Rule‐Makers and Rule‐Breakers: Joseph Brodsky and Boris Slutsky as Reformers of Russian Rhythm

Abstract

In his book Symbolism (1910), Andrei Belyi classifies Russian poets into and followers, deriving this distinction from the properties of verse rhythm. Followers, Belyi argues, echo the rhythmic trends set by others in a given period, while reformers deviate from these norms. Belyi believed that his contribution to poetics would render aesthetics an exact science. To contemporary poststructuralist literary critics, this contribution may seem naive: Belyi's linguistic analysis, they might protest, merely formalizes our intuitions. However, linguistic analysis of verse ranges far beyond formalizing what we already know, often revealing surprising and counterintuitive facts about style. For example, according to Belyi's theory, we find Aleksander Pushkin, the creator of the Russian literary language, not in the reformer category, but among the followers of Vasilii Zhukovskii. Though posed almost a hundred years ago, some of the questions raised by Belyi's classification remain unanswered today. While many researchers have discussed specific reforms, no general principle has been formulated to explain what reformer really means.1