ON THE NUANCES OF ANDREY BELY’S DECLAMATORY STYLE AND S. BERNSTEIN’S STUDIES OF HIS POETIC RECITALS

Abstract

The paper offers a detailed analysis of Andrey Bely’s (melo)declamatory style in the context of his poetic and theoretical experimentations. Bely’s contemporaries described his recitals as adhering to the typically ‘decadent’ manner of declamation: with the poem’s meter emphasized by monotonous melodization. On examining the written mentions of his recitals, one is moved to agree with Bernstein’s statement that the poet had undergone a change in his declamatory manner, confirmed by Bely himself. And indeed, a first-ever digital analysis of the audio recordings made by Bernstein in chronological order sheds light on the inner causes of Bely’s poetic experimentation (‘melodism’) in his later years, and, together with the printed version of the poetry, points to the connection between the poet’s declamatory style and the general direction in which he went with his work as a poet and a theorist. Bely’s later poetry called for two distinctive manners of recital: one, relatively stable in terms of pauses and melodization, for traditional meters, and the other, more elaborate, for his ‘melodic’ verses. The latter is more in affinity with the poet’s manner of reciting his rhythmical prose. The two declamatory styles originate in the voiceless recital during composition, as described by Bely to Bernstein.