“Rus', You are but a Kiss in the Cold!” (1921) by V. Khlebnikov: Text as a Combinatory Model / Dynamic Construction

Abstract

The paper is devoted to analysis of the poem by Velimir Khlebnikov “Rus', you are but a kiss in the frost!” (1921) as part of a study of transformation of the sonnet genre in the poet’s verses. Velimir Khlebnikov elaborates his version of a lyrical story of ‘a kiss in the frost’, originating from the poem by Alexander Pushkin “Winter. What do we do in the village?…” (1829). The love scene is represented as a natural phenomenon, embedded not only in the winter landscape but also in the Universe. There are no persons in the Nature’s integrity, and the couple of lovers are designated only by demonstrative pronouns. The tension of feelings (“the lightning kiss”) is but one of the manifestations of the Elements. The phenomenon of a lightning as a “potentially energy-embracing symbol” has a conceptual character in Khlebnikov’s perception of the world, is both the “primordial image” of the world and the principle of universal unity, which has already been noted by the eminent researchers’ of Khlebnikov’s works. From the formal viewpoint, the text is a special variant of structural deformity and overcoming it, which is directly related to the idea of accumulation of energy, explosion, and return to tranquility. The poem is characterized by increased expression of the arrangement of its sounds; alliteration of the occlusive, fricative, and sonorant sounds, their combinations, and paronymic attraction create the effect of a special energy of sound-making. The rhythmic arrangement of the text “deceives” the reader’s expectations: fast shifts and transitions from one meter to another (polymetry in the first stanza), occasional caesuras in the first, fourth, and ninth verses, an enjambement in the seventh and eighth verses: breakage of the seventh verse, when the verb “would [swiftly] outline” starts a line, visualizing the movement of a lightning. Structural deformities are settled in the final — the last verse is written in a classical iambic tetrameter. Graphically, the lyrical text is a combinatory dynamic model which may vary in terms of strophic division, the “headless” sonnet, preserving the characteristics of the Italian sonnet, dominates. The mechanism of cohesion is ensured by all the levels of the artistic whole, and the genre of the sonnet is a harmonizing form, balancing the structural instability of the text.