On Analyzing the Verbal Rhythm of a Russian Lyric Folk Song

Abstract

The verse of folk songs has played an important role in the devel- opment of literary verse in many European poetic traditions but has usually remained less studied. Many difficulties in the analysis of the rhythm of folk songs are not encountered in the analysis of a literary poem. Textological prob- lems arise and the question of what constitutes a verbal text proper becomes crucial because folk songs have no fixed text but exist in variants, have the superimposed rhythmical level of the melody, and may be composed in a poetic idiom that diverges from the contemporary standard language. A traditional Russian wedding lyric, which often has the incipit Iz-za lesu, lesu temnogo and has been recorded over a hundred times, is taken as an example in this article. The structure of the melody may induce several kinds of repetition in the verbal text, such as the repetition of all lines (AA, BB, CC .. .) or of all lines but the first and last (AB, BC, CD . . .). In accordance with the approach proposed by the ethnomusicologist A. A. Banin, all such repeated lines are excluded so as to obtain what may be termed the pure textual analogue, which serves as the basis for analysis of the verbal rhythm. At this point, however, another distinctive level must be dealt with - the traditional poetic language of Russian folk songs, which evince differences especially in accentuation and morphology. As performers of oral poetry, singers may combine and manipulate such elements to create the rhythmical structure of a particular poetic meter. In the case of this wedding lyric, the meter is most often trochaic tetrameter with unrhymed two-syllable clausula. This article is derived from Three Russian LyricFolk SongMeters (Bailey 1993). Wherever possible, references are made to works available in English.