Some observations on Estonian and Russian versification

Abstract

My paper deals with some problems involved in the transfer of a versification system from one language to anotheran exceedingly common phenomenon. In modern Estonian poetry at least seven different systems of versification are presently current:1 three tonic systems (syllabotonic, accentual, vers libre); three quantitative systems (traditional folk verse; classical quantitative meters used with great success in translations of Greek and Latin poetry, most recently by Ants Oras in a beautiful rendition of Vergil's Bucolics ; and linear-quantitative verse used with equally great success by Aleksis Rannit, a. o.); finally, syllabic verse, which has been used in translations of Romance syllabic poetry with good success. All of these systems, except, of course, that of folk verse, a quantitative trochaic tetrameter, were borrowed at one time or another from the poetry of foreign languages. Today Estonian poetry is flourishing both in Soviet occupied Estonia and in emigration. Emigr/ poets, naturally, gravitate toward the poets of the English-speaking world and the Romance nations. Estonian poets back home are inevitably exposed to a great deal of Russian influence. To begin with, they cannot help becoming familiar with Russian poetry. Many of them translate Russian poetry into Estonian. All the better known Estonian poets are being translated into Russian. Last but not least, the all-pervading pressure of Russification promotes all tendencies toward acculturation, and convergent tendencies in poetry might by expected to be among them. Russian poetry is still dominated by rhymed syllabotonic and accentual verse, while the poetry of the West has largely abandoned traditional metric and rhyming patterns. Therefore, a prevalence in Estonian poetry of rhymed syllabotonic and accentual verse would a priori represent a tendency toward acculturation, while the use of quantitative verse and vers libre would be a tendency in the other direction. In this paper I would like to confront some apparently parallel prosodie traits of Estonian and Russian verse, and try to determine their actual relationship. Let me begin with some statistics. A recent study by J. Pftldmae 2 suggests that in the 19th century 84% of all Estonian Kunstdichtung was still trochaic, and of this 85% in quatrains, 70% with abab rhyme: while in the 20th century, with 71.3% of all poetry syllabotonic, iambs represent 41.5% of the total and trochees a mere 16.8%. I did some counting of my own, using Paul Rummo's large anthology of Estonian poetry (1967) for this purpose.