The Poetic World of Taras Shevchenko: Principles of Artistic Thinking (to the 200th Anniversary of the Kobzar)

Abstract

The article deals with the three aspects of Taras Shevchenko’s artistic genius – creativementality, dualistic world view and poetic imagery. The poet’s psychological identitypredetermined a unique combination of conceptual, philosophical and aesthetic elements in hisworks.The analysis of Shevchenko’s poetic works, his ‘Kobzar’ collection in particular, reveals theprocess of merging ‘personal identity’ with ‘social identity’. At the very beginning of his creativecareer, the two principles developed independently – from outer macroworld and innermicroworld; Shevchenko’s mature works offer evidence of their natural synthesis responsible forthe phenomenon of his poetic genius. The analysis of Shevchenko’s shorter poems and his heroicpoem ‘Haidamaky’ shows that dualism is the underlying principle of his poetry: Shevchenko’s‘social identity’ is presented in terms of mythological consciousness, his ‘personal identity’ (owingto life circumstances), in terms of existential philosophy.The analysis of Shevchenko’s artistic mentality, philosophical, mythological, existential, andaesthetic concepts adds to our understanding of the unique world of the great Ukrainian poet. Hispoetry reflects his own knowledge of the world; at the same time, it represents this world in all thecomplexity of national and universal phenomena; Shevchenko could only become a great worldwriter by becoming a great Ukrainian writer