Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

Thus one can refer to such common dramatic and lyrical properties as the textual differentiation and segregation along personal dimension into utterance of alien voices chiefly as latent quotations and the universal antithetic confrontation of utterances with references to implicit alternative conjectures. Lyrical work as a polemical soliloquy is comparable to dramatic scene. Both in dramatic and in lyrical poetry the invisible phantom of implications and latencies becomes the decisive power in opposite to the overtly manifested utterances. While being taken as a dramatic scenic episode corresponding to typical situation that would be performable and liable to creative interpretation with succeeding transformations a lyrical work must be conceived as a mental experiment. It is reader (or, generally, a potential observer) who must reveal the implicit connotations and examine them within such experimental interpretative exploration. Lyrical works are then regarded as performable scenic episodes representing typical situations that can be endowed with the same producer’s comments that dramas afford. The performable properties displayed with a lyrical poem differ essentially from those of drama. It doesn’t go about the divergence (between different interpretations) that entails the necessity of performer. This radical interpretative divergence as the initial reason for performance is in lyrics supplemented with the activity of imagination bringing forth imaginary theatre so that a reader becomes an actor of such single actor’s scene. This can be exemplified with L. Staff’s sonnet “Bread” representing an obvious soliloquy.

The disclosure of the features of polemical soliloquy in lyrical works entails further consequences. Due to textual differentiation and segregation (within personal dimension as to the alien voices of soliloquy) one has grounds for finding dramatic parallels, but it is already within proper lyrical composition that such forces of textual heterogeneity are developed at a large scale. One can remind already amoebaean composition or refrains that behave as the mentioned latent quotations. It is due to such properties that lyrical songs have become the source of early secular dramatic works. The samples of such evolution are well known, for instance, in the development of German literature, and they can be generalized as the universal tendency⁹⁸⁵. The development from fable to drama as the growth of the mentioned scenic proverbs as widely attested. Therefore one can find within the textual differentiation of lyrical works the sources for further intensification of dramatic functionalism. Of a special importance are here the inherent lyrical collisions and latent or manifested alternatives that perform the role analogous to that of dramatic action. It is due to polemical nature that lyrical works enliven conventions and involve them within the discussion as the targets of objections. Therefore conventions reveal their productivity as the participants of polemics. In its turn the appeal to alternatives promotes the metonymic style in lyrics and furthers the development of periphrastic means. The unmentioned latent alternatives become the necessary supplement to particulars of a lyrical image. The cases of metonymic style are described in particular in the works of M. Proust known for their lyrical verve. For instance, the antonymous connotations ensuing from the same object attest metonymical shifts as far as this object is seen and represented in another environment⁹⁸⁶. This predilection to metonymy is displayed still more in the periphrastic means indispensable for lyrical imagery. Partial nomination ensues from lyrical contemplative dominance and entails in its turn the necessity of periphrastic devices. The constant presence of antithetic confrontation in lyrical utterance resulting in the prevalence of such semantic transition can be regarded as the source of lyrical idioms developed in drama.

Lyrical production of idioms that later become dramatic situational motifs ensues from isolation as seclusion & solitude being the immanent quality of lyrical meditation and is already attested with the personified dissociation of textual segments in soliloquy. Everybody’s personal seclusion delineated with the moments of birth and death builds up the prerequisite for this lyrical solitary viewpoint. Moreover one can say of the indispensability of such attitude not only for lyrical but also for poetical attitude generally. Personal viewpoint and personal responsibility become the initial point for poetry as such (as the quality of mankind at all). At the same time it is to be taken into account that lyrical seclusion always presupposes the existence of those from whom one is secluded, so that the latent apostrophe to such addressee is always implied in lyrical text. This personal distance created with the lyrical solitude is the most observable generic distinctive feature that enables discerning lyrical poem from dramatic play. It is displayed especially in the peculiar lyrical temporality where one does encounter not only the concentration of the contemporary impressions’ moment but also the abstraction of this moment as transported into the lyrical hero’s inner world. Such lyrical transportation of the observed events makes the objects of lyrical description not only abstracted but also included in the stream of consciousness that outspokenly contrasts to the epic stream of events and the dramatic stream of deeds. Here lies the principal difference from that phantom of action that makes up the permanent points of reference for all details of dramatic text. In opposite to the peculiar dramatic impression of something being accomplished behind the words in lyrics words refer to the implied problem that is still to be explored and that can’t be defined as the expected deeds of scenic action.

Subsequently it doesn’t go only about the current & contemporary moment of the present time (in opposite to the expectation of the future solution of conflict as the definitive feature of dramatic temporality): the matter is that this very present moment is taken as an abstraction. Moreover, such presence taken as lyrical abstraction refers actually to the past and therefore conceived as a kind of “historical present tense” (praesens historicum) in opposite to the epic representation of the past events with the illusion of fictitious verity of the virtual “as if” removed here with the overt reflection over the terminated movement⁹⁸⁷. It goes about the past and the accomplished deeds and the same time they aren’t those of epic narration as far as they become enlivened with the incognito’s imagination and take now place in the inner mental world⁹⁸⁸. Then the mentioned effects of ambivalence and hesitation ensuing from lyrical abstractedness are in its turn comparable to lyrical transportation as the transfer of objects’ depictions and images into the incognito’s inner world. It is due to this effect of transportation that lyrical genus produces isolating abstractions with the inexhaustible prolificacy and becomes the source for their further implementation. The plainest and commonest details can be transformed into abstract references to speculative sophisticated essences and turn into philosophical category within the borders of a given poem.

These revelations of the contemplative essence of lyrics correlate with what has been called by A.V. Bondarko the observable and perceivable modes of speech and exemplified with A.S. Pushkin’s poems⁹⁸⁹. It is essential that such modality entails also further modifications of tense and voice. To generalize such observations one could return to the mentioned conjecture on the indifference of lyrical invariant to the voice and on the prevalence of passive voice with substantive style in lyrical lines. Instead of action with its effects a lyrical verse refers to affects of inner spiritual life. It is impressions and sentiments that correspond to the deeds of dramatic action in lyrics. That is why lyrical enunciation remains indifferent to the voice of verbal forms. In particular it admits its conversion into passive voice without essential transformation of meanings and with the retention of situational invariant. Apparently it concerns the implications obtained from lyrical textual data and not the text itself. When dramatic implications are built in imperative, it is passive that determines the implications of lyrical verse. In this respect one could say of the retention of the ancient Indo-European medio-passive forms or even of the revival of ergative construction. In particular it goes in lyrics about the forms of the latent or implied passive voice that has been in particular noticed by A.M. Peshkovsky⁹⁹⁰. Such latent passivity can be felt in many a lyrical enunciation where actually active or impersonal forms are used that acquire reflexive aspect. It is essential that in such cases active forms of verbs don’t have decisive meaning and can easily be replaced with the reflexive or passive forms. Such is for instance the situation in the famous refrain from O. Bergholz’s verse where the overt allusion to the Crucifixion is made:

«Вот женщина стоит с доской в объятьях; / угрюмо сомкнуты ее уста, / доска в гвоздях – как будто часть распятья / большой обломок русского креста […] Им только б доски дотащить до дома / и ненадолго руки снять с гвоздей! […] всего важней / охапку досок дотащить до дома / и ненадолго руки снять с гвоздей» ‘… l (О. Берггольц, «Ленинградская осень», 10.1942)

* жители блокадного города со – распяты на досках для обогрева жилища * доски связаны невидимой принадлежностью единому распятию * гвоздями повседневных обязанностей прибиты к кресту * греза о временной передышке ** [ситуация мартирологии]

These obvious observations are to be generalized. The matter is that it becomes inessential for any lyrical utterance whether active or passive voice is used. Therefore one can say actually of the middle voice represented in lyrics with the usual forms. Moreover it must go about the revival of the archaic (and now non existent) ergative construction. It is known that the retention of the ancient Indo - European middle – passive voice belongs to one of the principal achievements of the Slavonic languages⁹⁹¹. The already cited A.F. Losev’s statement on the revival of “daemonic” images within the ergative constructions are to be found in lyrics. Of a special significance is the similarity of the middle voice with the reflexive voice as those where there is no opposition of active vs. passive subjects as is the case in lyrical utterance⁹⁹². It is just the absence of such opposition that gives grounds to say of the ergative construction⁹⁹³. The means of ergative construction, despite their antiquity, aren’t distanced from the modern languages as one would imagine. For instance ‘One sees him’ would be translated in the Basque language as ‘he is seen by a man, and it is the ergative construction that is represented in the Russian «мне хочется» (literally ‘it is wanted at me’) [Климов, 66]. Noteworthy there are also no differences between the notions “to be” and “to have” in the Basque⁹⁹⁴. Thus one can suppose the existence of the specific lyrical aspect (coinciding with that of middle voice or reviving ergative construction) where the opposition of active and passive voices loses its meaning. Respectively it concerns also the subject of lyrical utterance. It doesn’t represent the active responsible hero of dramatic kind. To sum up, lyrical utterance can be defined as that implying the latent connotation of middle voice (or medial - passive voice) manifested with the surface of common forms. Such implicit connotations of the suggested lyrical aspect correlate apparently with the properties of isolating abstractions peculiar for lyrics. Both implications of passive voice and isolated details transformed into the vehicles of abstractions conform to the above discussed Kantian notion of scheme.

This aspectual peculiarity of lyrics converges not only with the transportation that makes all described processes to become the inner elements of the stream of consciousness. It comes still to substantive style that prevails in lyrics in spite of its apparent attachment to epic representation. The correlation of the restricted substantive means with the passive voice has been described by A.V. Bondarko as the consequences of the asymmetry between active and passive voices⁹⁹⁵. Therefore in the description of lyrical latent contents and the disclosure of implications the listing structures of indexation would become preferable. The concomitant glossary that would accompany the text of a lyrical poem must be built up as the explication of the abstractions concealed in the connotations of its separate locutions. In difference to the performers’ memoranda accompanying a dramatic play and representing the meaning of situations as the stairs of the thorough action’s development it goes here about the elucidation of the cryptotype of particular idioms as the designations of details and the vehicles of abstractions.

It gives favorable conditions for the representation of things (instead of deeds) in lyrics and to the development of the tendency that could be called reification. To substantiate the introduction of this notion one must remind the mentioned transcendental sources of poetical thought that’s the essence of the non-verbal nature. Dramatic and lyrical works can be regarded as the active and contemplative versions of poetry as opposed to prose that display difference in their relations to the non-verbal transcendental reality: if prosaic speech due to its attachment to colloquy betrays pragmatic destination and therefore refers to this reality as its immediate representative, poetry presupposes abstraction that mediates the transition to imaginative and practical world of non-verbal objects. Within this generic division lyrical ambiguity and ambivalence can be confronted to dramatic definiteness of decision. Dramatic play or lyrical poem can be poor poetry but by no means good prose. They oppose to prose as those where the priority belongs to images instead of direct verbal meanings incorporated in practical reality as its signals to actions. The initial G.E. Lessing’s statement on the paradoxical insignificance of words for poetry that deals with the created images now can be continued in putting stress upon the circumscriptions of images attained with the verbal means as the distinctive feature of confronting poetry against prose that attaches to reality through practical relation without special poetical idiolect and system of conventions. Apparently both poetry and prose are the exploration of cognitive problems involving verbal devices. Meanwhile they differ in tackling these problems. Prose can belong both to epics and to colloquial speech while poetry opposes to colloquial substance. Prose comes out of the preexistent competence & experience of codified information entailing confirmation of the acknowledged codified and reproducible “truths”. It causes the tendencies to unilateral seriousness (in opposite to poetical dubitation, irony and self-criticism) that reveals the reducibility of prosaic utterances to the admitted code. Vice versa poetry betrays tendency to spontaneity without confirmatory arguments. That is why verbal code has not such meaning for poetry as for prose.

The idea of semantic transitions generating imagery and entailing verbal insignificance has been discussed by G.E. Lessing in connection with the question about the motivation of a cry of a suffering person in the poetical image in regard to Sadolet’s poem (“Laokoon, Ch. 6”): “Der Dichter hatte die dringenden Ursachen, das Leiden des Laokoon nicht in Geschrei ausbrechen zu lassen … Allein mich befremdet nicht das Geschrei, sondern der Mangel aller Gradation bis zu diesem Geschrei, auf welche das Kunstwerk den Dichter natürlicherweise hätte bringen müssen.” ‘The artist had the urgent causes to represent the sufferings without bursting into crying … I’m not surprised with the cry only, but with the lack of gradation to this cry which naturally must have been brought forth in the work of the poet’ [Lessing, Laokoon, 53 – 54]. Such metamorphosis refers to the causes and sources that lie far beyond verbal text. Moreover, to return to the initial idea, the transformed word must disappear from conscience as a word to be replaced with image. If prose retains verbal code and belongs to it poetry can be said to be codified anew, so that these images substitute primary direct meanings. The idea of “forgetting words”, “leaving words aside” finds adequate place in poetry as the counterpart to prose where all verbal regularities retain their validity. Therefore poetry can be said to entail verbal amnesia where the replacement of words with images makes the necessity of involving non-verbal factors. It creates free space for the experimental exploration of verbal capacities that a lyrical poet deals with. This constant reference to non-verbal objects (in particular of pictographic or emblematic nature) as described in regards to proverbs and drama builds up the transcendental foundation of lyrical textual integration in the same manner as it takes place in a dramatic play. The presence of a transcendental vision (be it emblem or a pictographic prompt) is always implied with the lyrical enunciation and it is the reason of the mentioned verbal amnesia. The prosaic relation to this transcendental reality is of another kind: due to direct designations colloquial locutions become the particles of prosaic tissue that has not to refer to imaginative world (via dramatic stage of lyrical verse) as the medium to latent transcendental reality, Prosaic text is incorporated in this reality and therefore represents its image while poetry must develop the intermediary imaginative world.

In this respect lyrical poetry can be represented in its initial form as idyll in its literal and primary meaning of a “pictorial narration” as the pictorial representation of reality in the manner of the descriptions of emblematic images. Such idyllic sources are to be found in particular in the genre of ecphrasis where the description of things refers apparently to the transcendental contents of the invisible essences (that has been just described in the previous subdivision). In particular things become the voices of fate. Here again it is to remind that the implied transcendental non-verbal object capable of being conceived in visual form as a pictogram or an emblem (that was mentioned in regard to proverbs designated with such pictorial devices) or as a rebus (as in the mentioned devices of textual descriptions) is the poetic phantom. We have already seen the necessity of phantom as action for the integrity of dramatic text. In lyrics phantom correlates with the mentioned tendency of reification (as the counterpart to dramatic personification). One can demonstrate a macabre grotesque idyll given in another O. Bergholz’s verse from her recollections.

А сколько ржавых коек и кроватей / на улицах столпилось в эти дни! / Вокруг развалин горбились они, / бессмысленно пытаясь прикрывать их. / Костлявый их, угрюмый хоровод / кружил везде, где рыли огород … О.Берггольц, Но я все время помню … (1964)

* толпа кроватей призраков * прикрывать обнаженность (мертвого тела) * танец скелетов * огород притягивает как могила - место упокоения

Such “idyll” accounts actually on apparitions of the awful existence. The image of CROWDED BEDS appears to attest the presence of the late persons. It points to their lives and therefore to further circumstances of their existence. The images of things play the role similar to the material remnants in archeology, and it accounts for the meaning of “idyll” in lyrics. Lyrical motifs represented usually as the depictions of things are to be conceived as such phantoms of imagination referring actually to the problems for explorative efforts. In difference to epic plot or dramatic action it is the lyrical problem that becomes the contents of such phantom. One can mention the so called concetto of a baroque poem (as the final lines of a sonnet) that could exemplify the designation of a phantom concealed and revealed in lyrical poetry. The presence of such poetic phantom in lyrics as in the form of some described thing refers to the parallels to etymological analysis noticed already by K. Bühler in his doctrine on semantic transitions (Bedeutungswandel)⁹⁹⁶. In particular, a parable (as an intermediary link from proverb to lyrical poem) can be represented as an interpretation of a name referring to poetic