Poetic Genre Research Articles

The genre has a pulse: Ode in modern Russian poetry

The article seeks to disprove the assumption that the ode as a poetic genre breathed its last in the 1830s–1850s. The scholars suggest that no genre remains a form cast in concrete, but instead serves as a toolkit facilitating the creative process. To prove that the genre of ode is still relevant, the authors consider works of four eminent modern poets — A. Belyakov, V. Gandelsman, I. Ermakova, and A. Kushner — and describe their use of the genre. In each case, ode features prominently, its importance recognized by the poets themselves. The article argues in favour of a more in-depth study of the evolution of the ode in the non-canonical period of Russian literary history.

RHYME IN CONTEMPORARY POETIC DISCOURSE: COMMUNICATIVE-PRAGMATIC CHARACTERISTICS

The article is dedicated to exploring the role of rhyme in the English poetic discourse of the XXI century. Rhyme, being the central element of most poetic genres, has unique pragmatic effect both when it is present (in classical verse) and absent (in verse libre). The role of rhyme ranges from ensuring memorization to broader communicative and cognitive influences, as justified by the studies reviewed in the article. The aim of the article is to contrast practices of using and omitting rhyme in contemporary English poetry and to reveal the pragmatic potential of rhyme. For this purpose, works of contemporary poets are scrutinized via methods of comparison and contrast, pragmatic analysis and stylistic analysis. Our findings show that rhyme, whenever present, serves not only for text memorization or embellishment, but also has deeper relations with the core of the poem. In case of verse libre or blank verse, the absence of rhyme (especially when paired with the graphic element of ignoring capital letters) turns a poem into a dynamic work, an unfinished process. An increasing tendency of ignoring rhyme in contemporary English poetry might be linked to the graphic character of poetry itself. Whenever rhyme is absent, there is an “extra” element which fills its place, and usually those elements are either graphical additions or peculiarities of punctuation. The scientific novelty of the article lies in revealing the pragmatic role of rhyme and justifying that this role is fulfilled even when rhyme is absent. The theoretical and practical significance of the article lies in exploring the role of rhyme considering pragmatics, stylistics, and cognitive poetics.

Unveiling Avant-Garde: A Study of Fady Joudah's Textu Poetry

The study examines how Japanese haiku poetry, which has been popular in American poetry since the turn of the 20th century, was revisited by Fady Joudah. The paper argues that current Arab-American poetry's avant-gardism is best shown by Joudah's appropriation of this poetic form in his poetry collection, Textu. Joudah’s new poetic genre tackles topics pertaining to the Arab-American identity in the digital era by utilizing avant-garde approaches. The suggestiveness of Haiku, which emphasizes the visual picture, word accuracy, and clear diction, is brilliantly appropriated by Joudah. The paper significantly demonstrates how a smartphone can condense pages of invocations and disclosures. It contends that Jouda's text message-like poems, which are each restricted to 160 characters, may most effectively capture the hurried spirit of the twenty-first century represented by its growing use of cell phones’ texting and twittering.

Версификация как жанрообразующий фактор в венке сонетов «Верен любви» М. Бемурзова

The paper addresses the problem of identifying the role of versification factors in shaping certain genres and genre forms of Adyghe poetry. The study is based on the sonnet sequence “Faithful to Love” by the Circassian poet Mukhadin Hamidovich Bemurzov (1948-2007). The study aims to determine the genre-forming functions of meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure in a specific literary context. The study is original in that it represents the first attempt to consider the listed components of versification as dominant genre features of sonnets comprising the sonnet sequence “Faithful to Love”. As a result of the study, the determining role of versification in shaping a number of poetic genres and the genre form of the sonnet sequence is confirmed. The adoption of the “solid form” of the sonnet by Adyghe poets is largely explained by their desire to enhance the level of literary skills and fully unfold their creative potential. Sonnet sequences are created with the aim of expanding the genre boundaries of the sonnet and introducing its innovative forms into the national literary process. The paper analyzes the meter and rhyme system and stanzaic structure of the sonnets included in the sequence “Faithful to Love”, determining whether they comply with the genre’s canon.

From “Natural Institution” to Poetic Genre: Literary Testimony and the Issues of Witnessing in Verse

Abstract This article examines the relationship between poetry and testimony in order to outline a viable framework for interpreting testimonial poetry (or “poetry of witness,” in Carolyn Forché’s terms) as a literary genre in its own right. Neglected in favor of other, mimetically oriented modes of witnessing, especially those in narrative fiction and documentary prose, testimonial poetry has not been extensively studied, and when it has, the studies were often based on inadequate notions of testimony that fail to recognize witnessing as a broader social and linguistic practice. Relying on the sociological approach to eyewitness testimony developed by Renaud Dulong (notably in Le témoin oculaire [1998]), this article proposes a new understanding of poetic testimony, based neither on an overly broad notion of witnessing as living through an event or era, nor on a narrow understanding of witnessing as providing a faithful documentary account of a personal experience. Much like its prose counterpart, poetic testimony enacts a quasi-contractual relationship between authors and readers, whereby the former are committed to telling the truth about a directly experienced event of public importance and the latter, in return, are committed to considering seriously their words, approaching them in good faith. This relationship is driven by an underlying ethical imperative whereby the author acts as a moral witness in Avishai Margalit's sense of the term, and the readers assume the role of a moral community sympathetic to their plight. By referencing examples from American, Hungarian, Russian, French, Polish, and South Slavic twentieth-century poetry, the article shows how a “testimonial” reading of a poem, often very strongly favored on intuitive grounds, modifies generic expectations based on traditional poetic genres and explores its interpretative and ethical implications.

Lyrical prayer poetry by priest poets. K. Kravtsov’s and S. Kruglov’s poetic prayers

The article undertakes a comparative study of the lyrical prayer poetry authored by K. Kravtsov and S. Kruglov, both ordained priests as well as poets and each offering a personal interpretation of the canon of prayer, transforming it into a unique poetic genre. Going into the history of the phenomenon, V. Razumov provides a classification of the prayer genres proper, noting that the diversity of prayers can be grouped into five principal types: invective, supplication (including intercession on somebody’s behalf), penitence, thanksgiving, and praise. Those are the prayer intentions explored in Kruglov’s and Kravtsov’s poetry, with the addition of elements typical of contemporary as well as folk poetry (a stream of consciousness, a counting rhyme, intertextual references, a lyrical hero in a particular role, a civically-minded lyrical subject, etc.). Razumov finds that Kruglov extends the limits of the genre convention, whereas Kravtsov appears to transcend them. This difference notwithstanding, both poets write at the confluence of literary and liturgical traditions and undoubtedly enrich the tuning and intonation of modern poetry.

How to read (and understand) folk poetry? Аn example of applying a cognitive approach to the study of an oral Arabic tradition from Northern Morocco

In this paper, I offer reading of the oral tradition of the Jbala (Northern Morocco) from the cognitive perspective. To get a better understanding of the process of spontaneous poetic creation I use the notions of frame and script and apply them to the genre of ayyu, a short improvised oral poetic genre from the Jbala region. In the introductory section, I briefly present the field of cognitive poetics and discuss last advances in it. Then I present the oral poetic tradition of the Jbala and demonstrate how frames and scripts operate when poetry is performed live by analyze in detail two frames, typical of Jebli poetry together with the scripts associated with them, and then summarize my findings in the concluding section of the paper.

A Study of Elpis in Ancient Greek Literary Laments and Songs for the Dead: Hope and the Tradition of Greek Lament

Much of current scholarship aims at reconstructing ritual lamentation based on evidence from early Greek epic and lyric poetry and fifth-century tragedy. This paper, although it is an examination of a specific human emotion, elpis, within the corpus of early and classical Greek epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry that are thought to preserve the oral traditions of the genre, takes also into consideration the inscribed ancient Greek songs for the dead; that is archaic and classical epigrams and their later counterparts encountered, mainly, in the Greek Anthology. A study of elpis, a highly culturally dependent emotion, within these contexts will allow us to have a glimpse of the hermeneutic frames provided by each poetic genre, their performative contexts, and the expectation of the audiences, as well as of the general world-view that is shared by the poetic genres in question. In other words, a study of elpis in ancient Greek laments and songs for the dead will enable us to have a slightly clearer image of the evolution and the nature of this oral genre from archaic times until the Late Antiquity.

Механизмы юмора в малом жанре интернет-поэзии («порошок»)

The article describes the mechanisms of humor in small poetic genres that appeared on the Internet in the 2000s and were named pirozhok and poroshok. These are quatrains written in iambic tetrameter. There are no rhymes in pirozhok, but in poroshok the last line, truncated to 2 syllables, rhymes with the second. Poroshok as a genre arose on the basis of a pirozhok. Truncating the last line in poroshok causes it to be placed in a special position. The fourth line alone or together with the third line constitutes an ending unexpected for readers, which, by analogy with a joke, can be called pointe. This pointe not only violates the reader's expectations, but comes into conflict with the beginning of the poem and, in essence, cancels it, that is, forces one to return to the previous text and rethink it. Such a pointe is proposed to be called retrospective.

METRO-RHYTHMIC PARAMETERS OF A POETIC TEXT (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF TEXTS WRITTEN BY SPANISH AND RUSSIAN AUTHORS)

Statement of a problem. The objective of the study is a phased analysis of the formal features of a poetic text using a psycholinguistic approach. The poetic text is considered as a special form of emotionally colored speech. The main goal is to determine the universal and nationally specific features in the metro - rhythmic organization of Spanish and Russian poetic texts. Results: The data on the metro - rhythmic organization of Spanish and Russian poetic texts is presented. Based on the classical meters of Greek and Roman poetry, the ways of the formation of national poetic Russian and Spanish traditions are additionally considered. Along with universal features, national-specific features are highlighted. Approaches to the consideration of poetic meters used in Spanish poetic texts, as well as the transition to syllabo-tonic in Russian versification are described. Conclusion. The main conclusion from the presented study can be considered the identification of nationally specific features, consisting of the use of classical meters in certain poetic genres and the formation of mixed genres. As a linguistically significant conclusion about the preference in the use of meters, the authors put forward the ratio of speech rhythm to the meter in national poetry.

Gheorghe Asachi – un scriitor între epoci culturale (I)

Gheorghe Asachi seems like a forgotten writer today. His place in the history of literature should not be minimized. He imposed rigor on poetry, bringing prosodic patterns untried by anyone before him. It is the most important literary contribution. He took on the themes of the era, but in a classicizing manner. He founded culture magazines, built the first forms of the public education system in Romanian, fought important philological battles. Because he placed himself wrongly, against the trend of the times, being an opponent of the revolution of 1848 and the Union of 1859, he was marginalized by the 1848 Generation and for decades his name was covered in oblivion. After Lovinescu and Călinescu, however, literary histories give it its due importance, even if without enthusiasm. Gheorghe Asachi is a founder, a pioneer, a man of the beginnings of the road. He did not create masterpieces, but he initiated several poetic genres and wrote plays, short stories and articles that fixed a profile that cannot be passed over. But above all, he created a literary mythology that made its way, sometimes ridding itself of the name of its author.

Looking into Walcott’s Homer: Omeros between epic and mock-epic

This essay’s contribution to an already voluminous body of criticism on Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1990) consists in its attention to questions of specifically poetic genre, by which it opens a space in postcolonial studies for the consideration not just of literary forms beyond the novel – the larger aim of this special issue – but also of poetic forms beyond the lyric. Previous critical accounts have discussed the poem’s allusions to Homer at length. This essay builds upon these accounts by arguing for a mock-epic interpretation of these epic signifiers, which by the analogies they establish between Homer’s and the poet’s respective milieux allegorize the postcolonial poet’s alienation from his cultural milieu. This mock-epic inversion turns on the figure of Homer, or more specifically on the ways in which Omeros negotiates the many contradictions his figure entails within a Western cultural framework. The poet’s capacity for Homeric analogies distinguishes him from his subjects, whose frame of reference apparently excludes Homer. But if Homeric epic’s cultural logic is not reproduced by Omeros itself, it is represented in that poem by images of Afro-Caribbean folk-cultural practice which resist Homeric analogy. If these images are “epic”, it is because they center the cultural practice of the St. Lucian people themselves, without reference to the poet’s external position.

Amazonian shamanic enquiry: formulaic composition and specialized discourse

AbstractThis article investigates the styles of enquiry involved in Lowland South American Amerindian shamanic and narrative discourse genres. The article argues in favour of the existence of an Amazonian mode of thinking strictly related to formulaic composition, commonly found in different verbal poetic genres and its contemporary transformations into written texts published as books by Amerindian researchers and narrators. Taking into account philosophical and anthropological discussions about speculative thinking, this study aims to revise the role of narrative verbal genres in Amerindian ethnology and its ontological backgrounds, as well as offering an alternative perspective on the contrast between writing and oral traditions. The article is based on translations of songs and testimonies collected among the Marubo of Western Amazonia.

Ecopoetics in Yorùbá Riddles

In contemporary literary scholarship, assumes that certain subject matters are bourgeoning in literary texts produced recently. For instance, the motif of environment/ecosystem seen to be novel in literary representations. However, Africans, long before their contact with coloniality, have engaged their literary texts in interrogating various aspects of their cultural milieu, including the ecosystem. One of the ecocentric poetic genres of Yorùbá literature is àlọ́ àpamọ̀ (riddles). This study, therefore, investigates the representations of interactions among different stakeholders of the ecosystem in selected àlọ́ àpamọ̀. The study reveals that Yorùbá riddles are fraught with ecocritical consciousness. Images of the environment in the discussed riddles emphasize man’s inseparable relationship with the environment or ecosystem. Similarly, the anthropocentric nature of man depicts that man and nature cannot be separated as they are mutually interactive.

Genres of Old Provençal poetry in the Works of Italian Troubadours: Reception and Interpretation

This article is devoted to the study of the development of Old Provençal poetry in Italy in the 12th-13th centuries. Using specific examples from the work of early Italian troubadours (Peire de la Caravana, Peire de la Mula, Sordello, Lanfranco Cigala, etc.), the authors examine in detail such aspects of the topic as the reception and interpretation of the tradition of Old Provençal poetry. Of all the genres of poetry in the works of Italian troubadours, the most developed are the “political” and “social” ones — sirventes and tenso, which should be seen as an intensification of the participation of poets in the social and political life of Italy. All this can be studied by reflection in poetic creativity of the 12th-century and 13th-century Italian troubadours. In this regard, the authors of the article pay special attention to poetic works belonging to these two genres. The relevance of this study lies in a comprehensive linguistic, literary and historical approach to the consideration of the issue. The use of such an integrated approach allows to identify the main trends in the development of Provençal poetry, reasons associated with the historical context, as well as linguistic diversification associated with the choice of a particular genre. The authors come to the conclusion that the repertoire of poetic genres and the choice of language in which poetry is created changes depending on the dynamics of social and cultural conditions. The large number of sirvent and tenson is an important observation, indicating the presence of a social cultural context and space in which such political and satirical works and “impromptu” debates on a variety of topics were in demand. These genres will receive their further development in the history of Italian literature.

<span>Some characteristics of poetic genres in poetry section of Dong Thap Literature And Arts Newspaper</span>

Understanding the characteristics of poetic genres showcased in the poetry column of Dong Thap Literature and Arts Newspaper helps us gain insight into the newspaper's position amidst the changing modern life. The poetry compositions in this newspaper not only inherit various forms of national poetry but also demonstrate innovation and creativity by incorporating traditional poetic structures. This is evident in the portrayal of emotions that resonate with the intricate and multidimensional mood swings of contemporary individuals, while reflecting aspects of social life and local cultural values. These elements contribute to the distinct and diverse features of Dong Thap Literature and Arts Newspaper.

КЫТАЙДАГЫ КЫРГЫЗ АЯЛДАР ПОЭЗИЯСЫ: ӨНҮГҮҮ ТАРЫХЫ, ИДЕЯЛЫК-КӨРКӨМДҮК ӨЗГӨЧӨЛҮКТӨРҮ

This article discusses the history of the development of women's poetry in the literature of the Kyrgyz people living in China, who also wrote at that time, focused on the ideological, artistic and thematic features of the poems created by our daughters. They came to Kyrgyz literature in the 80s, and from year to year they are joined by young poets led by the famous poet Gulaiy Matili, the article also aims to reveal in chronological order their contribution to the development of the poetic genre by reviewing their work. Of course, we were able to give an example of only a few lines of verse. At the same time, it is said that one of the eternal themes in the poetry of women poets is love, life, the love of women for men, but there are moments of disappointment when they cannot express it openly with the help of poetic lines.

Функции шаманов в бурятской эпической традиции

Introduction. It is urgent enough to reveal original features of epic traditions in certain ethnic environments to draw a general epic picture of Central Asian peoples. As is evident, shamanism has given rise to diverse epic and poetic genres. Shamanic and epic texts of Mongols are characterized by identical mythological patterns of world order, unified heavenly pantheons, coherent and synonymous ideas and concepts. Goals. The article aims to identify the functions of a shaman/shamaness in plots of Buryat epic narratives, determine the former’s position and status in the system of images. So, the paper shall analyze epic texts clustering with different local traditions of Cis-Baikal Buryats, delineate images of shamans and shamanesses to consider them in a comparative perspective with the involvement of ethnographic material. Materials and methods. The study employs comparative-historical and contrastive methods as key tools of analysis. It examines Buryat epic texts — both published ones and those contained in archives of the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs (IMBTS SB RAS). Results. The paper suggests that in the Buryat epic tradition shamans and shamanesses can be viewed as traditional characters traced back to most archaic beliefs, though their functions in uligers are essentially limited and monotypic. There is a gender division at different levels of the universe: celestial deities of upper realms are represented by male shamans, while only shamanesses exhibit activity in the Middle World (i.e., on the Earth). The functions of male shaman deities are nominal and not that significant for the plot. The status of a shamaness in variants and versions of the Unga Geseriad is quite high: she serves as mediator between Heaven and Earth, defender, assistant and adviser to the main characters, clairvoyant and soothsayer — and performs the classical role of shamans in society. Narratives recorded from shaman taletellers or individuals with extensive expertise in shamanic traditions tend to entrust shamanesses with larger plot development impacts rather than those delivered by mere narrators. However, in other uligers (not included in Geseriad) the shamaness — though endowed with the same functions of a clairvoyant, soothsayer and adviser — is opposed to the main character and supports his enemies. So, such uligers often contain the motif of her physical elimination. As can be seen from the above, in Buryat uligers male shamans are rather passive and nominal characters, while shamanesses do play most active roles. In general, the status of shamanesses in the epic tradition does not quite correlate with the traditionally high status of shamans and shamanesses among Cis-Baikal Buryats.

The Entanglements of Matter, Mind, and Meaning: Novalis’s “Elastic Mode of Thinking”

This article explores the methodological, aesthetic, and ecological implications of Novalis’s dynamic conception of matter, called “original elastic fluid.” By elucidating a set of this fluid’s generative and performative capacities, Novalis explains the non-teleological and contingent emergence of natural objects and organic forms as well as mental figures and poetic genres. This article argues that Novalis’s model of a “dynamic materialism” resonates with recent new materialist discourses that emphasize the agency of inorganic matter. More specifically, Karen Barad’s “material-discursive” approach, derived from quantum phenomena that suggest the inseparability of meaning and matter, is comparable to the ways in which Novalis draws on dynamic laws of fluidity to develop an “elastic mode of thinking” and a Romantic conception of prose with a characteristically loose rhythmic structure. A reading of Die Lehrlinge zu Sais as an example of this prose form sheds new light on the entangled relationship between mind and nature and “ecopoetic” approaches to nature.

Pengembangan Bahan Ajar Apresiasi Puisi Berbasis Pendidikan Karakter dalam Syair Nasib Melayu Karya Tenas Effendy

This research is motivated by the importance of increasing character education for students. The decline in character or morals in students is of great concern to the world of education. There are lots of deviant or immoral behaviors being carried out by students today including the use of illegal drugs/narcotics, free sex and many other deviant behaviors that can put a black mark on the world of education. Improving character education can be done through the development of poetry appreciation teaching materials on aspects of the poetic genre in the form of poetry. The purpose of this research is to find out whether teaching materials for poetry appreciation, especially poetry, are oriented towards improving character education for students. The research approach used in this research is a qualitative approach with a research method that is descriptive analytic. As a qualitative research, it is descriptive in nature as data analysis and the results of the analysis are in the form of phenomena from all the wealth of information about the implementation of learning poetry appreciation. The level of success will be measured by the assessment matrix from the results of tests and interviews. Character values ​​are taken from eighteen values ​​from the results of the Ministry of National Education's study.