Eyebrows, Chintz and a Smile: Some Features of the Author’s Interpretation of the Concept BEAUTY in the Poetry of Pavel Vasiliev

Abstract

Purpose. The article examines the features of the representation of the concept BEAUTY in the poetry of Pavel Vasiliev. In his work, there is a transcultural symbiosis of Russian and Kazakh aesthetic canons of beauty.Results. Typically Kazakh features of a person's appearance look aesthetically attractive for the poet. He considers eyebrows to be an important part of a human beauty. A peculiar artistic interpretation of this detail of appearance is manifested in the epithets, in a dynamic metaphorical model [EYEBROWS → are BIRDS]. A relevant sign of beauty is the harmony – the proportionality of a person’s figure. The peculiarities of understanding the beauty of a woman in clude close attention to such details of clothes and shoes as a skirt, a shawl and heels. The skirt in the process of metonymization replaces the woman [SKIRT instead of A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN]. Semiotically relevant is the characteristic of clothing made by the fabric – chintz, silk. In the semiosis of fabric as a sign of class affiliation and financial situation, such mechanism of analogy as the metonymy is involved. Developing and supplementing the ideas of oppositeness of external and internal beauty of a person and the localization of the internal beauty in his eyes, Pavel Vasiliev defines the locus of a spiritual beauty in a smile, in the corners of a woman's lips.Conclusion. The concept of BEAUTY in Vasiliev’s poetry has the individual and author's artistic and aesthetic features, and preserves the folk aesthetic ideal of beauty at its core.