Where the End Begins: Iconicity in Russian Poetry

• In Event: Beginnings and Endings in Russian Poetry: Progressions, Portrayals, Potentials

Abstract

This paper builds on analyses by Alexander Zholkovsky and Yurii Scheglov following their method for identifying and describing the iconic effects deployed in literary texts. The term “iconic” refers to an image, in which the signifier and the signified are equal. In other words, form resembles content. The beginning and the ending form the largest entry of the “dictionary” of iconically represented themes. Moreover, as a binary, they often appear together, an iconic opening is supported by an iconic ending. I focus on the iconic portrayal of openings/endings in Russian poetry, relying in part on the study of endings in poetry by Barbara Smith, who has described some structural techniques that iconize endings in Western poetry (although without labeling them as “iconic”). Based on examples from Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, Akmatova, Zabolotsky, among others, I outline a classification of motifs and structural techniques that create an iconic effect when used at the opening/ending of a text.

Author

• Elizaveta Dvortsova, U of Southern California