To the question of the poetics of the Antiochus Cantemir’s poems

Abstract

The article offers generalizing data concerning the system of rhetorical techniques used by A. D. Kantemir in small and medium-sized poetic genres. The poetic practice of Kantemir is compared with the recommendations from the treatises of Feofan Prokopovich De arte poetica and De arte rhetorica libri X, concerning the use of various rhetorical devices in certain literary genres and styles. The hypothesis of the work is the assumption of the synthetic nature of the poetic syllable of Antiochus Kantemir, which is close not so much to the classicistic requirements of clarity and accuracy of the syllable as to the traditions of the Old Russian book style of weaving words. For the first time undertaken comprehensive analysis of tropes and figures used by Kantemir in his poetry, testifies to their qualitative and quantitative diversity and to the familiarity of the creator of Russian satire. The system of Kantemir tropes and figures analyzed in grammatical, stylistic and linguo-poetic aspects are introduced into scientific use for the first time. Inversion, ellipsis, amplification, lexical repetition, question and exclamation are the most common types of rhetorical devices in Kantemir’s poetry. Comparison, metonymy, personification and paraphrase are much more rare and genre conditioned in the works of Kantemir. The marginal varieties of tropes and figures of Kantemir include hyperbole, gradation, chiasm, silence, pun. Kantemir acts as an innovator who determined the further paths of the formation of Russian lyric poetry.