Reinterpreting the Creative Legacy of Taras Shevchenko in Contemporary Network Poetry

Abstract

The article carries out a comprehensive analysis of strategies for reinterpreting Taras Shevchenko’s creative legacy in terms of contemporary network poetry, particularly in the genres of micropoetry (“pyrizhky” poetry), visual poetry, and video poetry. It relies on the study of the concept of “cultural allotropy” (O. Chervinska), which explains the ability of the classical canon to preserve its internal stable “formula” while adapting to various digital “states”. The article also takes a detailed look at the intertextual strategies of desacralisation and humorous recoding of Shevchenko’s imagesin microlyric genres such as “pyrizhky” and “poroshky,” where irony, satire, and wordplaymake the classic relevant to modern everyday life. Particular attention is paid to the functioning of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for recreation and a mediator in the process of literary transformation. The example of the project “In Verse” proves that AI acts as an intermediary that transposes verbal text into visual and audio formats for the TikTok and YouTube platforms. This approach contributes to the popularisation of the canon, transforming “compulsory reading” into a relevant process of shaping the cultural awareness of young people. In addition, the article studies the synthesis of poetry and visual art in “calligraphic Petrykivka” (M. Sarkisyan), demonstrating the continuity of the national artistic code through the combination of text with folk tradition. Along with the positive aspects, the research highlights the risks of the digital environment, in particular the phenomenon of fake poetry, analyzing he mechanisms of manipulative use of Shevchenko’s name to spread pseudo-patriotic poems, which leads to vulgarisation and simplification of the classics. It is concluded that digital poetry is a dynamic tool for adapting literature to visual culture, but it requires recipients to increase their level of cultural literacy, as it carries risks of simplification and manipulation.