theory of Verse" (in the section "Composition of lyrical works"), because repetitions of various types are of great importance in the strophic composition of a poem, in creating a special melodious intonation.

Repetitions are very rare in business speech, frequent in both oratorical and artistic prose, and quite common in poetry. Yu.M. Lotman, citing the lines of B. Okudzhava:

You hear the drum roar

Soldier, say goodbye to her, say goodbye to her ..,

writes: “The second verse does not at all mean an invitation to say goodbye twice. Depending on the intonation of the reader, it can mean: "Soldier, hurry up to say goodbye, and" the person is already leaving" or "Soldier, say goodbye to her, say goodbye forever ..." But never: "Soldier, say goodbye to her, once again say goodbye to her." Thus, the doubling of the word does not mean a mechanical doubling of the concept, but a different, new, more complicated content"159.

The word “contains its material content plus an expressive halo, more or less strongly pronounced. Obviously, when the content is repeated, the material (objective, conceptual, logical) does not change, but the expression noticeably increases, even neutral words become emotional.<...>the repeated word is always more expressive than the previous one, it creates the effect of gradation, emotional pressure, which is so important in the composition of both the whole lyrical poem and its parts.

Repetition at a precisely fixed place in a poem has even greater compositional and expressive significance. We are talking about such types of repetitions as refrain, anaphora, epiphora (they will be discussed below), joint or pickup, pleonasm, etc.

Repeating elements can be adjacent and follow one after another (constant repetition), or they can be separated by other elements of the text (distant repetition).

The general view of the constant repetition is a doubling of the concept: It's time, it's time! Horns blow (A. Pushkin); I thank you for everything, for everything... (M. Lermontov); Every house is alien to me, every temple is empty to me, and it doesn’t matter, and everything is one (M. Tsvetaeva).

Ring, or prosapodosis (Greek rovarosiozіz, lit. - super-increase) - a repetition of a word or group of words at the beginning and end of the same verse or column: Horse, horse, half the kingdom for the horse! (W. Shakespeare); Cloudy sky, cloudy night! (A. Pushkin).

Joint (pickup), or anadyplosis (Greek apasіirІozіB - doubling) - repetition of a word (group of words) of a verse at the beginning of the next line:

Oh, spring, without end and without edge -

Endless and endless dream!

and at the end of the verse at the beginning of the following:

What are you, a splinter, do not burn clearly?

Do not burn clearly, do not flare up?

In book poetry, the joint is rare:

I dreamed of catching the departing shadows.

The fading shadows of the fading day...

(K. Balmont)

Pleonasm (from the Greek pleonasmos - excess) - verbosity, the use of words that are unnecessary both for semantic completeness and for stylistic expressiveness (adult man, path-road, sadness-longing). The extreme form of pleonasm is called tautology.

Amplification (otlat. amplificatio - increase, spread) - strengthening the argument by "heaping" equivalent expressions, excessive synonymy; in poetry it is used to enhance the expressiveness of speech:

Floats, flows, runs like a boat,

And how high above the ground!

(I. Bunin)

You are alive, you are in me, you are in my chest,

As a support, as a friend and as a case.

(B. Pasternak)

Anaphora (Greek anaphora - pronouncement) - monotony - repetition of a word or group of words at the beginning of several verses, stanzas, columns or phrases:

The circus shines like a shield.

The circus is squealing on the fingers,

The circus on the pipe howls

Hits soul to soul.

(V. Khlebnikov)

daily thoughts,

Day souls - away:

Daytime thoughts Stepped into the night.

(V. Khodasevich)

Above were examples of verbal anaphora, but it can also be sound, with the repetition of individual consonances:

Open the dungeon for me

Give me the shine of the day

black eyed girl,

Black-maned horse.

(M. Lermontov)

Anaphora can be syntactic:

We won't tell the commander

We won't tell anyone.

(M. Svetlov)

A. Fet in the poem "I came to you with greetings" uses an anaphora at the beginning of the second, third, fourth stanzas. He starts like this:

I came to you with greetings

Say that the sun has risen

That it trembled with hot light On the sheets.

Tell that the forest woke up;

Tell that with the same passion

Like yesterday, I came again

Tell me that from everywhere It blows fun on me.

The repetition of the verb "to tell", used by the poet in each stanza, allows him to smoothly and almost imperceptibly move from describing nature to describing the feelings of the lyrical hero. A. Fet uses anaphoric composition, which is one of the ways of the semantic and aesthetic organization of speech, the development of a thematic image.

An entire poem can be built on the anaphora:

Wait for me and I will come back,

Just wait a lot

Wait for the yellow rains to bring sadness,

Wait for the snow to come

Wait when it's hot

Wait when others are not expected

Forgetting yesterday.

(K. Simonov)

V. Khlebnikov's quatrain is filled with deep philosophical meaning:

When horses die, they breathe

When grasses die, they dry

When the suns die, they go out

When people die, they sing songs. Epiphora (from the Greek epiphora - additive) - repetition of a word or group of words at the end of several poetic lines, stanzas:

Dear friend, and in this quiet house the fever beats me.

I can't find peace in a quiet house Near a peaceful fire.

Steppes and roads The count is not over:

Stones and thresholds No account found.

(E. Bagritsky)

Epiphora also occurs in prose. In The Tale of Igor's Campaign, the "golden word" of Svyatoslav, who addresses the Russian princes with the idea of ​​unification, ends with a repetition of the call: Let's stand up for the Russian land, for the wounds of Igor, the fierce Svyatoslavich! A.

C. Pushkin, with his inherent irony, in the poem “My family tree”, ends each stanza with the same word philistine, varying it in different ways: I am a philistine, I am a philistine, / I, thank God, a philistine, / Nizhny Novgorod philistine.

Another type of repetition is a refrain (in translation from French - chorus) - a word, verse, or group of verses rhythmically repeated after a stanza, often differing in their metrical features (poetic size) from the main text. For example, every sixth stanza of M. Svetlov's poem "Grenada" ends with the refrain: Grenada, Grenada, / My Grenada! b.

M. Zhirmunsky in the article “Composition of lyrical poems” defined the refrain as follows: these are “endings that are isolated from the rest of the poem in metrical, syntactic and thematic terms”1. In the presence of refrains, the thematic (compositional) closure of the stanza is enhanced. It is also strengthened by the division of the verse into stanzas, they are more clearly separated from each other; if the refrain is not in every stanza, but in a pair, three, then thereby it creates a larger compositional unit. Masterfully used the refrain in the ballad "The Triumph of the Winners" by V.A. Zhukovsky. After each stanza, he gives different quatrains, "separated" in metrical and thematic terms. Here are two of them:

The trial is over, the dispute is resolved; Happy is the one to whom the radiance The struggle has ceased; Being saved

Fate has fulfilled everything: The one to whom it is given to taste

The great city collapsed. Goodbye to my dear homeland!

But in the "Song of the Wretched Wanderer" by N.A. Nekrasov at the end of each stanza, two refrains are repeated in turn: Cold, wanderer, cold and Hungry, wanderer, hungry. They determine the emotional mood of the poem about the hard life of the people.

M. Svetlov in one of the poems simultaneously uses several types of repetitions:

All jewelry stores -

they are yours.

All birthdays, all name days - they are yours.

All the aspirations of youth are yours.

And all the happy lovers lips - they are yours.

And all the military bands of the pipe - they are yours.

This whole city, all these buildings - they are yours.

All the bitterness of life and all the suffering - they are mine.

The poem by A.S. Kochetkov "Do not part with your loved ones!":

Don't part with your loved ones!

Don't part with your loved ones!

Don't part with your loved ones!

Grow in them with all your blood -

And every time forever say goodbye!

And every time forever say goodbye

When you leave for a moment!

The anaphoric connection is not external, it is not a mere embellishment of speech. “Structural connections (syntactic, intonational, verbal, sound repetitions) express and hold together the semantic connections of verses and stanzas, it is they, in a stepped composition, that make us understand that we are not facing a simple kaleidoscope of individual images, but the harmonious development of the theme that the subsequent image follows from the previous one, and not just adjacent to it. The repetition of a word or phrase can also be in prose. Olga Ivanovna, the heroine of Chekhov's story "The Jumper", exaggerates her role in the life of the artist Ryabovsky. This is emphasized by the repetition of the word "influence" in her unselfishly direct speech: But this, she thought, he created under her influence, and in general, thanks to her influence, he changed greatly for the better. Her influence is so beneficial and significant that if she leaves him, then he, perhaps, may perish.

The expressiveness of speech also depends on how unions and other auxiliary words are used in it. If sentences are built without unions, then speech is accelerated, and a deliberate increase in unions gives speech slowness, smoothness, therefore polysyndeton belongs to the addition figures.

Polysyndeton, or polyunion (Greek polysyndetos - multiply connected) - such a construction of speech (mainly poetic), in which the number of unions between words is increased; pauses between words emphasize individual words and enhance their expressiveness:

And shine, and noise, and the sound of waves.

(A. Pushkin)

And deity, and inspiration,

And life, and tears, and love.

(A. Pushkin)

I carved the world with a flint and cleaver,

And unsteady - I brought a smile to my lips,

And smoke - haze lit up the house,

And he lifted up sweet smoke about the former.

(V. Khlebnikov)

Decrease figures include asyndeton, default, ellipse (is).

Asyndeton, or non-union (Greek asyndeton - unconnected) is such a construction of speech (mainly poetic), in which conjunctions connecting words are omitted. This is a figure that gives dynamism to speech.

A.S. Pushkin uses it in "Poltava" because he needs to show a quick change of actions during the battle:

Drum beat, clicks, rattle,

The thunder of cannons, the clatter, the neighing, the groan...

With the help of non-union N.A. Nekrasov in the poem "Railway" enhances the expressiveness of the phrase:

Straight path, narrow embankments,

Poles, rails, bridges.

In M. Tsvetaeva, with the help of non-union, a whole gamut of feelings is transmitted:

Here is the window again

Where they don't sleep again.

Maybe drink wine

Maybe they sit like that.

Or just hands Do not separate the two.

In every house, friend,

There is a window.

Silence is a figure that makes it possible to guess what could have been discussed in a suddenly interrupted statement.

Many thoughts are awakened by the lines of I. Bunin:

I do not like, oh Russia, your timid

A thousand years of slave poverty.

But this cross, but this ladle is white...

Humble, native traits!

Bunin's view of the Russian national character was due to the dual nature of the Russian people. In Cursed Days, he defined this duality as follows: There are two types in the people. In one, Russia predominates, in the other - Chud, Merya. Bunin loved ancient Kievan Rus to self-forgetfulness - hence the figure of default gives rise to so many thoughts in the above lines.

An example of the use of this figure in prose is the dialogue between Anna Sergeevna and Gurov in Chekhov's Lady with a Dog. The silence here is fully justified by the fact that both heroes are overwhelmed with feelings, they want to say a lot, and the meetings are short. Anna Sergeevna recalls herself in her youth: When I married him, I was twenty years old, I was tormented by curiosity, I wanted something better, because there is, I said to myself, another life. I wanted to live! Live and live ... And curiosity burned me ...

Gurov wants to be understood: But understand, Anna, understand ... - he said in an undertone, in a hurry. I beg you, please understand...

Elly n s (is) (from the Greek eIeirviz - omission, loss) - the main variety of figures of decrease, based on the omission of the implied word, easily restored in meaning; one of the defaults. With the help of an ellipsis, dynamism and emotionality of speech is achieved:

Whisper, timid breath,

trill nightingale,

Silver and the ripple of the Sleepy Stream...

The ellipsis expresses the deformation of the general language syntax. Here is an example of skipping the implied word: ... and looked for the last [time] as the legitimate [husband] was lying, pressing the lapel [of the jacket] with a pood's hand ... (B. Slutsky).

In artistic literature, the ellipsis acts as a figure, with the help of which a special expressiveness is achieved. Artistic ellipsis is associated with colloquial turns. Most often, the verb is omitted, which gives the text dynamism:

Let ... But chu! No time to play!

To the horses, brother, and a foot in the stirrup,

Saber out - and slaughter! Vї>t God gives us another feast.

(D. Davydov)

In prose, the ellipsis is mainly used in direct speech and in narration from the point of view of the narrator. Maxim Maksimych in "Bel" tells about one episode from the life of Pechorin: Grigory Alexandrovich squealed no worse than any Chechen; a gun from a case, and there - I follow him.

Let us turn to the figures of amplification (gradation, rhetorical figures, inversion, antithesis).

Gradation belongs to the “pure” amplification figures.

Gradation (lat. gradatio - gradual increase) is a syntactic construction in which each subsequent word or group of words strengthens or weakens the semantic and emotional meaning of the previous ones.

There is an ascending gradation (climax) and a descending gradation (anticlimax). The first in Russian literature is used more often.

Klymaks (from the Greek klimax - stairs) - a stylistic figure, a kind of gradation, suggesting the arrangement of words or expressions related to one subject, in ascending order: I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry (S. Yesenin) ; And where is Mazepa? Where is the villain? Where did Judas flee in fear? (A. Pushkin); Neither call, nor shout, nor help (M. Voloshin); I called you, but you didn’t look back, / I teared up, but you didn’t descend (A. Blok).

Anticlimax (Greek anti - against, klimax - stairs) - a stylistic figure, a kind of gradation in which the significance of words gradually decreases:

He promises half the world

France only for myself.

(M. Lermontov)

All facets of feelings

All facets of truth erased

In worlds, in years, in hours.

(A. Bely)

like a bomb

like a razor

double-edged

like an explosive

at twenty sorry

two meters tall.

(V. Mayakovsky)

A multifaceted gradation lies in the composition of Pushkin's "Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", built on the growing desires of the old woman, who wanted to become a noblewoman, queen, and then "mistress of the sea."

The figures of amplification include rhetorical figures. They give artistic speech emotionality and expressiveness. G.N. Pospelov calls them “emotional-rhetorical types of intonation”1, because in artistic speech no one answers emotional-rhetorical questions, but they arise to create emphatic intonation. The definition of "rhetorical" fixed in the names of these figures does not indicate that they developed in oratory prose, and then in fiction.

Rhetorical question (from the Greek.

GeShe - speaker) - one of the syntactic figures; such a construction of speech, mainly poetic, in which the statement is expressed in the form of a question:

Who is jumping, who is rushing under the cold haze?

(V. Zhukovsky)

And if so, what is beauty

And why do people deify her?

She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,

Or fire flickering in a vessel?

(N. Zabolotsky)

In the examples given, rhetorical questions introduce an element of philosophy into the text, as in verses 3. Gippius:

The world is rich in triple bottomlessness.

Triple bottomlessness is given to poets.

But don't the poets say

Only about this?

Only about this?

Rhetorical exclamation increases emotional tension. With its help, attention is focused on a specific subject. In the form of an exclamation, this or that concept is affirmed:

How poor is our language!

(F. Tyutchev) -

Hey watch out! under the forests do not indulge ... -

We know everything ourselves, shut up!

(V. Bryusov)

Rhetorical exclamations intensify the thinking of feeling in the message:

1 Introduction to Literary Studies / Ed. G.N. Pospelov. | \"L How good, how fresh were the roses

In my garden! How they deceived my eyes!

(I. Myatlev)

Rhetorical appeal, being an appeal in form, is conditional and gives poetic speech the necessary author's intonation: intonation of anger, cordiality, solemnity, irony.

A writer (poet) can refer to readers, to the heroes of his works, to objects, to phenomena:

Tatiana, dear Tatiana!

With you now I shed tears.

(A. Pushkin)

What do you know, boring whisper?

Reproach or grumbling

I lost a day?

What do you want from me?

(A. Pushkin)

Someday, lovely creature,

I will become your memory.

(M. Tsvetaeva)

Of the two functions inherent in the appeal - invocative and evaluative-characterizing (expressively expressive) - the last one prevails in the rhetorical address: the Earth is the mistress! I bowed my brow to you (V. Solovyov).

Rhetorical exclamation, rhetorical question, rhetorical appeal can be combined, which creates additional emotionality:

Youth! Oy! Has she left?

You are not lost - dropped.

(K. Sluchevsky)

Where are you, my cherished star,

A crown of heavenly beauty?

(I. Bunin)

O cry of women of all times:

My dear, what have I done to you?!

(M. Tsvetaeva)

In artistic speech there is a rhetorical statement: Yes, there were people in our time -

Mighty, dashing tribe...

(M. Lermontov)

Yes, love like our blood loves,

None of you love!

and rhetorical denial:

No, I'm not Byron

I'm different.

(M. Lermontov)

Rhetorical figures are also found in epic works: And what Russian does not like to drive fast? Does his soul, striving to spin, take a walk, sometimes say “Damn it all!” - Is it possible for his soul not to love her?<...>Eh, trio! Threesome bird, who invented you? To know that you could only be born among a lively people, in that land that does not like to joke, but spread out half the world as evenly as possible, and go and count the miles until it fills your eyes.

Isn't it true that you too, Rus, that a brisk, unbeatable troika are rushing about? Where are you going? Give an answer. Does not give an answer (N.V. Gogol).

In the above example, there are rhetorical questions, and rhetorical exclamations, and rhetorical appeals.

The figures of reinforcement include the figures of "opposition", which are based on the juxtaposition of opposites.

Antithesis (Greek antithesis - opposition). This term in the "Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary" denotes two concepts: 1) a stylistic figure based on a sharp opposition of images and concepts; 2) the designation of any content-significant contrast (which can be intentionally hidden), in contrast to which the anti-theme is always demonstrated openly (often through layer-io-antonyms)1:

I am a king - I am a slave. I am a worm - I am a god!

(G. Derzhavin) Do not fall behind you. I am a guard.

You are a convoy. Fate is one.

(A. Akhmatova)

The antithesis enhances the emotional coloring of speech and emphasizes the sharply expressed opposition of concepts or phenomena. A convincing example is Lermontov's poem "Duma":

And we hate, and we love by chance,

Sacrificing nothing to either malice or love.

And some kind of secret cold reigns in the soul,

When the fire boils in the blood.

The opposition can also be expressed descriptively: Once he served in the hussars, and even happily; no one knew the reason that prompted him to retire and settle in a poor place, where he lived both poorly and prodigally: he always walked, in a worn-out black frock coat, and kept an open table for all the officers of our regiment. True, his dinner consisted of two or three dishes prepared by a retired soldier, but champagne flowed like a river (A.S. Pushkin).

In the examples given, antonyms are used. But the antithesis is based not only on the use of the opposite meaning of words, but also on a detailed opposition of characters, phenomena, properties, images and concepts.

S.Ya. Marshak, translating an English folk song, jokingly emphasized two principles that distinguish boys and girls: mischievous, prickly in the first and gentle, soft in the second.

Boys and girls

What are boys made of?

From thorns, shells

And green frogs.

This is what boys are made of.

What are girls made of?

From sweets and cakes,

And all kinds of sweets.

This is what girls are made of.

The emergence of the concept of "antithesis" is associated with ancient times, when a person began to realize the difference between such concepts as land / water, earth / sky, day / night, cold / heat, sleep / reality, etc.

The first antitheses are found in myths. Suffice it to recall the antipode heroes: Zeus-Prometheus, Zeus-Typhon, Perseus-Atlas.

From mythology, the antithesis passed into folklore: into fairy tales (“Truth and Falsehood”), epics (Ilya Muromets - the Nightingale the Robber), proverbs (Learning is light, and ignorance is darkness).

In literary works, where moral and idealistic problems are always comprehended (Good and Evil, Life and Death, Harmony and Chaos), there are almost always antipodal heroes (Don Quixote and Sancho Panso in Cervantes, Merchant Kalashnikov and guardsman Kiribeevich in M. Lermontov, Pontius Pilate and Yeshua Ga-Notsri at M. Bulgakov). In many works, the antithesis is already present in the titles: "The Wolf and the Lamb", I. Krylov, "Mozart and Salieri" by A. Pushkin, "Wolves and Sheep" by A. Ostrovsky, "Fathers and Sons" by I. Turgenev, "Crime and Punishment » F. Dostoevsky, "War and Peace" by L. Tostoy, "Thick and Thin" by M. Chekhov.

A kind of antithesis is an oxymoron (o ksimoron) (from the Greek oxymoron - witty-deep) - a stylistic device of combining words that are opposite in meaning with the aim of an unusual, impressive expression of a new concept, idea. This figure is often used in Russian literature, for example, in the titles of works ("The Living Corpse" by L. Tolstoy, "Dead Souls" by 11. Gogol, "Optimistic Tragedy" by V. Vishnevsky).

On the one hand, an oxymoron is a combination of antonymous

a) a noun with an adjective: I love the magnificent nature of withering (A.S. Pushkin); The wretched luxury of the outfit (N.A. Nekrasov);

b) a noun with a noun: peasant ladies (A.S. Pushkin);

c) an adjective with an adjective: a bad good person (A.P. Chekhov);

d) a verb with an adverb and participles with an adverb: It is fun for her to be sad so elegantly naked (A. Akhmatova).

On the other hand, the antithesis, brought to a paradox, aims to strengthen the meaning and emotional tension:

Oh, how painfully happy I am with you!

(A. Pushkin)

But their ugly beauty

I soon comprehended the mystery.

(M. Lermontov)

And the impossible is possible

The road is long and easy.

Sometimes the figures of "displacement" include inversion.

Inversion (lat. shuegeyu - permutation, turning over) is a stylistic figure that consists in violating the generally accepted grammatical sequence of speech.

Words placed in unusual places attract attention and acquire a greater semantic load. The rearrangement of parts of the phrase gives it a peculiar expressive tone. When A. Tvardovsky writes The battle is on, holy and right .., the inversion emphasizes the correctness of the people waging a war of liberation.

A common type of inversion is the setting of an emotional definition (epithet) in the form of an adjective (or adverb) after the word it defines. It is used by M. Lermontov in the poem "Sail":

A lonely sail turns white

In the blue mist of the sea!

What is he looking for in a distant land?

What is he looking for in his native land?

Adjectives are placed at the end of each verse. And this is not accidental - it is they who determine the main semantic and emotional mood of the work of M. Lermontov. In addition, the author used another feature related to the verse in general: the end of the verse has an additional pause, which allows the word at the end of the verse to be emphasized.

In some cases, the inversion consists in the fact that the words in the sentence are interchanged, but at the same time those that should be nearby are separated, and this gives the phrase semantic weight:

Where the light-winged one betrayed my joy.

(A. Pushkin)

Using inversion, the poet A. Zhemchuzhnikov creates a poem in which tragic reflections about the homeland sound:

I know that country where the sun is without power,

Where the shroud is already waiting, the cold, the earth And where in the bare forests a dull wind blows, -

Either my native land, or my homeland.

There are two main types of inversion: anastrophe (rearrangement of adjacent words) and hyperbaton (separating them to highlight in a phrase): And the death of this alien land did not calm the guests (A. Pushkin) - that is, guests from a foreign land who did not even calm down in death.

Many stylistic devices since Antiquity have been called into question, namely to consider them as figures or tropes. Such techniques include parallelism - a stylistic technique of parallel construction of adjacent phrases, poetic lines or stanzas.

Parallelism (Greek parallioz - located, or walking side by side) is an identical or similar arrangement of elements of speech in adjacent parts of the text, which, correlating, create a single poetic image161. Usually it is based on a comparison of actions, and on this basis - persons, objects, circumstances.

Figurative parallelism arose even in oral syncretic creativity, which was characterized by parallels between relationships in nature and people's lives, because people were aware of the connection between nature and human life. Nature has always been in the first place, human actions - in the second. Here is an example from a Russian folk song:

Do not twist, do not twist grass with dodder,

Don't get used to it, don't get used to it, well done with the girl.

There are several varieties of figurative parallelism. "Psychological"162 was widely used in folklore:

Not a falcon flies through the sky,

Not a falcon drops its gray wings,

The young man is galloping along the path,

Bitter tears pour from clear eyes.

This technique also occurs in prose. For example, in two episodes from L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" describes the oak (in the first - old, clumsy, in the second - covered with spring foliage, awakening to life). Each of the descriptions is correlated with the state of mind of Andrei Bolkonsky, who, having lost hope for happiness, returns to life after meeting with Natasha Rostova in Otradnoe.

In Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin" human life is closely connected with nature. In it, this or that landscape picture serves as a "screensaver" to a new stage in the life of the heroes of the novel and a detailed metaphor for his spiritual life. Spring is defined as "the time of love", and the loss of the ability to love is compared to the "storm of cold autumn." Human life is subject to the same universal laws as the life of nature; constant parallels deepen the idea that the life of the characters of the novel is "inscribed" in the life of nature.

Literature has mastered the possibility not directly, but indirectly, to correlate the spiritual movements of characters with this or that state of nature. However, they may or may not match. So, in Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" in Chapter XI, the melancholy mood of Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov is described, to whom nature seems to accompany and therefore he ... was unable to part with the darkness, with the garden. With a feeling of fresh air on his face, and with this sadness, with this anxiety... Unlike Nikolai Petrovich, his brother was incapable of feeling the beauty of the world: Pavel Petrovich reached the end of the garden, and also thought, and also raised his eyes to the sky. But his beautiful dark eyes reflected nothing but the light of the stars. He was not born a romantic, and his smartly dry and passionate, in a French way, misanthropic soul did not know how to dream ...

There is a parallelism built on the opposition:

From others I praise - that the ashes,

From you and blasphemy - praise.

(A. Akhmatova)

Negative parallelism (anti-parallelism) is singled out, in which negation emphasizes not the difference, but the coincidence of the main features of the compared phenomena:

It is not the wind that rages over the forest,

Streams did not run from the mountains,

Frost-voivode on patrol Bypasses his possessions.

(N. Nekrasov)

A.N. Veselovsky noted that “psychologically, one can look at a negative formula as a way out of parallelism”163. Anti-parallelism is common in oral folk poetry and less frequently in literature. It cannot serve as an independent means of subject representation, the basis for constructing a whole work, and is usually used in the beginnings of works or in separate episodes.

Another kind of parallelism - inverted (reversed) parallelism is denoted by the term chiasm (from the Greek. sShaBtoe), in which the parts are located in the sequence AB - BA "A": Everything is in me, and I am in everything (F. Tyutchev); usually with the meaning of the antithesis: We eat to live, not live to eat.

Parallelism can be based on the repetition of words (“verbal” parallelism), sentences (“syntactic” parallelism) and adjacent columns of speech (isocolon)164.

Syntactic parallelism, i.e., a detailed comparison of two or more phenomena given in similar syntactic constructions, belongs to syntactic figures and in its function approaches comparison:

The stars are shining in the blue sky

Waves crash in the blue sea.

(A.S. Pushkin)

Where does the wind blow in the sky,

obedient clouds rush there.

(M.Yu. Lermontov)

An equal number of adjacent columns of speech is denoted by the term isocolon (from the Greek isokolon).

N.V. Gogol in "Notes of a Madman" in the first phrase creates an isocolon of two terms, in the second - of three: Save me! take me! give me a trio of horses as fast as a whirlwind! Sit down, my driver, ring, my bell, soar, horses, and carry me from this world!

The field of poetic syntax includes deviations from standard language forms, expressed in the absence of grammatical connection or in its violation.

Solecism (Greek soloikismos from the name of the city of Sola, whose inhabitants spoke impurely in Attic) is an incorrect language turnover as an element of style (usually “low”): the use of a non-literary word (dialectism, barbarism, vulgarism). The difference between solecism and figures is that figures are usually used to create a "high" style. An example of solecism: I am ashamed as an honest officer (A. Griboyedov).

A special case of solecism is the omission of prepositions: She bowed her hand; the window is flying (V. Mayakovsky).

Enallaga (Greek ennalage - rotation, movement, substitution) - the use of one grammatical category instead of another:

Asleep, the creator will rise (instead of “asleep, he will rise”)

(G. Batenkov)

Enallaga has two meanings: 1) type of solecism: incorrect use of grammatical categories (parts of speech, gender, person, number, case): There can be no talk of taking a walk (instead of: a walk); 2) type of metonymy - the transfer of a definition to a word adjacent to the one being defined:

Half-asleep flock of old people (instead of: "half-asleep")

(N. Nekrasov)165

Sylleps (Greek syllepsis - capture) - a stylistic figure: the union of heterogeneous members in a common syntactic or semantic subordination; syntactic alignment of heterogeneous members:

Don't wait from the tomb for Sunday

Substances lying in the mud,

Alkaya in her fun And aloof deities.

(G. Batenkov)

Here are examples of a sylleps with syntactical heterogeneity: We love fame, but drown different minds in a glass (A. Pushkin) - here: additions expressed by a noun and an infinitive are combined; with phraseological heterogeneity: The gossip's eyes and teeth flared up (I. Krylov) - here: phraseology eyes flared up and the extra-phraseological word teeth; with semantic heterogeneity: Full of sounds and confusion (A. Pushkin) - here: state of mind and its cause166. Anakoluf (Greek anakoluthos - incorrect, inconsistent) - syntactic mismatch of parts or members of sentences:

Who knows a new name

Wearing seals, he is resurrected (instead of: “resurrect”) with a myrrh-streaming head.

(O. Mandelstam)

Neva all night

Rushed to the sea against the storm,

Not having overcome them (instead of: "her") violent dope.

(A. Pushkin)

Anacoluf is one of the means of characterizing the character's speech. For example, Smerdyakov's phrase - This, so that it could be, sir, on the contrary, never at all, sir ... ("The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky) - testifies to uncertainty, inability to express thoughts, about the poor vocabulary of the character. Anakoluf is widely used as a means of a satirical image: Approaching this station and looking at nature through the window, my hat fell off (A.P. Chekhov).

In addition to tropes, lexical means of imagery and expressiveness of the language, poetic syntax and elements of phonics largely contribute.

Poetic syntax is a system of special means of constructing speech. Features of the structure of speech in a work are always associated with the originality of the characters and life situations depicted in it, from the author's point of view. Another important feature of the syntax of poetic speech is determined by the fact that in a literary work people are depicted in motion, in the process of changing their internal state, relationships. All this is reflected in the construction of poetic speech.

Special means of syntax of figurative and expressive speech are called figures of poetic speech. Figures help to significantly enhance the completeness and expressiveness of the semantic and emotional shades of speech: multi-union creates some slowness of speech, non-union is most often used to enhance the feeling of a rapidly and intense development of events, abrupt transitions in a person’s internal state, inversion, in which one of the lines of a sentence becomes unusual for him a place that stands out. In inversion constructions, the redistribution of logical stress and intonational isolation of words, that is, words sound more expressive, higher.

“I will tease about the bloodied heart flap;

dreaming on a softened brain,

like a fat lackey

not greasy sash,

your thought

mocking me to my fill, sassy

This excerpt from Mayakovsky's poem "A Cloud in Pants" is a vivid example of inversions. His excited intonation is fixed in complex inversions “teeth hanging down to the sky”; "heart - with long-haired postcards, the noblest album"; "faceted lines barefoot diamond"; “a young man thinking about life ... I will say” and others.

§2. Break, rhetorical communication, question, denial, affirmation, exclamation.

The omission of one of the members of the sentence also serves to increase emotional expressiveness; Break - the inclusion of unsaid sentences in speech. In Mayakovsky's poem "V.I. Lenin" we read:

" What do you see?!

Only his forehead,

And hope Konstantinovna

In the fog for...

Maybe in the eyes without tears

You can see more.

I didn't look into those eyes.

Here the cliff serves to convey a deep inner shock. Syntactic figures, in which the author's attitude to the phenomenon and its assessment are expressed especially clearly, are called rhetorical appeals, questions, denials, assertions, exclamations.

In Mayakovsky, whose whole system of expressive means is extremely intense, aimed at the extremely dramatized speech expression of the lyrical hero, these figures are used to the maximum:

"Beat, drum!

Drum, drum!

There were slaves! No slave!

Drum!

Drum!

("150,000,000")

Thinner squeak.

Who hears it? -

Is it a wife!

("V.I. Lenin")

" Enough!

Talk to strangers!

("V.I. Lenin")

"End the war!

Enough!

("Good")

"Close, time,

your mouth!"

("Good")

This helps Mayakovsky imitate a fictitious dialogue, under the guise of an arbitrary emotional response to an external phenomenon, to make an ordinary message about this phenomenon, to sharpen the listener's emotional attention.

§3. Phonics, alliteration, assonance.

Phonics is the artistic use of sound possibilities in poetic speech. It includes the general rules of sound agreement of words in poetic speech, which contribute to its euphony, harmony, distinctness, and the use of special means of sound amplification and emotional highlighting of certain words and sentences.

With a special means of sound amplification, the selection of certain segments of speech is based on the use of sound repetitions.

Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds that is clearly visible in speech. The repetition of vowels is called assonance.

Mayakovsky wrote: "I resort to alliteration for framing, for even greater emphasis on an important word for me"

Alliterations and assonances of Mayakovsky give an emotionally memorable sound to the poetic text: “And the horror of jokes pecking laughter”, tears come down from ...”;

"hand of the river"; “In your mustache”, “in the choirs of the Archangel’s chorus, God, robbed, goes to punish!” (“Cloud”), “not at all embarrassed by the integrity of the jaws, let’s go rattling about the jaw with the jaw” (“About this”), “I hunch over the globe of the hills” (“About this”), “The city robbed, rowed, grabbed” (“ V.I. Lenin), “The knife is rust. I cut. I rejoice. In the head, the heat raises the degree ("Good").

Through the use of phonetic means of verse, Mayakovsky's patterns become generalized, convex, the abstract is spiritualized.

Mayakovsky's word really sounds ("the words of the alarm", "the word raising thunder"). The whole system of expressive means of Mayakovsky makes the most of all the artistic resources of the Russian language, which is why he is called an innovator poet. But innovation would not have taken place if it were not for the passionate lyrical "I" of the poet, the one who saw it this way, survived the world and poured out his spiritual anguish in verse. It is under these conditions that all expressive and visual means become artistic, except when they organically enter the fabric of the work. Their choice depends on the efforts and tasks of the artist of the word.

Conclusion.

It is difficult for me to define my attitude to Mayakovsky's poetry. The fact is that they, in my opinion, are the opposite of "as simple as lowing." His very unusual wordy images are difficult to understand, not so much to understand as to read. I can’t understand some of them, I don’t like them, for example, “the muzzle of the room was carried out with horror”, “the street fell through like the nose of a syphilitic”, “our flabby fat will flow out over a person”, “a newborn cry moves from my mouth with my feet” etc. others, on the contrary, are very interesting, and expressive, very strong, such as “I am lonely, like the last eye of a person going to the blind”, “the last love in the world was expressed in the blush of a consumptive”, “the butterfly of a poetic heart”, etc. Many of the images that are now very much to my liking, at first, at the first reading, caused me rejection, even some disgust, for example: “Earth! Let me heal your balding head with rags of my lips stained with other people's gilding”, “a skull filled with verses”, etc. Very often, for a few words, for one phrase, I can recognize a writer as a genius. Mayakovsky has this urgent “Listen!, After all, if the stars are lit, it means that someone needs it?”. This is one of my favorite stocks.

Mayakovsky in verse usually talks about himself, about the people around him, about God. Very often he draws people as disgusting gluttons who have climbed into the sink of things, but at the same time he collects their tears, their pains, this becomes an unbearable burden for him, but he still “creeps further” to throw them to the “dark god of thunderstorms” the source of animal fans. But people are still grateful, and the tradition of “love-hate” continues in Mayakovsky’s work. God for the poet is not a sacrament, not the Existing, but a man, and quite an ordinary one, somewhat more interesting than the rest. A stunning verse reveals not only his attitude, but also the inconsistency of the poet's personality: "And when my voice obscenely hoots ... maybe Jesus Christ sniffs my forget-me-not soul."