Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

In contrast to drama pragmatics of scenic discussion exerts no obligatory impact on the structure of a lyrical verse. Lyrics do not follow the necessities evoked with the outer circumstances in drama, all its necessities being of an immanent, inner nature. If the outer necessity in drama reflects the constant presence of totality as the decisive force, the partiality dominates in lyrics. Of course it doesn’t mean the absence of totality in lyrics, it being concealed as the task for searches. In drama this totality is manifested overtly and detected stepwise, and the famous triune of classicist drama (the triple unity of time, space and action) only attests this ubiquitous presence of totality. Lyrical poetry of details denoting partial and particular aspects of reality is void of such a presence, so that it has still to be found and restored if possible. In particular abstraction in lyrics discloses its derivation from partiality. It is a secondary aspect of lyrics that abstractions appear from periphrastic descriptions of separated details.

Lyrical integrity doesn’t depend upon the same reasons that the teleology of dramatic action. As the consequence the negation, refutation, rejection becomes principal feature of drama that radically opposes to lyrics. Dramatic conflict reveals itself through generalized total negation presupposing textual perturbation as the principal element of plot so that condensed semantic load becomes the initial source for dramatic action. Vice versa only partial negation partakes in lyrics acquiring only an optional and desirable mode of expression without entailing an actual dramatic deed. Drama differs also from lyrics in that it has something entire and closed in itself (let here the classical triune be reminded!) that unites partial utterances becoming arguments in discussions. In opposite to drama such unifying totality remains for lyrics something concealed that must still be detected and guessed behind the cover of partial designations. It entails still further consequence that determines an intensified homogeneity of lyrics in opposite to homogeneity already discussed dramatic heterogeneity. Being occupied with particular details and appealing to compassionate participation lyrical text discloses its properties of textual coherence.

It makes lyrics strictly discernible from dramatic personal location. As a counterpart to dramatic total personification one could say of reification as the generic lyrical peculiarity revealed in the inclination of depicting things. It is things that pronounce words here remaining impersonal in opposite to personal cues of drama. In this respect one has to take into account the overall human constitutional condition of artificiality. Any human being can exist only in artificial environment of previously made things (to begin with dress). Human beings become dependent upon this newly made artificial world created by them and mastering them as alienated force. The opportunities of lyrical personification being initially restricted with the condition of incognito, the world of things comes into play as an equal partner. These traits of reifying reality are especially observable in the stream of the so called descriptive lyrics or “lyrics of things” (Germ. Dinggedichte) as opposed to “sensual lyrics” (Germ. Sinngedichte). It entails essential consequences in regard to the semantic transitions taking place within such texts. To name a thing means here already to rename it as far as it always goes about the periphrastic description of latent reality. Derivative semantic transitions become respectively the indispensable satellite. Apologue could be here a pattern for such lyrical species. One can trace here the old traditions of vanity being overcome and removed where things become the names for abstract ideas. Such approach of reification betrays the ways of conceiving things as mirrors or the voices of echo (in the manner of bestial epics of fables and parables). It can be exemplified with enumerative listing devices of mediaeval rhetoric, especially those revealed through “indefatigable passion for enumeration” or “cataloguing energy” [Аверинцев, 1981, 25-26]. Let it here be added that these phenomena resemble also what has been called “chaotic enumeration” (the mentioned term of L. Spitzer) in regard to the literature of a much later epoch. Thus from reification’s effects lyrical conventions arise that give rise to semantic derivative processes.

The commonplaces of the kind have already been scrutinized in epics. One could begin at least with Homer’s “Odyssey” as the decisive step towards the formation of novel⁸⁵⁹ where epic formulae have become the means to represent key details imparting to narrative’s flow both epic retardation and dramatic acceleration⁸⁶⁰. Subsequently the problem arises about idiomatic transformations that impart separate locutions the capability of summarizing the whole. In particular the question arises as to the scopes and limits of such capability that can either reach the boundary of a separate poem (resp. of a corpus of an author) or pass to the sphere of common usage as a catchword referring to the contents of a whole and thus summarizing it. Then proverbial circumlocutions of eloquent details become the intermediary step in the movement from myth towards drama and lyrics so that periphrastic transformation gains chief place.

As a bright example of rhetorically motivated topics in dialogue can be the so called dialogic ecphrasis cited where descriptions and discussions of the places of pilgrimages were presented so that such “demonstration of sacred places” () [Брагинская, 1981, 297] played the role of initiation rites where a person would be introduced to a perfectly new environment. Meanwhile such devices belong to the common places of descriptive lyrical poetry. It is important that ekphrasis gives an abstract mapping of landscape as if extracted from history. Such abstraction & extraction reveals the eternity of things isolated from their temporality. “The eternal verities” are here declared that do not depend upon time. It promotes lyrical inclination towards verbal fetishism with its platonic approach. In particular due to such properties descriptive lyrics become apt especially for idylls. Such tendencies flourished in retrospective poetry that the romanticism has brought forth. It was verbal fetishism that accompanied the romantic cult of alienation in particular in nostalgic representation of separate details and relics of the past without their temporal totality. Mimetic imitation in this case was replaced with the mimicry of simulation as far as the totality had become ignored and details had been taken separately from the complete conditions of their historical existence.

Lyrics can provoke a kind of verbal fetishism using words as if they were totemic designations with the ensuing risk of reduction to mere incantations. The very mention of a thing, the single use of its name becomes then a suggestive device as in archaic incantations. Thus the name becomes a thing’s shade that turns to “the master” of this thing in the sense of the mentioned romantic allegory of alienation. Instead of being a derivative such shade gains decisive position. The circumstance has been brilliantly described and explained in A. Block’s article “The poetry of incantations and spells” («Поэзия заговоров и заклинаний»)⁸⁶¹; it has been suggested there that incantations get external resemblance to descriptive lyrical poem. Accordingly, not only in theory but also in poetical practice in his “Spells of fire and gloom” («Заклинании огнем и мраком») A. Block gives a very broad map of the world of things proper for descriptive poetry⁸⁶². Together with the dubious and ambiguous return to incantations the descriptive lyrical poetry has attracted attention to the old “things – words” problem without meaning exactly those things that these words designate. In this respect lyrics and proverbs act identically. As an example from descriptive lyrics let be the verse «Le Merle» (The Thrush) by Th. Gauthier cited: «Un oiseau siffle dans les branches / Et sautille gai, plein d’espoir» (A bird whistles at the branches and jumps gaily, full of hopes). Meanwhile it is not bird itself that is meant here, and the last lines prove it: «Qui rit de ta philosophie, / Beau merle, est moins sage que toi!» (Those deriding thy philosophy, beautiful thrush, are less clever than thou art!).

Semantic derivation in lyrics arises already as the result of partial denotation of separate details that are observed and mentioned. The very fact of partiality and incompleteness here encourages a reader to pose conjectures that ensue from semantic shifts. Conjectural and problematic inclinations of lyrics determine here specific role of actual predicates (rhemes). Thus in W. Shakespeare’s 132-th sonnet the complementary row <pity – ruth – grace – mourn> circumscribes the subject whom one can only guess after his eyes “putting black” that were mentioned previously. This “blackness” becomes itself designation of enigmatic lyrical contents. This derivational productivity of lyrics has contributed essentially to its stylistic markers’ germination so that stylistic attributes become especially manifested in lyrical lines⁸⁶³. The role of circumlocution as the principal lyrical derivational device enabling the procedure of folding determines also the importance of key words as stylistic markers that help in approximating the besought problem of the text and its solution. The study of stylistic markers in lyrics can be based on the experience already accumulated in the researches of epic corpuses of texts⁸⁶⁴. In lyrics there is the situation when the plainest word becomes a password for the solution of the whole contents. Such is the case, for instance, in some early verses of R.M. Rilke where the concept of thing and ensuing reification has become one of the pillars of the poet’s worldview. At the same time in drama detail as such becomes the element of retardation and is accepted as the element of action in the role of a peculiar password serving for outer purposes. If for lyrics (as well as for epics) the detailed description becomes an autonomous goal, in drama details are mentioned either as keys to action or as its impediments.

Reification as the attitude attached to the idea of vanity makes it necessary to pose the question on textual integration in particular in comparison to epics. One can say of the centrifugal epic tendency in contrast to the subjective personal view of lyrical origin that exerts centripetal impact within the borders of a poem. This centripetal power of lyrics enables very far juxtapositions within a poem in the same manner as we have seen it in drama where the disparateness was to be removed due to the previewed interpretation. In particular the counterbalance of epic “centrifugal” and lyrical “centripetal” forces determines the unity of a ballad text. One encounters the seeming incoherence in quite realistic verses⁸⁶⁵. It is “the motley vanity” of descriptions of variegated things that is removed due to personal verve of lyrics where the subjective vision gets the role of a world’s axis. The same concerns “the solidity” of lyrical digressions inserted in epic text that become capable to separate themselves due to such centripetal properties⁸⁶⁶. Such compositional properties impart special importance to the integrative problems of text.

The difference between dramatic and lyrical genera ways of textual integration can be exemplified with the cases of examination of verbal experiments in utterances. In drama such an examination is conducted in the action itself as the consequence of the resolution to implement the decision arising from the discussion. Due to latent qualities of lyrical integrity to be discovered in its interpretation one can say of a confession as the source for specific lyrical risk of textual strategy. This risk is determined with personal borders and inner world map where sincerity as such becomes relevant. It causes also the importance of allegory in lyrics- namely of that proper to proverbs with their concealed deep sense. Lyrical contemplation in opposite to dramatic action implies also grace and idyll with their humour that contrasts to the duplicity of tragedy with their heroic deeds and comedy with derision peculiar for drama. Idyll as the image of pure and neat comedy concerns pastoral and infantine images (“Paul and Virgin” being a sample) as the representation of the legacy of fertility magic rites mapping genuine vital cycle. As the other side of idyllic parentage one can see the images of orphanage with all its tragic implications.

If drama is integrated on the foundation of the unity of decision (and of a respective action taken together with that of temporality and spatiality in the case of classicism) it is the unity of problem that gives grounds for the integration in lyrics⁸⁶⁸. Lyrical text is integrated with the force which is absent within its boundaries but is mentioned with all the textual components. This text refers always to something situated beyond the contents of the enunciations compelling to searches for invisible and inexpressible essences. If the dramatic triune implies integration by itself, the integrative forces in lyrics are of subjective latent nature, and they are not manifested so overtly. At the same time the inherent integrity of lyrical texts is attested with the very existence of the above mentioned example of sonnet. The specific weight of referential nets within the lyrics is higher that in dramatic text. Besides, there are additional inner integrative forces of lyrics. In particular it is meditative lyrics that represent the fold of premises and conclusions. At the same time their substantiation in drama and lyrics are incomparable: it goes about motivation of lyrical images and not of reasons for decision as in drama.

Motifs are united in a lyrical text not on the ground of the narration of events (in particular as in epics with its informative aims): they serve here only as a pretext to the indications towards otherness (alteritas). What does unite the motifs from the Song of Songs, such as “The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come” (2.12) or those of “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin us the vineyards” (2.15) [The Holy Bible, 1995]?. Obviously it is not the “natural” chain of events here: there are no connection of flowers, songs, vine and fox. The contents refer to something very different from the literal meaning of the words. Therefore motivation in lyrics (and respectively the textual integration) differs essentially from “normal” epic form as well as from those of dramatic action. In particular the meditation in an ode or in a sonnet enables involving very variegated arguments and all they include situational occasional partitive synonyms in the sense of the components of circumlocution used here as evidence when the substantiation of conclusions comes into play. As an example Psalm 15 may serve that tells of a person who “may abide” and “may dwell” at the sacred residence and “shall never be moved”. There follows the enumerations of such properties of the person as “do right”, “do not evil”, “do not slander”, “do not take up a reproach”, “despise the wicked”. Together with these general qualities such details are added as “do not lend in interest” and “do not take a bribe”. Thus a series of partitive synonyms has been suggested that encircle the unnamed notion of the person worth being imitated and serves as a kind of circumlocution. It is important that such a series is being corrected and complemented during its historical life due to the translations of Bible that have their own history. For instance in J. Kochanowski’s verse it is added that such person “będzie … wesela zażywał” (will enjoy merriment) and “ufa pokoju swojemu” (is sure of own repose). The very variety of the comprehension of the text indicates the problem standing beyond the unity of the text and circumscribed with its devices. Thus it goes here not only about general qualities but also about more special and partitive features that are also mentioned so that the description brings the oblique considerations on the subject. In the same manner there are the partitive revelations of the Lord that are mentioned in the Psalm 29 such as “stripping the forest bare” or “making skip like a calf”. Lyrical enunciations circumscribe the latent problem that gives integrative reasons and promotes efforts for its solution. It is this motion of searches that compresses the motifs and imparts integrity to a lyrical text. The existence of the unsolved problem, of the question and riddle posed beyond the text determines the unity of lyrical text.

Vice versa drama undertakes the artistic study of finite actions, of responsible personal deeds presumed in the chain of assertive and negative utterances that creates the core of dramatic text. It entails resolution & decisiveness as the peculiar dramatic qualities (even underlined in their confrontation with hesitation). Then it would seem to become very seductive to ascribe the interrogative mode to lyrics and the imperative mode to drama (to compare to the assertive epic neutrality) – or, in other terms, problematic and apodictic logical modes respectively. Lyrics and drama could then be seen as the demonstration of processes and result in solving a problem respectively. Resolution would mark the resultant verve of drama as well as hesitation would be tied with lyrics, unready for decision and action. Resolute & resultant dramatic utterances would make up an outspoken contrast to lyrics. In drama words become deeds, and imperative designates the form of achieving such a transformation. If drama deals with deeds (action divided in separate operations performed by individual persons) it is events that become the subject of lyrics. Meanwhile such simplification will turn out to become treacherous. There are both problematic and apodictic moments in drama where alternative is to be chosen and adequate decision to be found. In its turn lyrical poem also leads to implicit or explicit (as is the case in sonnet) imperative, not to say of appellative figures of apostrophe as the primary source of lyrical illocution. It is another plane where the demarcation line between drama and lyrics were to be traced. It goes about the experimental vein of lyrics different from drama.

In opposite to dramatic experiments with the examination of a word’s impact upon a partner of the process of decision-making the artistic mental experiment of lyrics is conducted as the attempts of solving a riddle represented with circumlocution. In other words in lyrics one constantly applies periphrastic devices to conduct the mental experiment. Periphrastic description of details gives a prompt and at the same time acts as a kind of riddle to be solved. Thus the reversibility of riddles and proverbs turns here into the lyrical problematic mode of speech⁸⁶⁹. The quality of lyrical prompt can be said to unite both proverbial and enigmatic features. It is the problematic mode of lyrics that becomes resonant with proverbial mode of circumlocutions substituting direct designation and imparting thus enigmatic verve to enunciation. This double property of lyrical conventional formulae as prompts & riddles is attested in folklore at the large scale. It is especially initial formulae that become a peculiar kind of catchwords serving as the prompt for continuation and at the same time as the riddle demanding efforts to recollect this continuation. As an example of such elliptic locution presupposing the known continuation one can cite the beginning of the Ukrainian song «Усі гори зеленіють» (all the mountains are getting green) that presupposes continuation «тільки одна гора чорна» (but the only mountain remains black) with the hint about widow’s fate. Due to such “solvability’ of riddles to elliptic prompts the existence of parallelism becomes possible as in the Ukrainian song’s initial lines: «Шумить, гуде дібровонька – плаче, тужить дівчинонька» (the grove is howling and moaning, [it means that] the girl is crying and grieving). In this respect formulae reveal the metonymic nature of their enigmatic and reticent contents (already attested with the folklorists’ observations)⁸⁷⁰ that enable evolving them with infinite continuations. Thus motivational difference entails the difference of the predilection of specific devices: it is the prevalence of hyperbole (as a kind of synecdoche) in drama in opposite to metonymy (as a folded circumlocution) dominating in lyrics. In lyrics circumlocutions and ensuing metonymy encircle the problematic core of a text without mentioning it directly, and as a result the motivational reasons for uniting locutions in a text are not based upon the necessity of discussion as in drama.

Subsequently the general regularities of allegorical forms of proverbs, parables or apologues are continued immediately in compressing properties of verse. Each lyrical work behaves as if it were an epigram irrespective of its scope. Proverb is conceived as a fold of a fable (a parable, an apologue), and the last in its turn can be presented as a scene in a dramatic work. The same concerns lyrical texts that presume folding more extent ones. Thus a work becomes an intermediate stage of the continuous process of folding some poetic world map, the proverb (or other aphoristic utterance) being the ultimate and terminal point of this process. These consequences of the problematic, interrogative determinants of lyrical integrity become generic feature. The entirety of a lyrical text is founded upon the sentiment of unattainable goal as the consequence of informational insufficiency or problematic mode of existence. The integrative power of puzzle in lyrics can be demonstrated with involving the examples from music analogies. “Chopin applies ‘chiasmic reversal’ and avoids the conventional ‘question? – answer!’ phrase pattern. He favors ‘answer! – question?’ phrases” [Witten, 1997, 121]. In this way it is the unsolved puzzle that unites the entirety of text. Respectively the details get ominous meaningfulness. In particular “Chopin uses what we might term ‘prescient forebodings’” that is “prophetic moments that foretell the outcome of the piece” [Witten, 1997, 123]. Thus a kind of lyrical version of fatalism appears that differs from the dramatic version with these specific prophetic omens. Therefore lyrics behave as an epigram summarizing some extensive text irrespective to the scope of a poem. A proverb is regarded as a fold of a parable or an apologue, but in its turn these narratives are also conceived as folds of something wider. In other word parable and apologue represent intermediate stages of the process of folding some verbal maps, and proverbs become ultimate and terminal points of this process. The same concerns lyrics. A sonnet’s conclusion being the terminal fold (or a kind of a sonnet’s digest), the sonnet itself becomes the fold of a wider map.

Peculiarities of lyrical unity in comparison to drama (with its extreme revelation in classicist triune) are to be seen first of all in their relation to objective (in particular, to historical) time and place. A lyrical work gives an experienced temporality and spatiality in contrast to drama where they concern an action in the remarks of characters discussing future decisions. This experience is situated in the inner world of personality irrespective of history. In lyrics eternal and absolute qualities are taken abstracted from their historical relativism. Instead of action that determines the triune with temporality and spatiality in drama here personality appears that become the decisive force of lyrical integrity. From here a certain paradoxical statement ensues: the growth of inner subjective world in lyrics determines the prevalence if absolute (instead of presupposed relative) contents. The immediate consequence of integrative peculiarities consists in the properties of the so called localization that’s of temporal and spatial generic properties. Being void of the unity of action and introducing the unity of problem in its place lyrics could be differed from drama in temporal and spatial attributes. The peculiarity of motivation liberated from the resulting decision and action provides special license for the temporality and spatiality of lyrical meditation. The events in lyrics are described and represented irrespectively of their relation to other events while in drama they must find their place in the whole chain of dramatic action. In other words these events are taken absolutely and consequently situated in eternity and in abstract space. The program of perpetuating occasional events described in lyrics has been displayed already in Horace’s “Exegi monumentum” as the paragon of conceiving temporality in abstract personified experience, so that the existence of such attitudes in poetic conscience seems to be felt quite distinctly⁸⁷¹. It is curiously enough that lyrics and physics converge because such extemporal use of verbs is one of the essential peculiarities of scientific literature, and it is the more remarkable that both lyrical and scientific style do oppose to the dramatic style due to the absence of conversational passages⁸⁷².

These peculiarities of lyrical temporality essentially determine generic boundaries. First of all one can indicate such immediate consequence of lyrical perpetuation as the unimportance of dramatic anisotropy. The irreversibility, inevitability and irretrievability of dramatic action are not such meaningful in lyrics as far as all events are conceived in eternity. The space of lyrical imagination affords very diverse variants for events’ order. In contrast to it in the decision-making process of drama the factor of temporality an aspect acquires crucial meaning. It goes especially about the phases of an action that are described with temporal means. Place of action plays secondary role in comparison to the temporal moment. The priority of temporal over spatial aspect of drama is not merely that of one dimension over multidimensionality of space (as that of successive over simultaneous forms of speech). It is the very essence of time (as opposed to space) with its absolute denial of the equality of directions (proper to space) and its heterogeneity of different moments (points of temporal axes) that approaches the existential revelations of characters. It is first of all dramatis personae that bear and reveal temporal factors of drama. It is here to underline that temporal aspects turn out to become existential ones and as such they determine the formation of motifs as the cue points in the chain to decision-making process. The unimportance of the place of action can be seen from its indifference towards the action whereas the moments of the action possess the fatal meaning. Temporality in drama presupposes the generative capacities of time (omnia tempus habet that would be turned as tempus habet (fert) omnia in se). Temporal localization and personal location of words (predicates first of all) designates time as a constant participant of the development of dramatic action. One can say of inseparable links between these both aspects of a dramatic dialogue. Characters & chronology become in drama bilateral aspects of the same essence. It becomes the more suggestive that the very temporal side of text is conceived through its intentional revelation. Time can be said to become the invisible dramatis persona. All it remains in deep contrast to lyrical perpetuation. Lyrical verse represents “retold time” (be here the term of H. Weinrich aptly applied).

A very special consequence of this peculiar temporality is known as the so called “absence of plot” together with the presence of motifs in lyrics. Lyrical perpetuation as opposed to dramatic actuality implies reticence in the sense quite different from that used in drama. Instead of referring to other scenes and to the absent narration of actual events to be restored on grounds of the dramatis personae’s cues here the reticence presumes an abrupt appeal to experience and imagination. Thus the lyrical speech in opposite to dramatic enunciations becomes insufficient and entails the so called absence of plot as one of principal “rules of genre”. The speech must represent respective location among the personified segments assigned to the partners. Meanwhile it lacks characters in lyrics and subsequently the boundaries within such distribution of speech among persons, so the premises for a plot are absent.

At the same time a set of lyrical motifs can by no means be identified with a pure enumeration, the motivational inner connection ensuing from the very nature of motifs. Textual integration in lyrics based on such inner motivation turns out to display much more complications than one would expect in drama or epics. In comparison to proverbs that can be regarded as the folds of plots (potentially developed in fables) in lyrics the options are left open, so that various plots can be built from the interpretation of a lyrical text. The reason here lies in the very nature of lyrical nomination where to mention a thing means only to give a pretext for further reflection, to provoke mental process that has very little common with the primary nomination’s object. This pretext can be said to become occasional (be this word here used as analogous to the designation of the genre of music for a play in theatre). The words don’t mean what they designate in their literal use. They are circumlocutions and as such refer to the otherness of literal meaning. That is why the same words can appear in lyrical works distanced with a millennium⁸⁷³.

It goes thus about eternal images arising on grounds of lyrical perpetuation and giving rise to poetic conventions. Stability of such images, their relative independence from history has obvious attachment to conventionalism as the fundamental property of lyrics⁸⁷⁴. In its turn the very contemplative nature of lyrics entails conventionality and, as a result, artificiality (that tends in particular to approach scenic forms of expression inherent for drama with its own conventionalism). This entails specific ways of renovation peculiar for lyrics where the conventions are reconceived instead of being removed⁸⁷⁵. The conventions seem to be enrooted still in the suggestive code of incantations as the prerequisite for magic charm and the source for lyrical persuasiveness. Meanwhile they radically oppose to rite with its implicit terror being the result of game. The risk of reduction to rite ensues from the very fact of a problem being ground for lyrical integration and arising here motivational difficulties of the text. One of the most frequent cases here is that abstract mystery overshadows problem so that a barren mysticism removes actual cognitive tasks. Such jeopardy of degradation can cause lyrics’ reduction to magic incantations and the elimination of all elements of play so that the demarcation line of poetry would be trespassed in reverse direction. It would be appropriately here to remind that the romantic “rebellion” had the classicist conventions as its targets. Folklore seemed here to be void of the “manacles” and attracted attention as the pretended space of creative freedom. Meanwhile such illusions were overtaken with great disappointment while the expected licenses turned into much stricter ritual regulations where terror and violence were genuine ancestors. Therefore conventions are not to be rejected. One ought to justify them as the inherent consequence of lyrical reflection. Conventions must be acknowledged as the inexhaustible lyrical source.

At the same time the favorable conditions arise for the revival of suggestive effects of archaic alliterative incantations in descriptive lyrics becoming suggestive poetry (as it has been just mentioned in regard to A. Block). These effects coincide also with necessary self-restrictions of scenic representations that counterpoise represented object. In this respect the world of lyrics overlaps also that of fairy tale and especially of its dramatic revelations of fairy play. The imagined and invented characters and surroundings here meet just the conditions of lyrical self-concentration. Tale in general can be regarded as lyrical transformation of mythology, and this “slope” towards lyrics explains dramatic qualities of tale. Mythology gives rise to tragedy but doesn’t exhaust its sources. In its turn as the model of initiation rite with obligatory happy end fairy tale is endowed with an obvious comic potential. Balladry, in contrast to tales, presents obligatory tragic solution of conflict. Tale with its successful initiation radically differs from ballad where often suicidal case becomes compulsory. Thus one can trace prerequisites for dramatic forms within lyrics and vice versa in support of the mentioned A. Holz’s statement on drama as mediated lyrics.

The inherent lyrical conventionality arises from the very essence of reflection. In this respect lyrical text is to be regarded as the vehicle of initial & intensive conventions in opposite to the derivations arising in drama⁸⁷⁶. The priority of lyrics as to the origin of conventions can be seen in the effect of dramatic mixture that enables overcoming the initial lyrical abstractedness in the case of the interaction between the genera. In particular it goes about the transition from verse to prose associated with the mentioned involvement of colloquial stuff as one can also observe in experimental transformations of poetry. In this respect it seems very persuasive that prose enters drama through the gates of lyrical comedy where the rapprochement of verses to colloquialism gets substantiation. Comic opportunities of colloquial speech are connected to the elements of absurdity. Besides, the colloquialisms are opposed to lyrical conventions. Respectively drama vs. lyrics can be associated in such cases with the opposition colloquialism vs. conventionalism. Such statement can be exemplified with the cases of preponderant use of the opposition of the kind in vaudevilles especially in those written by A.P. Chekhov where eventually the pretentious lyrical conventions are degraded within colloquial environment attesting thus the validity of the used conventions⁸⁷⁷. Therefore the inherent lyrical conventionalism is to be taken as the reason for its preparatory mediating role in regard to drama and its artistic code⁸⁷⁸. It is this preparatory mission of making up abstractions (as the product of conventions) for dramatic metatext that marks lyrical generic peculiarity.

Reflection and conventionality give rise to the transgression of the boundaries of verbal substance in lyrics and to the involvement of music. Due to newly arisen conventions within the conditions of a lyrical text the relations signifying / signified don’t coincide with those of colloquial speech. The signified and designated things themselves become devices indicating the already discussed concept of otherness (alteritas) as such that is as the symbol of mysterious and unexplored things. It is why one does need special phonological means accompanying the exposition of poetic signification discernible from those of colloquial speech. Such semantic peculiarities are supported with versification and the involvement of music. Thus conventionality of lyrics and drama together with the already discussed reflection determine still further consequences that concern their relations to extraneous environment of language. For drama it means to be directed towards scene, for lyrics it presupposes expansion from saying to singing through verse. Lyrics acquire then an outlook of “an unsung song” and not only in regards of versification where such attitude becomes obvious⁸⁷⁹. Both drama and lyrics confront thus to epics as to the realm of pure literature. They both are prone to transgress the limits of words, though they have radically opposite reasons for it. In this respect a theatre scene is not a pure external appendix to drama, its necessity being evoked with the very essence of dramatic text loaded with permanent contradictions so that both drama and lyrics move from a pure word towards something extraneous. If dramatic resolution drives word to scene immediately, it is the inherent indefiniteness of lyrics that demands completion to word. Lyrical “open options” presume continuation in other realms (in music in particular) in searches for the solution of unsolved problems similarly to dramatic resolution’s drift towards scene.

At last the statement on the mediating role of lyrics entails also the necessity to dispute the spread opinion as to the “young” age of lyrics in comparison to epics. Meanwhile it is parables and apologues (no to say of the already discussed proverbial enunciations as the meditative lyrical digressions) that are the origins of lyrics and keep on dominating in its generic system. One usually regards lyrics as the product of comparatively late development. Meanwhile it is already prayers and incantations (also presupposing proverbial formulae of meditative lyrics) that contain all necessary premises of lyrical reflection and can precede the epic forms as well. At the same time there lies fundamental difference between prayers and lyrics in proper sense, the peculiar lyrical sincerity, playfulness & carelessness opposing each trait of rite. In drama parabolas are taken “seriously” submitted to purely behavioral tasks as arguments within the discussion in searches for a right decision. Dramatic proverb is to be discerned from lyrical text in that it contains the final decision, whereas the very finality of a speech has no obvious substantiation in lyrics. Therefore in particular lyrical elegy is to be discerned from a dramatic monologue. For example Hamlet can be said to become lyrical hero while reciting his “to be or not to be” monologue, and he returns to dramatic mode in his reply to Ophelia that contains the thought of “beauty” transforming “honesty … to bawd” with the subsequent imperative advice: “Get thee to a nunnery”. In this respect hymns and psalms can be demonstrated as the samples of lyrical apologues. The sentential enunciations are here to sum up the sense of parabolic judgments that represent the summarizing folds of respective narratives. The origins of lyrics being connected with prayers, psalms played enormous role in the development of lyrics (be here only J. Kochanowski’s translations mentioned); meanwhile it was already in the ancient pagan world that the peculiar lyrical appellative forms necessary for illocution were elaborated⁸⁸⁰. Therefore lyrics played the preparatory mediating role in respect to drama delivering abstractions necessary for its role as epic metatext for representing epic contents as the object of reflection.

To sum up, one would indulge in comparing lyrics to the mediem promoting the creation of dramatic superstructure over epics as a kind of its rind: such would be the meaning of W. Humboldt’s and A. Holz’s approach. Both drama and lyrics continue the isolating abstraction as the inherent property of language. Meanwhile this abstraction is now applied to speech and becomes consequently the abstraction of the second degree thus building up the closure of the reflection’s loop. The both genera segregate quotations as the vehicles of partial & particular information so that in drama these quotations become cues of direct speech remaining self-cognitive confessional revelations in lyrics. Therefore it is the artistic details that become the initial source for them both. In opposite to lyrics drama collects and submits these particular quotations so that they would become subordinated to the totality of action (the ancient species of symposium as a kind of cento exemplifying the case where the discussion can be conceived also as the soliloquy). In lyrics already the rhetoric device of textual parcellation and other forms of segmental divisions as the forms of isolation entail conventions of a special artistic code.

As an example an appeal to a squirrel (“An das Eichhorn”) by F. Rueckert can be cited: “Du sitzest auf ewig wankendem Thron / Der niemals wankenden Eiche” (thou sit upon the throne that swings eternally, and thou doth not swing). The sense of this appeal betraying the absence of any hope of the mutual understanding is not an imaginary dialogue with the squirrel; it becomes the object of lyrical reflection indicating another image, and the very quality of the mentioned swinging throne bears quite distinct meaning of the fragility of nature and the vulnerability of life. Here the indication of perpetual (ewig) action is very symptomatic. As a whole the verse has an outlook of an apologue with the conclusion: “So schrieb der Dichter bei Kerzenschein / Im warmen heimlichen Zimmer”. In dramatic speech verbs concern the preparation of an action so that they bear the objective meaning of the target of disputation where all the secondary details are put aside. For instance in “Boris Godunov” Pimen retells to Otrepiev the story of Prince Dmitry in past tense whereas it plays the role of something concerning the future in reference to the intentions. It goes in particular about the suggested differentiation between the generic aspect and temporary aspect where the first concerns the possible implications that can be obtained from a work [Weinrich, 313]. For instance in epic narration one encounters the reminiscences of the past and the anticipations of the future events⁸⁸². In particular epic novel that deals with the accomplished events always presupposes implications that are represented in perfect aspect though the text obviously is never restricted in this way. In the same way drama implies imperative aimed at exerting influence upon the future. In lyrics all these meanings loose their significance due to contemplative abstraction that is presupposed. Therefore one can say of the implicit passive voice representing contemplative attitude and impersonal form that prevail in lyrics. Moreover, this combination of contemplative passivity & impersonality of incognito gives grounds for the conjecture as to the medio-passive forms reproduced in lyrical genus.

Then it is to stress that the nature of the genera is by no means of purely aesthetic origin, It is the functional textual opportunities that determine the generic divisions. In its turn these opportunities entail aspectual differentiation. As far as function is existential property of text it represents its intentional load that entails in its turn aspect as the form of the disclosure of these opportunities. In particular it goes about conation’s connotations [Бондарко, 2002, 402] where the intentional b background of aspect becomes to be observed especially visible. Then both epic and dramatic genera with their interplay of intentional, temporal, aspectual parameters of utterances are to be opposed to lyrical contemplative abstraction where these attributive features are of secondary significance. The invariant of lyrical utterance can be given in passive voice without losing the essential connotations at least as the implication presupposed with this utterance: < «И вновь, сверкнув из чаши винной / Ты поселила в сердце страх» (А. Блок, Снежное вино, 29.12.1906)> implies both the iterative of <→* вновь (тебе) сверкать> and the fact of <→* страх поселен тобой> being presented in passive voice as the admissible transformations of the invariant. The situation in lyrical genus can be compared to that of the so called ergative construction as it has been described by A.F. Losev who finds here the effects of virtual reality of an imaginary phantom or “daemon”⁸⁸³. The constant presence of the invisible powers is the fundamental law of lyrical genus, and it can be traces in the functional properties of its syntax.

Thus one can conclude on the inseparable ties arising between all three genera as the representations of functional opportunities of generation a coherent textual entity. There are text & metatext represented with epics and drama, and there is medium that mediates the transition between them and coincides with lyrics. Therefore lyrical work can be conceived as the germ of possible drama. As the medium for making up metatext it depends upon this destination. Lyrical genus can’t be conceived without its dramatic preparatory destination of generating abstractions necessary for metatext that becomes evident already within lyrical digressions of epic text. The mediating mission of lyrical genus and its intermediary position determine its structural outlook. Lyrical work can be said to be reflected in the mirror of its dramatic destination. Therefore the functional structure of the prepared drama imparts the distinctive features to lyrical motifs as the representations of situations analogous to dramatic scenic episodes. It is the universal reciprocity that must be taken into account in the analysis of particular genera.

The above discussed approaches to the description of narrative text as the dialogue “observer - author” (or “reader – writer”) reveal therefore differences when one passes from epics to dramatic and lyrical works. The very opportunities of description prove here to become also textual inherent analytical epiphenomena that are evolved in the interpretative activity of an observer (a reader) as in the case with plot and composition that can be only retold by an observer. Meanwhile the picture will be complicated due to the introduction of the new participants of “descriptive dialogue”: it is heroes or “dramatis personae” that will appear in epic works and gain priority in drama. The interpretative activity as the source for the description of plot and composition gains importance especially in regards to the procedures of compressing the text (in particular of building its summary) with the aim of representing the textual entirety with its perspectives and horizons that determine the meaningfulness of separate locutions. It was K. Stanislavsky who for the first time delineated the doctrine on the dominance of textual perspective as one of the principal premises of the peculiarity of dramatic text⁸⁸⁴. This property of dramatic speech is to be demonstrated both in its field structure with the opposition of center vs. periphery and the compatibility of its contents so that the principal ideas (that’s the collision of the textual passage) could be disclosed⁸⁸⁵.

The task of summarizing dramatic texts was sometimes evaluated as solved at least for some specimens. For instant, A.A. Anikst has put the statement as to the possibility of data representation on the way of quotations’ selections for Shakespearean corpus in opposite to decadent drama where such representation would become unrealizable⁸⁸⁶. Thus the method of “quotation + comment” structure was taken for an adequate representation of the kind in spite of at least the known semantic transitions within the prepared textual fragments ensuing from such selective and eliminative transformations. Meanwhile we have already seen the impossibility to disclose narrative textual plot and composition with the cited words only. Pure quotations can by no means represent textual integration because they do as periphrastic descriptions of integrative foundations instead of direct designations. The observer always must use own interpretative words instead of quotations to compress and describe the retold narrative contents. Still more complicated is the descriptive task in regard to conversational and versified text.

It is noteworthy in this respect that the first attempts to compile digests had been undertaken already at the beginning of the XIX c. and that it was Shakespeare which became their object. It goes about Ch. and M. Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare” with some plays’ contents briefly retold. Meanwhile one has always to take into account the perspective of the scientific tasks to which textual compressions serve and the respective horizon of scientific experience that determines the way of textual comprehension. The mentioned simplified model would not work if the question arose about the textual transformations that a mere elimination (for instance dotted places of cuts in the quotations) entailed. The meanings of separated words or locutions are essentially different from those given within textual entity as it can be seen in the paradox of an isolated word. Still more does it concern artistic text where not a single word can be taken off without abusing the meaning. Selections and permutations of quotations are to be regarded as the initial step towards deeper transformations that demand special analysis. Thus the above discussed problem of data representation of text in nuce (in particular of textual compilation) remains still unsolved.

There exists still more elaborated and special kind of compiling digests. It goes about the abridged retellings of the contents of operatic works as the summaries of their libretti. One could take as an example the works of E. Krause where the dispositions of operas are presented with the author’s own words. Thus the abridged contents of R. Straus’ opera “Arabella” to H. von Hoffmanstahl’s play would look like the following: Arabella, the daughter of an impoverished count, is courted by the officer Mattheo but she doesn’t have reciprocate affection; meanwhile her little sister falls in love to him and pretends to be Arabella with signing letters to him; there arrives a rich relative of the count’s acquaintance Mandryka; he meets Arabella at the dancing party, and the reciprocal love arises; at the same moment her sister (who continues her game of pretending to be Arabella) gives to Mattheo the key as if from Arabella’s room so that Mandryka observes it and blames Arabella of infidelity; then the count makes Arabella, Mattheo and Mandryka meet, and they bring reciprocal accusations; the appearance of the sister clarifies the disputes with the confession about the deceit and all is crowned with the two marriages [Краузе, 1961, 557-558]. The description of operas follows such patterns as a rule. For instance, the description of G. Verdi’s “La Traviata” [Krause, 723 - 725] comprises the following points. A young man Germont gets acquaintance with Violetta who grants him a flower and invites to visit her when the flower fades; at the same time she refuses to spend the evening with her former admirer Douphal. Germont’s father persuades Violetta to break with him because she hurts the reputation of his sister, so she leaves him. Germont finds her in masquerade together with Douphal, plays with him and when her sweet heart implores him to leave, he displays jealousy taking Douphal for his rival; Violetta dies in her lodgings and in this moment Germont pays the visit with his repenting father having learned of her true love.

Another example of the same practice is to be found in old Chinese theatre where special ultimately abridged plot’s summaries were reconstructed with the view of approaching libretti. It is of importance that in such reconstructions the so called “principal scene” (Chinese ti mu) is given that proves to show the full accordance with the concept of the so called “indispensable scene” introduced in the European tradition only in the late XIX-th century by Fr. Sarcey. For example the description of the play “On Horseback at a Fence” has the following outlook: the son of a minister has been sent to buy flowers for orchard; while riding near the garden he observes a beautiful girl through the fence, so that the love passion bursts out and they decide to have an appointment tonight; while meeting in the garden under the moonlight they have been found out by a matron who permits them to escape; after seven years of clandestine common life they have already children but are suddenly entrapped by the father who demands the son to take divorce; the son obeys, then he wants to return to his wife who refuses to see him again; his father repents and prays the woman to accept the son; she refuses, and it is only children who persuade her to return to previous life. It is very peculiar that the “principal scene” here is the scene in the moonlighted garden that’s the initial scene of the play where the conflict does just begin instead of culmination or of the moment where the catastrophe takes place [Сорокин, 1979, 203]. To sum up, one can regard libretto & spectacle as the two extreme positions between which the performing activity is developed.

The devices of compressing a text and of expanding the compression to produce a derivative text are known for ages and were used especially in the improvisations: let only A. S. Pushkin’s “Egyptian Nights” be reminded. As to the use of the devices of the kind for the tasks of exploring the generative textual opportunities and narrative strategies it remains still unsolved problem. One can only agree that for the display of textual perspective the respective periphrastic transformation should be demanded so that pure selective quotations’ approach would become insufficient. Such transformation is the core of any descriptive procedure, and the question is as to the limits of transformational distortions of primary text. The problem of summarizing artistic text can be said to sum up the relationship between narratology and paremiology: textual convolution must become the data representation of a text enabling not the reproduction of the compressed text but the generation of the variants differing from the primary source because no derivative database would become sufficient to retain the source. In this respect drama could be said to be a circumlocution or a periphrastic description of latent problems, the periphrastic way being used in scenic disputation of the problems. Such latent problematic contents include not only an author’s supposed draft but also unforeseen inferences from the presented dramatic action. Interpretation of the text can be conceived as the implications dealing with the inferential opportunities if the interpreted text.

It is here to mention that still before the efforts for the elaboration of automatic summarizing procedures were undertaken it had been developed the practice of the so called readers’ digests. Textual summary can be regarded as a phantom implicitly present within a text as its latent satellite or epiphenomenon and found out with the devices of interpretation. Such textual satellite can be compressed till the limit of titles as keywords. It is these phrases that carry out decisive role in textual development and become in a way fatal details for the textual entirety. One can say thus of fatal or phantom words folding and describing the text. At the same time it is to be reminded that such key-words can’t be restricted with those used in the described text only and reduced to the self-description of the text: such epiphenomena do always presuppose an observer’s inferences and corollaries necessarily evoked with the interpretative opportunities of the text and revealing the competence necessary to comprehend the text. Obviously such comments may be of abstract generalizing nature (in the case of metalanguage of special descriptors) but this is only one of the opportunities: it goes about the inferences to be made by an observer as the result of the text’s confrontation with verbal experience.

Respectively there arises the question as to the differences between dramatic and lyric digests (in comparison to those of epics) as well as the adequacy of such digests’ interpretation. In particular as a dramatic digest often an anecdote can serve. It can also further be compressed in a proverbial locution. Meanwhile here the circumstance arises that can be defined as the textual paradox of drama. The matter is that such obvious source of drama as the plot compressed (folded) in a proverb can’t be disclosed immediately in a dramatic text. In particular the paradox of summarizing a drama consists in the fact that before being compressed the text must be increased and expanded with the supplied explanatory comments. The coherence of dramatic text is always based upon the inferences supposed to be made up by an arbiter (in particular by an observer) from the juxtapositions of separate utterances. In view of this inferential nature of dramatic text’s unity its description must be respectively supplemented with implied explanations, and it is this tackle of comments that’s to be summarized together with proper textual data. There must be a virtual arbiter’s text at hand to make the written play coherent. In a drama’s description the constants of quotations are to be submerged in the environment of the variables of interpretative inferences where the narrative presupposition of dramatic text would be disclosed and displayed. Thus the observer’s imagination’s reproducing abilities determined with the competence become the necessary element of dramatic text (as it was the case with epic plot and composition). Thus there is the inherent insufficiency of dramatic text that must be supplemented, and it becomes possible due to the observer’s competence.

The general law of dialogues is that