Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

These non-verbal transcendental sources of lyrics behave as the forces for inspiration while being transformed into poetic images through the verbal transformation. It makes such non-verbal objects become paradoxically the source for the coinage of verbal idiomatic resources. Together with initial inspiration one ought also to point to the terminal incarnation where the verbal meanings are forgotten and give place to visionaries. In particular lyrical genus becomes the place where the aphorisms are generated initially as the compressions of poetic texts and as the circumscriptions of the non-verbal objects of inspiration. Such inspirational objects converted later into compressing aphorisms or epigrams of circumscriptions are in its turn vague and indefinite and comparable to dreams. It is also to stress their musical qualities as the manifestation of such non-verbal presence within verbal creativity⁹⁹⁷. Generally speaking all lyrical conventions are to be regarded as the transformations of the preexistent locutions referring to such non-verbal inspirational sources so that one deals with metamorphoses in the same way as it goes about scenic conventions inseparable from epic narrations as its substance of experiments. Circumlocution as the principal element of lyrical speech arises as the transformations of the ways of descriptions in regard to the problem to be explored. The problem of conventions presupposes also the necessity of discerning lyrics from what could be taken for its ritual prerequisites. Meanwhile there is the insurmountable border between lyrics and rite. The obsolete thesis of ritual priority is sometimes repeated and is in particular taken as the ground for the statements on the pretended priority of mediaeval stage of lyrical development over the legacy of Classical Antiquity⁹⁹⁸. Meanwhile we have already seen that the forms of polemical negation absolutely indispensable for lyrical genus can by no means be reduced to the prohibitions of ritual taboo with the imitated and repeated mantras. Besides, chant doesn’t imply syncretism. There are also no grounds to take ritual reminiscences in lyrical song for its primary source where they become the result of later convergent development. In its turn it is already within Edda that the decisive lyrical motif of solitude arises⁹⁹⁹.

Lyrical textual integration enables disclosing the meaningfulness of a most unimportant locution. One can say of a kind of ghost-words (to use the term of the manuscript studies) that are hardly mentioned and nevertheless become pivot words within the textual perspective. One can cite such unnoticeable detail as «яблоня в сугробе» ‘an apple-tree in a snow-drift’ from the verse in Memoriam to M. Tsvetayeva by B. Pasternak (1943) that is elevated to the rank of sepulchral monument not only due to the rhyme with «надгробье» ‘sepulcher’ but because of its position in regard to the possible but unmentioned references to the commonplaces of the theme (such as the similarity of snow-drift with a hillock of a tomb).

Together with this transfiguration of colloquy the special poetical conventionality arises that gives grounds in particular to delineate demarcation between artistic poetry and folklore. It is here to remind that any colloquy is out of question without its proper conventions, so that it goes about the transition from one conventional system to another. One must warn here against overestimation of folklore poetical imagination that has once demonstrated its errors. In particular the romantic rebellion against classicism propelled among others the demand of removing the old conventions as unproductive. In lyrics the appeal to folklore was suggested where one imagined to find the desired inspiration. Meanwhile the great disappointment encountered the folklore partisans as the nearer acquaintance with this stylistic kind took place. Ritualistic rigorous restrictions that would replace classicist rules did by no means promote the sought creative freedom. In the attempts to conquer more freedom the folklore’s admirers were enthralled with the worst kind of slavery – that of magic rites and superstitions. Instead of “native inspiration” they have fallen in the pitfall of obscurantism. Therefore there were no real grounds to prefer folklore customs to the salon conventions. The gross error of romantic adherents to ascribe the liberating mission to folklore (and to peasantry) was easily refuted with the productivity of the lyrics of “Parnassus” and its continuators of symbolism. Conventionality is the essence of lyrics, and there are no reasons to blame them of the lack of productivity: conventions designate problems to be explored in a lyrical poem. Any textual integration entailing codification with its reproducibility, conventionality is indispensably brought forth. It concerns in particular lyrics where the properties of artificial & cameral space are especially sensible to codified conventions. It is these generic properties of the artificial & cameral that differ lyrical conventions from those of theatre. Moreover the coinage of dramatic conventionality can be regarded as the derivative in regard to lyrics. Lyrical poetry necessarily generates conventional playground as well as drama generates scenic space. In this respect lyrical poetry opposes to ritual magic motivation of action as well as to the epic realistic description of events. Meditative attitude of lyrics gives sincerity instead of verisimilitude as the genuine substantiation of realism. It is lyrical meditative attitude that mediates the description and precludes immediate representation of an epic manner without previously elaborated conventions.

This demand of sincerity is actually endangered with the risk of fraudulence and hypocrisy inherent to conventionalities as such. For instance lyrical conventions of courtesy can easily be degraded (as the sample of Sade can bear witness). Theatrical hyperbolism and risk of hysteria are of the same origin. Exaggeration ad the inherent property of dramatic work can be comprehended as the result of conventionality. The abstract and conventional hypocrisy is especially to be found in the culture of knights’ chivalry that has become the paragon for decadence. Moreover such decadence of pure lyricism can even be stylized and cultivated as the fate of Arthurian legend attests (with the Malory’s work reedited in 1893). At the same time one can point to the sample of Petrarch as the founder of productive tradition of sonnets. The constant presence of preexistent conventions entails the permanent task of overcoming and removing them in attempts to attain sincerity. In this respect Solomon’s tradition of the deified Sophie as the personification of wisdom can be regarded as the primary source of meditative lyrics (inherited in proverbial art). As a bright example of the transformation of conventional formulaic locution one can cite ‘amorous fog’ (amorosa nebbia) by Petrarch (123) that comes back to the primary etymological meaning of Lat. nebula.

The problem of conventionality vs. sincerity involves still the further aspect of development in the plane of deduction vs. induction in lyrics suggested by L. Ginzburg. The mentioned lyrical conventionality is here to ensue from the general predilection towards deductive representation of reality so that lyrical creativity displays the inferential procedure of building formulae predestined with preexistent “truths”¹⁰⁰⁸. Under these conditions the lexical substance used in lyrical poem us opposed to the colloquial usage so that the derivative conventionalities coexist here with the direct meanings of words (without replacing them)¹⁰⁰⁹. In its turn the demands of sincerity and immediacy of expression have given rise to the development of inductive lyrical poetry. The deductive conventionality obviously presupposes the priority of codification with the total motivational substantiation of the used locutions as the signs of conventionalities. The opposite opportunity arises when one deals with textual priority when one expects spontaneity from the created poetical work. This approach “from text” instead of that “from code” entails also the collision between the colloquial direct meanings of words and the necessity of transforming these commonly used lexical units into the idiomatic poetical devices as the vehicle of derivative meanings. This collision can be solved, according to L. Ginzburg, on the ways of endowing words with existential load¹⁰¹⁰. This approach seems to be endangered with the implied opportunity of reducing lyrical attitude to existential problems. Meanwhile it goes here about the semantic opportunities of word rather than about the existential sentences as such¹⁰¹¹. The problem consists here in the opportunity of what has been called lyrical transfiguration that is not dependent upon these or those existential consequences. Actually the generalizing properties of lyrical word described here are essentially connected with the codification of lyrical textual tissue. That is why it seems too precocious to reject “deductive conventionalities”. Instead of old conventions one always encounters the formation of the newly invented regularities and the glorified (by the adherents of romanticism) spontaneity becomes unattainable without motivational prerequisites. One can easily detect the fundamental antinomy of language, that of reproducibility (and reducibility!) vs. productivity, that is concealed behind the opposition of deduction vs. induction in lyrical poetry. It always goes about the indispensable and unavoidable codification of any textual production that precludes pure spontaneity without motivation and entails the obligatory formation of conventional poetical devices.

The necessity of poetical codification ensuing from such solution of the sincerity vs. conventionality’s problem in its turn presupposes another and greater problem of “poetry and truth” (Dichtung und Wahrheit, to refer to the famous J. Goethe’s formula). It is here again to remind that word is always infested with the diverse forms of deceit, a usual chatter being its zero level, not to say of different “mantras”, “slogans” and other verbal “chimeras” where the deceitful effect arises involuntarily without preponderated purposes to deceive, In opposite to this “adult” and “serious” speech full of delusions it is the infant that never deceives (without getting red if the case is). The expurgation of deceit as the noblest mission of poetry entails naturally the involvement of infantile experience in most various forms from the romantic vision of infant as a prophet to the program of infantile imitation in Dadaism. This approach in its turn entails the paradox of an infantile “fair play” that is conducted with utmost seriousness. The problem is that jocular behavior of a player can’t be true and sincere because it must imply the generally acceptable and comprehensible delusions and at the same time it is not deceit in any way. A child that plays “blind man’s buff” sincerely adheres to the conventions of the game so that the contradiction of sincerity vs. conventionality appears here to be removed. The paradox of sincere and serious infantile play (in opposite to the one-sided jocular plays of adult entertainments) can be applicable to poetry. In particular a lyrical poem can be then regarded not only as an episodic dramatic etude (correlating with impromptu) but also as an infantile play taken seriously.

In this point the problem of the opposition of poetry vs. prose returns again. Seriousness as the most observable prosaic quality presupposes the priority of assertion over negation. Something said seriously can’t be taken in negative as the object of dubitation and derision already because of the pragmatic prosaic attachment. Besides, it is to discern tedium from seriousness. One can say of serious problems but not of tedious problems. It is the absence of problematic contents that marks tedium in difference to seriousness. The prosaic quality of seriousness is conceivable as the opposite side to skeptic dubitation (with the succeeding humor). Meanwhile seriousness is irreducible to tedium, and it can be proved with the mentioned opposition of lapidary vs. ephemeral style. The already mentioned opposition of lapidary vs. ephemeral intersects here with the problem of seriousness as something very different from tediousness. Lyrical transfiguration makes ephemeral things to turn into perpetual so that lyrical abstraction appears as an “inversion of ephemerides”. The extremities of tedium vs. caprices are steadily associated with the deceptive capacities of language. Tedium is usually accompanied with pleonastic speech’s redundancy. In opposite to it sincerity brings forth humor as the initial prerequisite of poetry and can’t refrain from doubting while tedium does only confirm tautological banalities that have become deception. It is declarative character and the lack of demonstrative arguments that is peculiar for tedium. Prose as the domain of seriousness presumes the presence of tautological assertions in opposite to negation as the prevalence of problematic attitude. Besides, there remains still the feature of prose that determines its opportunities: together with the seriousness of direct descriptions the contemplative abstraction comes into play that is to be overcome and removed. These prosaic abstractions preclude the involvement of dramatic action. Such particulars of prose have been very wittily described by A.P. Chekhov in his advices as to the descriptions in a short novel¹⁰¹². This advice concerns the necessity of replacing commonplaces with details that would represent the momentary situation and impart concreteness to the description.

Such eloquent details are destined to remove the abstractedness of direct designations and therefore they can be regarded as a kind of the inverted metonymy abstractum pro concreto (with all just discussed reservations). It goes here about the necessary indirectness of description. To continue the already mentioned L. Tolstoy’s remark in regard to ennui as the result of exhaustive description (Ch. 2.1) one could say of the obligatory incompleteness necessary not only for arousing interest but for the revelation of essential poetical properties of artistic prose¹⁰¹³. It is also to add that the succinct indirect references don’t mean textual reduction to the minimum of necessary details. Vice versa there are the so called “non obligatory details” or even “redundant, superfluous details” indispensable for textual communicative mission. Text as message reveals with their aid the essential conceptual features and not only provides conditions of comprehensibility¹⁰¹⁴. To sum up, one can take lacunas described with regard to epigrammatic texts for the necessary attribute of poetry in general. In difference to prose where one aims at making explicit as much as possible it is in poetry that the implicit components hidden behind latencies & lacunas build up the necessary textual element. These peculiarities of poetry entail also the retreatment from inferential rules proper for epic narration. Poetry creates its special logical compatibility distinct from the precepts of formal deduction. Moreover it discloses the absurdity ensuing from the consequent syllogistic procedures’ implementation as has been wittily demonstrated by V.F. Odoyevsky¹⁰¹⁵. Thus poetical text appears to display its incompleteness and therefore the problem of its integrations arises.

In regard to lyrics it is to bear in mind that it goes about integration without plot. The absence (or a t least insignificance) of plot in lyrics that differs it from other genera becomes evident in the autonomy of idiomatic motifs integrated in a lyrical poem. Such autonomy has already been discussed in regard to proverbial enunciations where the relative independence of the combined motifs becomes noticeable. Lyrical poem has to cope with such centrifugal forces that would become destructive for the whole. For instance W. Shakespeare’s 52nd sonnet combines verbal masks that can’t exist beyond the borders of the poem: there are “rich, whose blessed key / Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure” and “you, whose worthiness gives scope / Being has, to triumph, being lackt, to hope”, one deals here with “feasts so solemn and so rare” that “like stones of worth they thinly placed are” or with “the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, / To make some special instant special blest”. Meanwhile it is this unique textual entity of the sonnet where such images are united; otherwise they can appear separately, say, in different descriptions without the combination of the kind. The verbal mask of a “rich with the key” is a commonplace as “the lady of the scope” is. Meanwhile it is only within the borders of the sonnet that they encounter. Such centrifugal properties of separate images are observable in epics or drama as well: meanwhile they are there tied with plot whereas in lyrics such ties are loosened and the images’ autonomy subsequently becomes much more evident.

At the same time it is to stress that the development of centrifugal forces becomes possible only at the expense of and due to the prevalence of the centripetal forces. It is the especially intensified textual density that marks lyrics and has been called “the tightness of poetic line” by Yu.A. Tynyanov; it entails in particular the successiveness of poem’s perception in opposite to the simultaneity of the perception of prosaic work¹⁰¹⁶. Thus the already discussed simile of “work as a single word” concerns lyrical text first of all. The development of centrifugal forces in lyrics becomes the prerequisite for the segregation and codification of the arising autonomous idioms as the germs of possible aphorisms. Here it is to warn against confusing such segregated phrases with commonplaces. It is not the usual criterion of fixation & frequentation that is of significance here: vice versa the segregated phrases can be very odd and rare and fixed only for the singular occasion, nevertheless they can live as the autonomous units that build up the code. Such units can get the property of potential reproducibility and be repeated in other textual environment not only as a quotation but also as a transformed and reshaped collocation. In this way the result will be the coinage of poetical convention represented with such transformable phrase. In particular the prevalent form of such autonomous conventional phrases can usually converge with those of nexus that’s the verbs with complements building up the basis for segregated images’ representation. These centripetal & centrifugal forces that determine the integration of a lyrical poem with their balance can be conceived as those of contextual & intertextual references. Such interlacement of references can be demonstrated very easily. It can be exemplified with A. Block’s verse (“In those nights light and void”)

At one side the last line can’t be comprehended without the initial words on reciprocal alienation of the lovers as its negation: their souls after the narration of their relations become united in one common soul. At another side it demands also intertextual references to realize that the metaphor of sky as a dome can become the name of the refuge for this united “condemned soul” that presupposes respective belief.…

This contradiction between textual entirety and separate phrases’ autonomy reproduces and develops in a way that of lexical and propositional units as those of necessary and sufficient conditions of textual integration. The poem vs. motif opposition can be said to generalize that of lexeme vs. proposition. In the same way as the words are confronted to sentences the motifs resist to poem’s entirety. This simile has been especially developed be M.L. Gasparov who compares the status of the whole lyrical enunciations with that of separate lexical units¹⁰¹⁷. Although this comparison is held forth in regard to the lyrical poetry of the newer age it can be conceived in a much more general field. The grounds for such generalization are to be found in the universal nature of the mentioned opposition of word vs. sentence as the necessary vs. sufficient premises of te4xtual integration. The impedance of lexical substance in building propositional structure is reproduced in compiling motifs within the poem’s integration. Motifs behave like words and poem plays the role of sentence. This relative autonomy of separate motifs within a lyrical poem can be demonstrated with the significance of intertextual references in comparison to other genera. Such intertextual ties concern in particular details of the outer form of a lyrical poem such as the associative rows attached to this or that meter of versification¹⁰¹⁸. Still more apparent are conventional phrases referring to tradition.

The property of lyrical motifs to become relatively autonomous textual units (and therefore reproducible as the units of code) substantiate the opportunity to identify them with episodic segments in drama in opposite to period comparable to the entirety of lyrical poem. It doesn’t mean that in lyrics periods retreats to give place to episodes: it is already the ultimately integrated structure of sonnet that would refute such conjecture. It is only the possible separability of episodes that becomes in lyrics more evident, and it can be confirmed with the fact that the integration of a lyrical cycle has as a rule the form of anthology. Together with anthology as the principal form of lyrical integration one has to mention the phenomenon of “lyrical chaos” or “disorder” that would correspond to dramatic devices of imbroglio (qui pro quo)¹⁰¹⁹. Totality taken in lyrical key can be represented in anthological manner of textual structure as the inner personal worldview¹⁰²⁰. If in drama the author’s image is reduced to the pretended absence, in lyrics an opposite case takes place: the author’s consciousness grows to the scope of totality so that all events develop as if within the personal inner world.

One applies musicological approach to lyrical textual integration, in particular the concept of “summing up” a textual segment (in opposite to the “division” or “fractioning” as it had been elaborated by L.A. Masel), to describe the structure of a lyrical poem where the synthetic conclusion (as in a sonnet) takes place¹⁰²¹. While keeping to the comparison to music one could say that if drama can have parallels with sonata cycle it is suite that builds up a parallel to lyrical anthology. At the same time although lyrical motifs look like loosely adjacent episodes endowed with ambiguous meaning they imply precision and exactitude and take the only possible position within the whole poem tolerating no alternative decision. One can say of dialogical relations between separate episodes as the cues of a character. In this respect it would be justifiable to regard lyrical motifs as potential dramatic episodic scenes and the references to respective situations with their typical and categorical attribution. As an example one can cite again very ordinary lines.

И вот – на уста светлоокой царицы / Стих пламенный принят с бездушной страницы, / Он ею прочитан, и вновь, и опять / И сердце в ней ходит с утроенным стуком, / И снова живым, гармоническим звукам / Дозволено эти уста целовать В.Г. Бенедиктов,Стих (1840)

* чтение вызывает к жизни, оживляет записанное слово * уста доносят дух до сердца * мысль воплощается, становится телесным действием через чтение как поцелуй ** [эмблема передачи через вещь заветных желаний]

The simile of reading as kissing here serves to represent the observed acts within the supposed scene. Besides, the response of the heart attests the corporeal attachments of poetical thought. Here generic peculiarities of lyrics as the powers for textual distinctions are to be taken into co9nsideration. Lyrical contemplation differs itself from that of epics due to the reflexive attitude towards the represented reality; therefore lyrical work excludes action and replaces it with mental experiment within the incognito’s inner world. This contemplation is incomparable to epic observer’s viewpoint as far as it involves personal evaluations and preferences ensuing from reflection. Such difference can be exemplified with the comparison of a lyrical poem and a ballad that is peculiar for its dramatic features (in particular with the attendance’s effect). Lyrical transportation within the inner world entails the shift of the presented reality seen with the distance distinct from the epic one in that it has nothing to do with indifferent description of events. It is meditative attitude of reflection that gives rise for distance in a poem¹⁰²². The stress upon reflection demonstrates that it is not merely the confrontation of contemplation and action that differs lyrics from drama. The contemplative attitude in lyrics involves mental action in opposite to epic description where such intrusion would distort the narrated events.

These generic peculiarities of lyrics enable explaining the fact that impromptus prevail within its space while they remain out of the reach of dramatic play where improvisation takes their place. Lyrical distance with its mental experiments presupposes the spontaneity necessary for impromptu whereas dramatic action excludes that the motivational ties would be disrupted to such degree. It liberates lyrical enunciation from the risk & hazard of dramatic action ensuing from exhibitionism. This spontaneity of impromptu then is to be conceived as the consequence of such “anthological” way of integration with loosened and concealed but by no means absent motivational ties.

Moreover, these loose motifs can be correlated with the special subspecies of scenic play of etudes or sketches that are commonly used for actors’ training practice. Lyrical motif taken apart from the integrated poem’s text becomes something resembling such etudes for sc rehearsals and exercises. Such opportunity of lyrical poems’ dramatic interpretation has been substantiated, for instance, as concerns A. Block’s works as they look like a personal diary and display dialogical ties between separate verses as the cues of dramatic personae or letters within an epistolary novel¹⁰²³. Then the integration of lyrical text looks like a counterpart to dramatic episodic structure where relatively autonomous motifs give a series of spontaneous impromptus that are actually tied with invisible links remained to be disclosed and displayed in imaginary scenic etudes. This parallel of impromptu & etude as the representation of lyrical motifs’ spontaneity is especially significant as it enables the development of the chosen here Humboldt’s approach to the unity of the lyrical and the dramatic. Lyrical motif as dramatic episode correlates with the suggested “equation” of impromptu & etude and can be generalized with the term of situation.

The devices of periphrastic representation of situation can be traced in such patterns of descriptive poetry. Of a special value for the demonstration of the importance of the means of lyrics would be the analysis of sonnets as an extremely succinct form of verse. As a bright example for this purpose such a literary monument as “The House of Life” of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (a collection of a hundred and one sonnets together with introductory verse a dozen of songs written in 1870-s) may well serve. Written in concordance with the principles of “pure poetry” (represented especially with the French “l’art pour l’art” doctrine) these verses are especially demonstrative for the importance of immanent semantic processes. The cycle was conceived primarily as the glorification of the poet’s wife: he has married Elizabeth Siddall in 1860 and in 1862 she already died [Rossetti, 1882, 24], so the cycle was tragically converted into the requiem after her death comparable to the famous A. Tennyson’s “In memoriam”. It resulted in a scrutinized elaboration of verbal stuff. Both initial (poet’s wife still alive) and posthumous versions were published in Germany due to the efforts of the poet’s friend Fr. Hueffer.

Meanwhile one encounters the overestimation of the fact that the poet has chosen the occupation of a painter. It was already W. Pater who had found Rossetti’s verses “profoundly visionary” [Чернорокова, 2004, 60] and such appreciations became traditional. At the same time an admission is made that “paradoxically the substantial picturesque element at Dante Gabriel Rossetti as a genuine painter is lesser than at … Keats” [Чернорокова, 2004, 41]. Moreover it is known poet’s specific “conception” defined as an “intuitive apprehension of a future poetic work before its being written down” and expressed usually in prosaic summaries; it has been given to such “conceptions” the names of “the mental cartooning” or “fundamental brainwork” [Чернорокова, 2004, 44]. Another premeditated statement to be mentioned here originates from an influential Victorian essayist R. Buchanan deemed Rossetti together with Swinburne as “fleshly school of poetry” in opposite to “transcendental purity” of Keats and Wordsworth [Piestrzynska, 1984, 34] Such a statement gave rise to further viewpoints, where in D.G. Rossetti’s verses the ides is seen that “Eros or sensual love might be redemptive – might somehow overcome the power of Time” [Louis, 1990, 50] making thus up a kind of “erotic Eucharist” inherited from Rossetti to Swinburne. We’ll try to show that both visionary and purely erotic approaches would ignore the inner core of the poetry and would substitute it with arbitrary inferences of speculative nature. This core is determined with the verbal tissue of the verses that is much richer and prolific than such precocious artificial generalizations. It is the properties of verbal stuff itself that are to be taken into consideration first.

The eloquent details gain importance over judgements of abstract and general nature in these verses. Very persuasive in this respect are sonnets 19 (“Silent noon”) and 20 (“Gracious moonlight”) that depict the scenery of Love. The first of them begins with the depiction of the poet’s sweetheart whose “hands lie open in the long fresh grass” in a summer day’s noontide. This detail serves in creating the picture of repose. In its turn her “finger-points” are compared to “rosy blooms” – the simile referring to Homer’s well known constant epithet of the morning star. As a key idiom can be regarded “billowing skies that scatter and amass / All round our nest”. Here the interplay of double meaning of the verb “billow” referring to the movement of the waves of liquid substance serves to conceive heaven as a source of enlivening rain To heavenly forces refers also the simile indicating that “the dragon-fly / Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky”. Thus “sky” appears here in double connection with “billowing” and with “thread”. A similar duplicity demonstrates also the idea of temporality when idioms “winged hour” and “hour glass” refer to well known images of speed and frailty of time. The already mentioned details of body are complemented with the image of “clasping hearts”. A very expressive pair of antonyms is presented in the expression “the pasture gleams and glooms” stressing the ambiguity of scenery. And the last line (“twofold silence was the song of love”) where “silence” is equated with “song” (the simile being reinforced with alliteration) refers also to the “visible silence” of previous stanza thus widening the image of taciturn voice. All in all one can trace some verbal rows piercing the entire tissue of the sonnet; they refer to body (hand, finger, heart), heaven, time, landscape, utterances (the image of eloquent silence). Each partial denotation irradiates a whole net of references designating much more than its immediate meaning.

In the next sonnet traditional lunar imagery with its constant feminine connections serves to celebrate the poet’s sweetheart. The moonlight becomes the ground for the simile of Her “lambent grace” that is here contrasted with the poet’s “drear desire”. The moon “gathers and garners … penetrative loveliness” thus becoming a repository for the passion of love. This pair of alliterated situational synonyms acquires symbolic sense that determines their transfiguration from purely pragmatic designations to symbolic actions. While mentioning “cloud above and wave below” the author presents “cloud-rapt car” and the feeling of rapture that represents clouds not as the opponents of moon but as the suitors of the “queen Dian” issuing thus a hint to ancient paganism. This ancient goddess was known as a hunter and the author makes her in the last line “chase night’s gloom” to compare to his sweetheart who expurgates “the spirit’s grief”. One ought to remark here that the verb chase being synonym to hunt bears at the same time the sense of “engraving” or “coining” so that the mentioned “gloom” can acquire shape under moon’s beams. As a result a pair of situational synonyms “gloom” and “grief” arises that give grounds to conceive nocturnal light as a spiritual enlightenment. Again such implications result in much richer utterances than a pure common comparison of a sweetheart to the moon of usual allegories.

In “The Hill Summit” (70) a narration is presented about the poet climbing the hill in a summer day. It is “a fiery bush with coruscating hair” that lures him, such a vegetative symbol being for ages known as a designation of feminine nature. The hill itself being “altar … for vesper-song” and the poet treating himself as “belated worshiper” who “loitered in the vale too long”, all the picture indicates very clearly the allusion to Biblical motifs (Mount Sinai, Prodigious Son). Meanwhile the self-description of the cited plot precludes its exhaustion with such allusions. Such evening ascent of the hill brings a reward to “see … the last bird fly into the last light”. It is obvious that it doesn’t go here about the pleasures of observing sunset as such, so that the hint concerns a life’s terminal affairs. Besides, there is still a forthcoming necessity for the wanderer to “tread downward through the sloping shade / And travel the bewildered tracks”. Thus the opposition of “altar” and “bush” versus “slopes (sloping shades)” and “tracks” emerges that makes the initial allusion much more sophisticated. Neither bird nor vale or other words mentioned in the verse are to be taken with their proper sense. Instead each of them refers to other parts of the picture implying the necessity of pondering upon the puzzle presented.

In “Ardor and Memory” (54) one encounters the enumeration of the circumstances that are especially favorable for the exposition of a passion (as the title of the verse implies): these are “the cuckoo-throb” and “the heartbeat” put together as situational synonyms indicating thus a generalized meaning of trepidation as well; then follows “the rosebud’s blush” contrasted with “the full-eyed fair unblushing rose” that refers to the concluding lines where “the rose-tree’s verdure left alone / Will flush all ruddy” in spite of hostile vicissitudes when “the wind swoops onward brandishing the light”. In its turn this hostile wind is contrasted to “the furtive flickering streams to light” of morn and spring from the preceding lines. Thus a system of antithetical images arises. Wind is opposed to stream; its violent pressure (swooping) suppresses the initial trepidation associated with the images of throbbing and flickering. At the same time the image of rose turns out to become independent of such interplay of the opposed forces: its independence is also expressly supported with the means of alliterated similitude (with that of inner rhyme) of the acts of blushing and flushing (ruddy). It is obvious that it doesn’t go about something like vegetation or aerial processes: the subject of the sonnet is overtly of psychological nature glorifying a soul’s firmness. The last line contrasting “ditties … and dirges infinite” confirms the reference to soul that remains indifferent towards the vicissitudes.

Thus the contents of lyrical verse aren’t called overtly: they are to be suggested through the mentioned motifs and interpreted to a surmised degree of certitude. As a whole such a conjecture concerning the sense of a verse remains a puzzle for the readers. The poet mentions also the “valorous lusts of morn” that approach passion as the supposed principal subject of the verse. Meanwhile such partial denominations give no hint as to the preference of this or that puzzle’s solution. All the conjectures about the contents suggested above aren’t mentioned in the verse: they serve only as implications from the overtly described images, and it is only such means as rose, wind, stream, lust, morn etc. in our case – that delineate the imaginative scope of the text. Moreover, such inferences as to the principal or central idea are of no importance, the most essential remaining those rich images that discover their particular properties within the verse’s tissue. One observes intent avoidance of designation of any general conclusion. Even the constancy of soul can be only guessed. Instead, all lexical units taken in their figurative sense make up a specific series (situational synonyms) of partial denotations that encircle some mystery and give a hint to it.

A persuasive example of the elusiveness of verbal proper sense demonstrates the sonnet “Nuptial sleep” included only in the previous version of the cycle [Rossetti, 1873, 193] and excluded in the posthumous edition. Here follows an enumeration of sincere erotic details such as “long kiss severed”, “bosoms sundered”, “flagged pulses”, “mouths fawned” The sensuality of the last verb “fawn” becomes reinforced due to the coexistence of the meaning of “giving birth to a calf or a cub” together with “cherishing”. Yet they don’t impart vividness to the picture of “sweet smart” only. Rather they complement the whole nocturnal scenery where the “souls” and not bodies of the couple “sank” and “swam up”. The simile of liquid substance is supported with the motif of rain mentioned in the lines where “drops are shed / From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled”. Meanwhile the interplay of meanings here also does take place: eaves designate not only “roof’ edge” but also (obsolete use) “eye’s lids” and sparkling can refer to eyes, so that the whole may be understood as referring to body (drops of tears) as well. The liquid simile are mentioned again at the end of the verse with the “gleams / Of watered light” that together with “new woods and streams” awaken the lover. Thus at least two rows of partial synonyms can de traced on the foundation of self-descriptive devices, the first referring to body, the second to liquid element and bodily movement within. The details evoke visible images bearing meaningfulness that can by no way be exhausted with any plain explanation.

It is still to add that often the core of the idioms coined in a sonnet is marked with a rare word or expression (the so called hapax), especially of obsolete use and with various different meanings. For instance the obsolete verb to vie denoting rivalry is used in “Beauty’s Pageant” (17) for presenting as counterparts where “… glory of change … can vie with … moods of varying grace”. In “The Morrow’s Message” it is obsolete malison instead of modern consecration that has been attributed to invocation: “Mother of many malisons, o Earth…!”. In both examples it is also the alliterated pairs (glory and grace, malisons’ mother) that are enabled with such verbal preference. A pair of the kind is coined in the line “Shadows and shoals that edge eternity” from a tragic sonnet “Through Death to Love” (41). The meaningfulness of such a pair is stressed due to the fact that shoal together with the designation of bottom has also the sense of “flock, herd, crowd”.

The above cited samples give grounds for the statement that what seems to be latent quotations of alien voices displays in reality the intertextual references. The nets of such references turn out to become much richer than the superficially suspected contents of a verse. The existence of the double referential nets, those of contextual and intertextual origin, correlates with the above discussed duplicity off references in dramatic works where personal and positional dimensions of textual differentiation coexist and interlace reciprocally.

It is lyrical verses that are peculiar not so much for relativistic subjective attitude as for their avoidance of the designation of totality and unequivocal conclusion. Instead of the substitution of the total with the partial (pars pro toto) in synecdoche (especially in hyperbole in dramatic texts) there prevail