Keep your feet ringing, pick up words to rhyme
small art and not a fancy business,But it's not difficult to

a poet.

A. P. Sumarokov

How often did Russian poets write and still write "poems about poems"? Many of them in their" holy craft", in the words of K. Pavlova, share poetry (holy and sacred, fiery and fiery," passionate and sweet", as defined by A. Pavlova). Odoevsky) and poetic technique: "Poetry is a gift, verse is one skill," P. Vyazemsky believed. The former they chant, the latter they prefer ras-

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judging in prose - in verse studies, starting from the" New and concise way of adding Russian poems "(1735) by V. K. Trediakovsky and up to the" Book of Russian Rhyme " (1982) by D. Samoilov.

The XVIII century was marked in Russian literature by the reform of versification and the introduction of syllabic-tonic verse instead of syllabic, which had "not only general literary, but also general cultural significance" (Goncharov V. P. Versification views of Trediakovsky and Lomonosov. Reform of Russian versification // The emergence of the Russian Science of Literature, Moscow, 1975, pp. 43-91). The initiator of the reform, Trediakovsky, not limited to theoretical treatises, following the example of Boileau with his "Poetic Art", creates an "Epistle from Russian Poetry to Apollinus" (1735), in which he explains the reasons for his rejection of the Polish syllabics ("the old verse seemed very unsuitable to me") and the choice of an ancient model with two-syllabic stops, but with the replacement of tonic length and brevity by alternating stressed and unstressed syllables ("ringing" and "falling"), with rhyme and without "nasty transfer".

Following Boileau and Trediakovsky, A. P. Sumarokov wrote the poetic manifesto "Epistol II (On Poetry)" (1747), analyzing in it various genres (from odes and idylls to satires and songs) and touching on the problem of rhyme: it should not "capture our thought", it should "help us in our own way." mind to meet." He is not a "creator" or a "song writer" who "only takes words to rhyme" and invents clumsy nonsense, woven without difficulty and rules: "there is no direct accent in words, no conjugation of the slightest in speech, no decent rhymes, no measure of decent feet."

N. Lvov expresses a different point of view on the syllabic tonic in the "heroic song" Dobrynya (1794), calling for replacing the "foreign framework of tightness" that is alien to the Russian language with a tonic folk verse that is characterized by "beauty, heat, liberties":

Anapestes, Spondea, and dactyls
Do not measure our yard,
Not by the property of the Russian word
They were ordered overseas...
However, most of the 18th-century poets, including the main reformer of Russian poetry, M. V. Lomonosov, were not interested in "poetic verse studies", and they only occasionally and casually mentioned in their poems about sizes and rhymes (M. Kheraskov, Ya. Knyazhnin, A. Radishchev, I. Bogdanovich, K. Kostrov). And Derzhavin gave such a general description of his poetry: "The picture, thought and life revealed/The harmony of my poems."

If in the XVIII century in the" science of difficult addition of verses " (M. Chulkov) emphasized mainly similar features of ancient, European and

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At the beginning of the XIX century, the focus turned to the national originality of versification of different peoples (Gasparov M. L. Essay on the history of Russian verse. Yandex. Metrica. Rhythmics. Rhyme. Strofika, Moscow, 1984, p. 106). The discussion focused on the advantages of syllabic-tonic and tonic (folk) verse, rhyme and non-rhyme, and the need for pyrrhic and spondaic, i.e. omitted and added accents. In particular, a dispute broke out about the translations of the Homeric epic into Russian: how best to translate it-in hexameter, "Russian warehouse" or Alexandrian verse (6-stop Iambic), and discussed both in articles and in poetic works.

The hexameter was defended by the poet and critic A. F. Voeykov, a member of Arzamas, who in his Epistle to S. S. Uvarov (1818) protested against the imitation of" pathetic "French poetry and proposed to become the heirs of the Greeks -" to adopt the rich and full Homeric hexameter, the most diverse of all ancient sizes", contrasting it with the monotonous and "monotonous " rhymed Alexandrian verse. Recreating the course of development of Russian poetry, the author argued that Kantemir and his contemporaries subordinated Russian verse to Polish rules "unrelated" to our poetry, and thus "voluntarily enslaved" our language. Lomonosov," the converter of our literature", honored the most sonorous meters of iamba and anapesta, giving the palm to iambics. Trediakovsky tried in vain to "pave the true path for the Russian epic muse", but "did not have the talents and taste necessary for the introduction of a new system and new laws." The Lomonosov genius won-Iambic "sanctified and forced to recognize the epic meter". And I was wrong. For a heroic epic, you need to free your ear "from the sound of heavy iambics " and throw off the yoke of"rattling rhymes".

To prove the unlimited possibilities of the hexameter, Voeykov uses it to depict various pictures: the battlefield and "peaceful field under the rich harvest", hunting with barking dogs and a sea storm that led to a shipwreck. At the same time, it saturates its verse with spondees: "Do you want to see the battlefield: dust, smoke, fire, thunder, /Shield to shield, sword to sword, balls buzz, and bombs burst...". Pushkin will resort to a similar technique in the description of the battle of Poltava: "Swedish, Russian stabs, cuts, cuts. / Drum beat... " (in 4-stop Iambic). A" jagged spondey hexameter "Voeikov will remember S. P. Shevyrev in" Message to A. S. Pushkin "(1830).

It should be noted that the victory of the Karamzinists in this polemic over the epigones of classicism led to the approval of the "Russian hexameter" and to the fact that Gnedich and Zhukovsky translated the Iliad and Odyssey by them.

P. A. Vyazemsky joined the discussion on Russian versification in two poetic declarations separated by three decades.-

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yami - " To V. A. Zhukovsky "(1819) and "Alexandrian Verse" (1853). In the first, subtitled "Imitation of Depreau's Satire II" (i.e., Boileau), the author declares that he is not interested in the secrets of poetry, but in "poems of mystery" and especially in the secrets of rhyming. Considering "our gloomy language" to be poor in rhymes, he admires Zhukovsky's rhyming art:"You don't stumble at the end of a verse /And you crown your verse with rhymes without sin." The poet compares his "suffering work" on the poem with the work of a Nerchinsk miner. How scary this comparison will really sound in a few years!

It is not so much hard work for a miner in Nerchinsk,
How can I catch a thought and put it under my foot
And get a rhyme to the pen on the edge.
Vyazemsky, describing the painful search for rhyme consonants, complains about the" unsuccessful fishing "of the nonsense rhyme, about the "eager mind" that trembles over every word, about the " idle rhyme "that," disfiguring speech", becomes a sharp sword for verse. Thus, " being infected out of spite with a verse-loving poison, I replaced my earthly paradise with a voluntary hell." And he asks his addressee - Zhukovsky-to teach him how to cope with the rhyme or save a "sick friend" from this infection.

In the second poem, the Alexandrian verse is compared with the hexameter and preference is given to the first, since "the Russian language fits well into it" and verbs fit - "giants", clumsy, heavy on the rise, similar to elephants and hippos. As for the hexameters tested by Trediakovsky and introduced into poetic usage by Gnedich and Zhukovsky, this verse is also "spacious, hospitable" and in the poetry of late Zhukovsky opens to readers "the world of external beauty, the world of internal passions", but it lacks rhymes. And Vyazemsky can't resist asking a tricky question: "I know that the debate about that has long since subsided,/But still I will ask: hexameter, is it enough, is it a verse?" And he laughs at himself for not being able to add up the correct hexameter.

So, I confess, I like the rhyme-trinket,
Children to old age fun toy < ... >
Me white poems - that virgo is beauty,
Which does not bloom with a smile mouth < ... >
To know, I have grown to Iambic and with Iambic in the coffin will descend.
But, perhaps, most of all the " poems of the Russian mechanism "(an expression from" Eugene Onegin") was interested in A. S. Pushkin, who in his poetry repeatedly addressed the problems of metrics, rhyming, and stanzas. Already in the first published poem "To a friend-poet", the young author noticed that " good poems are not so easy to write-

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sat" and "not the poet who knows how to weave rhymes". Later, he criticized Sumarokov for the fact that his rhymes "trampled on both taste and intelligence", and Trediakovsky-for "dry hexameters, hard spondees and tight dactyls" ("To Zhukovsky"); reproached himself for using idle lines and consonants "on ay, ay and on oh" ("To My Aristarchus"); told how "obedient words" flocked to "slender dimensions" and "closed with a sonorous rhyme" ("A bookseller's Conversation with a poet"); composed the myth of Rhyme-the daughter of Apollo and the nymph ("Rhyme"); called rhyme "the sonorous friend of inspired leisure" ("Rhyme, sonorous friend..."); recreated the creative process ("Autumn"); sketched the history of the sonnet-from Dante and Petrarch to Delvig ("Sonnet"). And in "Eugene Onegin" we find lines about the "fever of rhymes" and "minx-rhyme", which is increasingly difficult to keep up with over the years, about the eternal rhymes "mladost-sweetness" and "frosts-roses", about "poems without measure" in girls 'albums, about our own - "Oneginskaya" "a stanza that says,' maybe the summer won't drown.'" And how many ironic synonyms did Pushkin choose for the word "pokhotvorets" - stikhodey, pokhotkach, versifier, metroman, rhymer, rhymer, rhymer !

Finally, in the "Little House in Kolomna" there is a whole poetic treatise on the octave. The poem was conceived as a polemical repulsion from the 4-stop Iambic "Eugene Onegin" and the Onegin stanza. Rejecting both, the poet contrasts them with the octave-octave, which in Italian and English poetry was associated with the 5-stop Iambic, and chooses a special scheme proposed by Katenin: a clear line - by-line and strophe combination of male and female endings and triple rhymes-aBaBaBvv and AbAbAbVV. However, Katenin himself doubted the feasibility of this type of octave because of the "poverty", in his opinion, of the Russian language for rhyming trinomials. Pushkin also undertakes to challenge this doubt: "... I would have co-mastered / With a triple consonance. I'll go to the glory! "- and for this purpose suggests not to "disdain" verbal rhymes and use in rhyming "at least the entire dictionary", up to conjunctions.

And one more question is raised in the introduction to the poem - about Caesura in 5-stop Iambic. It was believed that in this size you need a caesura on the second foot, without which the verse will become sluggish and will "stray into prose". It would seem that the author agrees with this: "I must confess to you, I am in the pentameter line /I love caesura on the second foot", but he defiantly does not observe this rule (in the second line, caesura falls on the third foot).

Pushkin talks about the mechanism of verse and its three components - stanza, rhyme and rhythm - in a joking and buffoonish tone, having fun and fooling around ("And even though I'm lying on a settee now, Everything seems to me as if I'm rushing on a cart in a jolting run Through frozen arable land"), enjoying writing ("How fun my poems are vesti...") and comparing

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a poetmaker with a commander: "A versifier... with whom is he equal? He is Tamerlane or Napoleon himself."

What program provisions does the poet put forward and how does he implement them? First, in "a story written in octaves", "under the numbers, in order, line by line" - 40 numbered stanzas, but in one of them (XXXVI) one line is missing. Secondly, in the octave, "triple consonances" are required - two rhymes "three in a row": "two will come by themselves, the third will be brought". However, in the XXXV stanza there are five identical consonants (home-down-with-trouble-peace-what), which continue in the next stanza (widow-cheek). Third, the octave should be based on strict adherence to "feminine and masculine syllables" in rhyming. If a stanza begins and ends with masculine clauses, then the next stanza opens and ends with feminine clauses. But this system is broken in the XXXVI and XXXVII stanzas-AbAbAbv and AbAbAbVV.

The canonical octave is characterized by thematic and syntactic completeness and unity, the final couplet "serves for an aphoristic conclusion or an ironic turn" (Nikonov V. Oktava / / Dictionary of Literary Terms, Moscow, 1974, p. 252). Pushkin does not follow these canons and does not strive for isolation of the last lines and whole stanzas: "And what?" (X)- "I felt sad" (XI), "And my daughter was still looking at the moon" (XVIII) - "And listened to the cats meowing..." (XIX).

Theoretical postulates in the " House in Kolomna "are not only declared, but also implemented in practice, and refuted, and played out; at the same time, it is proved that the form" spills over " into the content, directly expressing it. And the main "trump card" in the game "norm-violation" is the transformation of the XXXVI octave into a seven-line: the line disappears at the very climax of the "double panic" - the old woman fainting and the false cook fleeing, which, of course, is symbolic and at the same time almost imperceptible against the background of the rhyming string on-oh (seven times in two stanzas). And this is not a mistake or a miscalculation, as some Pushkinists think. Rather, V. Bryusov was right, who was convinced that "the greatest power of humor - and humor deep and sharp - is invested in this story in rhymes and rhythms" and that it is intended for people who "know and feel the secret of poetic technique well "(Bryusov V. Ya. Selected works: In 2 volumes, Moscow, 1955 Vol. 2, pp. 454, 456).

Of Pushkin's contemporaries, only Vyazemsky responded to this manifesto, but chose not the 5-stop, but the 6-stop iambic, singing his praises in the "Alexandrian Verse", and Shevyrev mentioned Zhukovsky's" Magic Sounds of the Russian Hexameter "and Pushkin's" fiery Iambic "("Memory"). There were no more people willing to" test harmony with algebra".

In the post-Pushkin era, poetry "studies" do not attract poets, and they talk about their poems using metaphors and epithets.-

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tete-a-tete and avoiding terms: "And the rhymes are amicable, like waves, Murmuring, one after the other Rushing in a free succession" (Lermontov); "caressing verse" (Fet); "conciliatory oil" (Tyutchev); "my rhymed song" (Polonsky); "free words are crowded into a measured system" (A. K. Tolstoy); "my harsh, clumsy verse" and " Verse is like a coin, minted Strictly, clearly, honestly "(Nekrasov); "my verse is powerless, pale and sick" (Nadson). Exceptions are rare: mostly in an ironic context, epigrams, impromptu - "I'm crazy about triple consonants And wet rhymes-like, for example, on "yu" "(Lermontov), " It's a pity there is no third rhyme on-udra "(except mudra-powder-K. Pavlova), "your hexameters have a great fall" (Maikov). By the end of the 19th century, there is an increasing sense of poetic epigonism, the impoverishment of classical sizes and rhymes. Some poets still try to defend them: "The singing dactyl splashes sultry Replaces my iambic fire; For the restless anapest I send a chorus of bright swarms", " There I am the queen! I own a crowd of rhymes, my slaves... "(M. Lokhvitskaya). Others are ready to renounce both poetry and rhymes: "Don't chase after a wayward rhyme And poetry-it's absurd ..." (K. Sluchevsky), but they understand that although verbal art is "powerless to give existence" and seems to be a deception, nonsense, nevertheless it continues to live and disturb hearts. Later, in a more categorical and harsh form, V. Mayakovsky will say something similar: "But poetry is the most stupid thing, it exists - and not in the teeth of a foot" ("Jubilee").

Safed, Israel

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