The “Stone Word” in Russian Poetry: The Figurative Parallel “Words, Poems – Stones, Metals”

Abstract

This article studies a fragment of the figurative worldview of Russian poetry, i. e. comparative tropes which are characterised by the interaction of semantic fields “Words, poems” and “Stones, metals”. The article aims to illustrate the ongoing lexicographic project Materials for the Dictionary of Metaphors and Similes of 19th and 20th Centuries Russian Literature and its significance for a systematic description of comparative tropes in terms of their evolution over two centuries. The research is based on the works of about 300 Russian poets, which are the source of the fourth issue of Materials for the Dictionary of Metaphors and Similes of 19th and 20th Centuries Russian Literature – “Stones, metals”. Additionally, the authors use materials of the Poetic Sub-corpus of the Russian National Corpus. The figurative parallel considered in the article has not been studied previously as part of linguo-poetic analysis, which makes this research innovative. The study relies on methods of corpus poetics and the basic concepts of the theory of semantic fields. The authors describe the structure of the figurative field “Stones, metals”, revealing the semantic relationships between its elements. A figurative field is defined as a hierarchised set of images of comparison used in comparative tropes and united by a common semantic invariant. The concept of a figurative field is based on the notion of a linguistic semantic field as a set of lexical units concentrated around a general meaning and reflecting a certain conceptual field of the language. The figurative field “Stones, metals” chosen for analysis is divided into the following semantic classes whose elements are connected by genus-species relations: 1. Jewels and semi-precious stones; 2. Precious metals; 3. Metals and alloys; 4. Stones; 5. Metal working and stone working; 6. Deposits; 7. Metal corrosion. The main entities compared with stones and metals are words and poems. Along with these dominant concepts, the authors consider related notions: name, phrase, speech, mumbling, swearing, curse, prayer, rumour, and terms related to poetry: sonnet, elegy, rhyme, rhythm, iamb, choree, caesura, line, stanza, etc. The authors provide a classification of formal types of comparative tropes realising the interaction of the semantic categories in question. They conclude that comparative tropes of Russian poetry form a system evolving in time.