THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

Conclusion
While written in distinct places and time periods by very different poets, the three
books I have studied all fulfill certain structural requirements of the lyric cycle as set out
by theorists Vroon, Darvin and Fomenko. Each poet carefully chooses and highlights the
book's title: Khodasevich and Gippius extend its reach by opening the book with a title
poem; within her lengthy title, Shvarts guides the reader into her book generically (труды
и дни), thematically (обрезание сердца), and temporally (от Рождества до Пасхи).
Both Shvarts and Gippius incorporate epigraphs into their works: Gippius cryptically
calls upon the muse and central figure of Сияния, St. Thérèse of Lisieux; Shvarts invokes
several disparate sources to reflect Lavinia's ecumenical madness. Khodasevich's use of
the title biblical metaphor, while not explicitly expressed as an epigraph, provides the
same sort of extratextual center. All three poets use form and meter to connect and
juxtapose individual poems in their books: Khodasevich links the title poem "Путем
зерна" to "Золото" through the use of rhyming iambic couplets; Gippius emphasizes the
dramatic shifts in her lyric hero's mood by contrasting the rising iambic line of
"Рождение" with the falling metrical line of "Женскость"; Shvarts demonstrates
Lavinia's erratic behavior by introducing a sudden break in her opening poem which
follows the regular iambic meter of her sister's letter. The ordering of the poems in each
of the books is driven not by chronology, but by a progression specific to each individual
book: in the three distinct versions of Путем зерна, Khodasevich shifts the position of
several poems, ultimately leaving out the dates of composition; Gippius makes an
exception to her previous chronologically arranged books, reordering the poems and
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