The Conceits of a Poet’s Life and Biography in the Sonnet Stanza Pattern

Abstract

The article represents the overview of the 20^th century Ukrainian and Russian sonnets (original works by Mykola Zerov, Valerian Borodayevs’kyi, Igor-Severyanin and some contemporary poets) that interpret artistically the fact of a writer’s biography. There was shown that, upon modeling the sequence of the events of a writ’s life and creativity in a triad ‘thesis-antithesis-synthesis,’ and involving the sensual (theme, idea, problem) and formal (composition, language, tropes, genre and style conceits) into its biographic paradigm, the sonnet turns to be a great pattern of intellectual poetry. Particularly, the sonnets with evident biographic element were popular among the Neoclassicist period (Sonnetarium by M. Zerov in Ukrainian, and the works by V. Borodayevs’ky in Russian); then, in the 1970s and 1980s, they became popular once again. Dmytro Pavlychko has been particularly productive (first of all, the cycle Hranoslov dedicated to Maksym Ryl’s’ky), yet the biography became the prominent motif in sonnets by A. Katsnelson and A. Moysiyenko. Thanks to formal stability and well-organized composition of the sonnet, a poet may realize one’s aspiration to perfection and esthetic stylishness. That is why this lyrical genre is able to express the dramatic gift of both the poet-author and the poet-addressee, who are staying in the constant strengthened field of dialogical essence of life.