Estonian Poetry Research Articles

Ridala ikoonikast sümbolismi esteetika taustal. On Ridala’s Iconics in the context of Symbolist Aesthetics

This article examines those aspects of Ridala’s poetics that have not received in-depth analysis to date, particularly his iconics: his graphic-imagistic diagrammatism on the one hand; durativity – the lasting and progressive quality of its soundpictures, on the other. The point of departure is the French sound symbolism (particularly that of Verlaine) in texts from Ridala’s early (to some extent also middle) period; the influences of Italian late romanticism and new classicism (particularly Carducci), and the melding of these with the search for qualities that are archaically or authentically Estonian. Juxtaposed with modern influences is Ridala’s application of anti-metrics when representing Estonian landscapes. These observations permit the hypothesis that Ridala was attempting a radical renewal of Estonian poetry, and in this respect the author of this article arrives at a rather different conclusion from that of Semper. The analytical section of the article draws upon M. K. Hiraga’s cognitive-semiotic model (2006) based on Peirce and the cognitivists, which considers metaphor to be a blending into a new concept, subsequent to a visual-iconic source-target relation and its representation by means of an iconic diagram or imagescheme. On this basis a new, blended concept is formed. As shown by the analysis, there are several texts in Ridala’s early and middle creative periods in which the iconic-diagrammatic level dominates, never truly arriving at the third step of conceptualization (never finding a definite common denominator). This allows us to regard Ridala’s iconics in the key of symbolist allegory, even in several examples that appear to be realistic natural landscape pictures of the homeland.

ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC HEXAMETER IN ESTONIAN POETRY AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY – THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

1. Introduction In most European poetical traditions, dactylic hexameter is almost always the first ancient metre to become employed systematically. same happened in Estonian poetry: here too the verse technique of hexameter was the first to gain special attention. developers of the Estonian hexameter proceeded mostly from the German and Russian tradition. Although the German theorists had discussed the possibilities of the quantitative hexameter in modern languages already since the beginning of the 19th century (for details, see, e.g. Lotman 1976, 1987), the Estonian hexametrists still proceeded from the principle offered by Johann Christoph Gottsched in the 18th century. According to this principle, the strong positions were to be filled with stressed syllables and weak positions with unstressed ones: such rules resulted in the accentual-syllabic hexameter. aim of the present paper is to give a synopsis of the Estonian accentual-syllabic hexameter from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. material comprises the translation of the first song of The Odyssey by Jaan Bergmann (i.e. 444 verses), Friedrich Kuhlbars' stichic hexameters (72 verses) and elegiac distichs (208 verses), Villem Ridala's elegiac distichs (456 verses) and several other attempts of dactylic hexameters in the earlier Estonian poetry. main attention will be paid to three different aspects of versification, that is, to the prosodical, metrical and rhythmical structures. 2. Jaan Bergmann's hexameter 2.1. Prosody Jaan Bergmann was the first Estonian author who in order to diversify Estonian poetry (1) systematically wrote stichic hexameters and thus developed the principles of accommodating hexameter into the Estonian language. Jaan Bergmann uses in his hexameter several techniques which are characteristic of the Estonian poetry in the 19th century. most conspicuous are the following. 1) monophthongization of diphthongs. (2) In the earlier Estonian poetry, regardless of verse metre, diphthongs and long vowels can turn into monophthongs whenever required by versification rules. For example, in the following iambic tetrameter by Karl Eduard Soot (from the poem They said ...--Nad utlesid ...) we encounter the word 'kaod' which would normally be considered a monosyllabic word containing a diphthong, but in this particular case is monophthongized and thus fills two metrical positions: x X x X x X x X x Nad utlesid, sa kaod ara. There are numerous examples of such device in Jaan Bergmann's hexameters as well. For example, in the following verse: X x x X x x X X x x X x X xx X x Et tema nimi saaks tutvaks ja ausaks kuulsate reas (1, 95), the last foot is filled with the word 'reas', which is normally a monosyllabic word. In this case the diphthong 'ea' is monophthongized and becomes a disyllabic word: re-as. other diphthongs like this are, e.g. ea, oa, eo, ao in the following verses: X x x X x x X x X X x X x x Xx Ning et ta kusida voiks, kas isast ei midagi teaks (1, 135), X x x X x x X x x X x x X x x X x Koledas koopas ja teinud tast omale viimase roa (2, 20), X x x X x x X x X x x X x x X x Kuna teid endid on hulk, et jataksid joledad teod (2, 241), X x x X x x X x X x x X x x X x Koiki mu kaaslasi hirm siis kohutas kahvatuks naost (12, 243). At the same time, diphthongs can be retained as such, cf 1, 216: X x x X(x) x X x x X x x X x x X x Seda ei tea. Sest ukski ju ise ei tea, kust ta parit where the word 'tea' occurs in the verse twice. In the first case its prosody can be interpreted in two possible ways: it either fills the strong position of the second foot as a diphthong or is monophthongized and fills the strong position and the first element of the weak position in a dactylic foot. …

О системах стихосложения (преимущественно на материале эстонского и русского стиха)

On systems of versification (mostly in Russian and Estonian poetry)

Karl Martin Sinijarv: anarch of order

At 21, Karl Martin Sinijarv is one of Estonia's youngest poets, sporting pony-tail and cape. He published his first poem at the age of 16. Later, he applied to Tartu University to read theology but was rejected — despite good results in the written examination — because he had published several articles on Lutheranism which were regarded as subversive. Estonia, he says, is a 'very Lutheran state'. Sinijarv now works as a journalist and publisher of his own poetry. Before perestroika, Estonian poetry carried a strain of aesthetic, apolitical protest against Soviet ideology. Literature was politicised only in the late 1980s, when free vent could be given to suppressed memories of labour camps and persecution. Recently, a number of writers who made their names in the 1970s and early 1980s have turned to politics, most notably, perhaps, the distinguished poet Paul-Eerik Rummo, leader of the Estonian Liberal Democratic Party, who today says that he always wanted to be a politician. But younger writers, like Karl Martin Sinijarv, are again experimenting in a literature free of politics and religion. Sinijarv spoke to Irena Maryniak in April 1992. See page 15 for examples of his poetry.

The phonetic realization of trochaeic meter in Latvian and Estonian

Introduction Both Latvian and Estonian folk songs employ trochaeic lines. The two languages are genetically unrelated and typologically different; yet the folk poetry produced by the two peoples has developed a similar metric structure. We believe that the suprasegmental system of a language is crystallized in the metric structure of its traditional poetry;1 would it then not follow that similar metric structures found in traditional poetry imply similarities in the suprasegmental systems? We decided to study the phonetic realization of trochaeic lines in contemporary Estonian and Latvian poetry, with a view toward establishing the similarities and differences between trochaeic lines in the two languages, hoping also that the results of our study may throw some light on the metrics of the respective folk

Quantity in Estonian language and poetry

Quantity in Estonian language and poetry

The mythical element in estonian poetry

Whoever these days plants the word or any of its derivatives into a serious scholarly context is either speaking loosely or asking for trouble.1 my own instance years of preoccupation with myth and mythology have endowed me with a certain set of scholarly stratagems, a few sectarian beliefs complete with animosities towards clashing viewpoints, but mainly with a lot of uncertainty in the face of Claude Levi-Strauss's rhetorical query, In order to understand what a myth is, are we compelled to choose between platitude and sophism? launching his own tertium quid , in this case structural analysis, Levi-Strauss indulges in an Augian clearing of the decks of the albatross-guano of his predecessors: From a theoretical point of view the situation remains very much the same as it was fifty years ago, namely, a picture of chaos. Myths are still widely interpreted in conflicting ways: collective dreams, the outcome of a kind of esthetic play, the foundation of ritual. . . . Mythological figures are considered as personified abstractions, divinized heroes or decayed gods. Whatever the hypothesis, the choice amounts to reducing mythology either to an idle play or to a coarse kind of speculation.2 Out go in one swoop the psychoanalytic approaches, the ritualist school, allegorical myth-interpretation from Theagenes and Zeno the Stoic to Max Muller and beyond, rationalistic explanations of myth from Prodikos and Euhemeros to this day, and the well-tested principle that sees in saga and the so-called lower mythology detritus from myth proper. Levi-Strauss sees myth as a special and autonomous use of language, thus reachable by methods akin to those of linguistic analysis. A myth, to him, constitutes a corpus made up of all its variants, much like a definable body of linguistic utterances. He includes Sophocles and Freud alike among the recorded versions of the Oedipus myth, on a par with more authentic versions; then

Some observations on Estonian and Russian versification

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.

The inner form of Estonian poetry

The inner form of Estonian poetry

Recent Trends in Estonian Poetry

Recent Trends in Estonian Poetry

Estonian Poetry and Language: Studies in Honor of Ants Oras

Estonian Poetry and Language: Studies in Honor of Ants Oras

Anthology of Modern Esthonian Poetry by W. K. Matthews

Book Review| January 01 1954 Anthology of Modern Esthonian Poetry by W. K. Matthews Anthology of Modern Estonian Poetry. Compiled and translated by Matthews, W. K.. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1953. Pp. 154. $3.00. Joseph Remenyi Joseph Remenyi Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google South Atlantic Quarterly (1954) 53 (1): 165–166. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-53-1-165a Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Joseph Remenyi; Anthology of Modern Esthonian Poetry by W. K. Matthews. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 January 1954; 53 (1): 165–166. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-53-1-165a Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsSouth Atlantic Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1954 by Duke University Press1954 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Anthology of Modern Estonian Poetry

Anthology of Modern Estonian Poetry