Poetic Reconstructions, or Reduction to Symmetry (Based on S. Esenin’s Cycle “Persian Motives”)

Abstract

Based on the example of S. Esenin’s six poems from the cycle “Persian motives” certain reconstructions of poems making them parallel / symmetric are considered. It is pointed out that the strophes of some of them, namely in “Shaganet, o my love, Shaganet” are initially symmetric, others can be reduced to symmetry as a result of elementary transformations, still the others have the structure that does not allow of symmetrization without the reorganization of the whole poem. The poems considered in the paper are asymmetric five-line stanzas, however, they have a greater combinative power of verses than quatrains. In all the cases variants of reduction to symmetry are found or the reasons why it cannot be done are specified. Examples of “errors” in Pasternak’s and Merezhkovsky’s verses are identified and then “corrected”, which make the above poems symmetric.It is noted that the method of poetic symmetrization is universal and can be used both at the horizontal analysis level (regarding symmetry of rhythm), and at the vertical one (dealing with symmetry of rhyming schemes, refrains and other composite figures of prosody).