VYACHESLAV VSEVOLODOVICH IVANOV AND THE ANALYSIS OF RUSSIAN VERSE RHYTHM

AUTHOR(S) / AUTOR(I): Barry P. Scherr

Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire), Department of Russian

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.46793/SLCI.187S

ABSTRACT / SAŽETAK:

Among Vyacheslav Ivanov’s many writings are articles on poetics, and among these several important essays examine various aspects of verse rhythm. Influenced by the statistical approaches to verse worked out by Andrei Kolmogorov and inspired in part by the poet Andrei Belyi’s early twentieth-century writings on rhythm, Ivanov explores the workings of rhythm in poems written by several twentieth-century poets. His interest is not so much in simply describing the manner in which stressed and unstressed syllables alternate to create rhythm, but in what might be termed “metarhyth-mical” functions: ways in which rhythm can play additional roles within a poem. Ivanov describes the way in which shifts in rhythm from one portion of a poem to the next may assume a semantic function by signaling a change in topic, and he also notes how the use of rare rhythmic forms can establish a link between a specific poem (or a poet’s oeuvre) and the modern tradition. In certain works that employ various meters he detects a kind of rhythm in the way that metrical themes are woven together. In addition, the appearance of a similar rhythm in portions of a poem written in different meters can serve to create a sense of unity for the work as a whole. These innovative explorations of rhythm by Ivanov suggest ways for scholars to cast a fresh eye on its importance for structuring works of poetry.

KEYWORDS / KLJUČNE REČI:

verse rhythm, meter, Russian poetry, 20th-century poetry, Belyi, Maya-kovsky, Tsvetaeva, Samoilov, Mezhirov

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT / PROJEKAT:

REFERENCES / LITERATURA:

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