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French Influence on Russian Symbolist Versification Author(s): Georgette Donchin Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 33, No. 80 (Dec., 1954), pp. 161-187Published by: the and Modern Humanities Research Association University College London,

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French Influence on

Russian Symbolist

Versification

GEORGETTE DONCHIN

One of the main achievements of symbolist poetry was the disruption of the old forms of versification. The process of emancipation had

actually started long before the end of the 19th century, but it

reached its peak and became effective with the symbolists. In a sense,

they merely carried to its logical conclusion the disintegration of the

arbitrary classical rules which the romantics had inaugurated. The

need for a more subtle and flexible medium than the traditional metre

could provide was felt both in France and in Russia. In France it

produced the vers libre; in Russia it revolutionised the very principle of versification and gave birth to the so-called, dol'niki. In spite of the

apparent independence of the two systems of versification, the

Russian movement which culminated in the general adoption of the

tonic principle was not entirely free from French influence.

II

Since Trediakovsky and Lomonosov classical Russian metre had

been both syllabic and accentual: it was syllabic, because it was based

on a constant number of unaccented syllables between two stresses, and accentual?or tonic, as the Russians prefer to call it?because it

was based on the number of stresses. Thus the syllabo-tonic versifica?

tion is founded on a regular alternation of accented and unaccented

syllables, at binary or ternary intervals. The total number of syllables in the line does not vary, and the foot constitutes the primary unit.

Smaller or greater deviations from this set scheme were bound to be

made, and in part they were merely a consequence of the develop? ment of the Russian language itself, which had already rejected the

syllabic versification that had reigned until Lomonosov. The influ? ence of popular poetry was one of the factors which enabled Russian

poetry to free itself from the bonds of traditional forms. Resistance to

Lomonosov's iamb started with Karamzin, and subsequently many

poets resented the monotony of the syllabo-tonic system and con?

sidered it contrary to the spirit of the language. Another factor?

perhaps more influential?was the*penetration of German romantic

dol'niki into Russian literature. This was one of those instances when

translations play a greater role than original works. A complete tradition had been established to translate West European romantic

works?themselves based on folk-songs?in their original metre.



l62 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

Zhukovsky in some of his translations from German and English, Lermontov in his rendering of Byron, and Tyutchev in translations

of Uhland had already used tonic verse, but as yet not the pure dol'nik. Translations from Heine mark a more sustained use of the

new rhythm. Thus Fet and Apollon Grigor'yev render Heine into

Russian by using true dol'niki. Fet also does this in translations from

Thomas Moore and Goethe. At the same time the romantic dol'niki

begin to infiltrate into original works, but only isolated examples can

be found in Lermontov, Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Khomyakov, Podo-

linsky, and rather more in Tyutchev and Fet.

The symbolists are the first to use this verse frequently. Alongside the traditional translations from German appear the first original modern dol'niki: Zinaida Hippius's Pesnya (1891) and Tsvety nochi

(1894), Bryusov's urban poems of 1896, Blok's Stikhi 0 Prekrasnoy Dame (1901-2), Bely's ?oloto v lazuri (1904), Balmont's 7"ol'ko lyubov'

(1906), Vyacheslav Ivanov's Khvala solntsu, Attika i Galileya. In spite of the comparatively numerous examples of dol'niki, their use did not

outgrow the stage of metrical experiment among the older generation of Russian symbolists. Dol'niki became an organic part of Russian

prosody in the 'Verses about the Beautiful Lady', a form of versi?

fication in its own right, as the old syllabo-tonic metre had been. And

it is correct to say that, with Blok, Russian tonic verse enters a new

period of development, provided one recognises Blok's indebtedness

not only to his German models, but also to Bryusov and Zinaida

Hippius, from whom the young poet learned much of his poetic

technique. After Blok, dol'niki became a general acquisition of

Russian poetry and were widely used by Kuzmin, Gumilyov, and

others. With Akhmatova and Mayakovsky they acquired a different

character, although basically remaining the same.

It may be said that French symbolism affected the evolution

towards tonic verse in Russia in a twofold way. Firstly, this evolution

corresponded to an acutely felt need: the modern ear was attuned to

music, and modern sensibility demanded a more fluid and musical

mode of expression. Verlaine's influence in this respect had been very

strong. There is no doubt that indirectly, by shaping part of Russian

symbolist aesthetics, he also strengthened the inherent trend towards

tonic versification. Secondly, the great controversy that surrounded the appearance of vers libre in France, and the host of theories which

brought to the fore questions of the nature of rhythm did not pass unnoticed among a community of young poets intent on experiments of all kinds and profoundly aware of the rapid changes that were

taking place in French poetry.

Although French influence on Russian symbolism has been ack?

nowledged in general terms, the question of such influence on the



RUSSIAN SYMBOLIST VERSIFICATION 163

actual versification of the Russian symbolists has not been put hitherto. This is probably due mainly to the fact that French prosody has been thought radically different from its Russian counterpart. By the middle of the 19th century French versification was considered

entirely syllabic. It was widely believed that French verse had no

accent and must therefore rely on a count of syllables. Modern

French prosodists however have now acknowledged the syllabo-tonic

principle of French verse.1 A comparison with Russian versification

can now be made. In both cases the total number of syllables was

constant, but while the syllable itself was the unit of French verse, the

Russians retained the foot as their unit. One notable difference

between the two systems lies in the fact that in French the tonic accent

of the word is extremely feeble, and the distinction of quantity be?

tween syllables very slight. In the classical alexandrine the main

accents were on the last sounded syllable of the line and also on the

last sounded syllable immediately preceding the caesural pause. Thus the unity of the verse was ensured by the necessary recurrence

of two fixed accents. But it is mainly to the secondary (unfixed) accents that the alexandrine owed its flexibility. The ternary line

also contributed to making the alexandrine more plastic. The multi?

plicity of possible rhythmical combinations however was primarily due to freedom in the disposition of the secondary accents, this being the reason why French verse succeeded for such a long time in avoid?

ing that monotony which the symbolists were resolved to break. The

Russians regarded the irregularity of stress as one of the main advan?

tages of French verse and therefore felt still more strongly the need to

enliven their own rhythms. Verlaine's role in the dislocation of the old systems of versification

is important from the Russian point of view. The French poet failed

to see that French verse was, from the first, not only syllabic but

accentual. This misconception prevented him from approving vers

libre; but though he exercised his rhythms within the limits of a fixed

number of syllables, he did everything to prepare the way and to

render it inevitable. The elder generation of Russian symbolists were

in practice more cautious than in theory, and their verse, on the

whole, corresponded to Verlaine's vers libere. Without destroying the

mould of the alexandrine, Verlaine went further than any of his pre? decessors in adapting French verse to the fluctuations and nuances

of the vaguer emotions. By increasing the number of verse-forms in

use and reviving the vers impair, by dislocating rhythms, practising enjambements, and ignoring the regular fall of the caesura, Verlaine

broke up the regularity of traditional French verse to a much greater

1 Cf. Robert de Souza, Le rythme poitique, Paris, 1892, passim, and Maurice Grammont, Petit traiti de versification frangaise, 13th ed., Paris, 1949, p. 150.



164 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

degree than the romantics did, and imparted to it the fluidity and

vague music that the new subject-matter demanded.

Verlaine's opposition to vers litre seems at a certain point to have

influenced the young Bryusov, who claimed in the preface to one of

his earliest collections of poems that the Russian symbolist poets were

'completely insensitive to experiments in the field of the new vers

libre'.2 It is true that at first, in spite of bold innovations in subject- matter and exaggerated novel imagery, the rhythmical structure of

Russian verse remained untouched. Hardly any attempts to trans?

form versification can be found among the elder generation of sym? bolists?in Minsky or Merezhkovsky. Their innovations do not go

beyond a few internal rhymes, a few assonances, and a greater stress

on alliteration. Even in 1894, Bryusov in Russkiye simvolisty considered

the attempt to enliven French versification as incidental and beyond the task of symbolism:

... it is necessary to divorce from symbolism a number of undoubtedly alien elements which have been attached to it in France: such is mysticism, such is the striving to reform prosody and the introduction of old words and

rhythms connected with it. ... All these are incidental additions to sym? bolism.3

But the perspective changed with time, and Bryusov later admitted that he had been very interested in this 'incidental addition to sym? bolism', and had consciously tried his hand at the new experiments in the very same publication. He wrote:

In the two issues of the 'Russian Symbolists' which I have edited, I

attempted to present examples of all forms of new poetry that I had become acquainted with: vers libre, verbal instrumentation, parnassian accuracy, wilful obscurity of meaning in the spirit of Mallarme, Rim? baud's adolescent desinvolture . . . [This was] a conscious selection of

examples. . . .4

Between 1902 and 1903 Bryusov experimented more intensively with vers libre and devoted to it a complete section of Urbi et Orbi. He wrote in the preface:

... in the chapter 'Experiments' (Iskaniya) I strove to apply to Russian literature some peculiarities of Tree verse', vers libre, evolved in France by E. Verhaeren and F. Viele-Griffin and successfully put to use in Germany by R. Dehmel and R. Rilke. . . . Contemporary poetry has among its aims the task of seeking a freer, more supple, and more capacious verse.5

The emancipation of Russian verse was prompted by the strong 2 Reported by Yevgeny Anichkov in Literaturnyye obrazy i mneniya, St Petersburg, 1904,

p. 152. 3 Russkiye simvolisty, ed. V. A. Maslov, Moscow, 1894, 2nd issue. 4 Quoted by Y. Tynyanov, Arkhaisty i novatory, Leningrad, 1929, p. 524. 6 Moscow, 1903. It is noteworthy that the same wording was used by Rene Ghil who, in De lapoesie scientifique, also called for 'a freer, more supple, and more capacious verse'.




desire prevalent among symbolists to assert the individuality of the

poet, his right to freedom in both life and work, and his determina?

tion to escape from traditional conformity of every kind. In France,

verse, whether libke or libre, was free only in its intention to shake off

the domination of traditional metres; it was the expression in tech?

nique of the essential spirit of the symbolist movement?individual?

ism. Successive experimenters approached in their verse their per? sonal ideal of freedom; they either modified old forms or invented

new ones to suit their sensibilities. Already Verlaine and especially the generation of 1886 had proclaimed that the structure of verse

depended entirely on the movement of emotion and that the poetic

phrase was no longer subject to laws. Bryusov admired Verhaeren for

being 'a master of as many rhythms as thoughts'.6 Vesy published Rene Ghil's reminder of'these basic truths' of symbolism:

. . . The new conception of the world cannot fail to create a new and

adequate poetic language as well as a new exceptional, but profoundly logical understanding of rhythm. Thought . . . creates its own eternally developing rhythm which we sense as an emotion revealed to the outside

[world]. Rhythm is inherent in Thought and Word, which are both indivisible. . . .7

Thus the new verse is the triumphant expression of symbolist indi?

vidualism. Henceforth every poet is aware that he has his own, per? sonal, rhythm, which is the source of all poetry within himself. And

when Bryusov says:

I deem the aim of the 'new art' ... is to confer complete freedom on crea? tive art. The artist is absolutely independent in the form of his work, beginning with the metre of verse, . . . and in the entire range of its con? tent . . .8

it is quite obvious that he is following the teachings of his French

predecessors. It may well be that the new form would have appeared organically

as the only expression of the new content of poetry. But besides the fact that the new ideas were also partly a product of French influence, there is no doubt that some of the Russian symbolists?among them most certainly Bryusov?looked towards France for some guidance in this problem of adjusting form to content. Even if the evolution of

Russian versification were entirely of national origin, one could not

disregard the fact that the authority of the French symbolists pro? vided welcome moral support to the younger Russian poets. In view of their precarious position in the world of letters, they could not

6 Bryusov, 'O knigakh' (Vesy, 3, 1904, p. 55). 7 Rene Gnil, 'O knigakh' (Vesy, 12, 1905, p. 78). 8 Preface to Tertia vigilia, Moscow, 1900.




afford to neglect such authoritative support. Bryusov is explicit when

admitting that he had sought French models:

The influence of Pushkin and of the elder symbolists strangely merged within myself, and I either sought the classical severity of Pushkin's verse or dreamt about that new freedom which the new French poets acquired for poetry. In my verse of that time (the 1890's) these influences were interwoven in the most unexpected ways.9

Bryusov was largely responsible for acquainting his fellow-poets with

the French poetic tradition. As one critic said, 'the window of litera?

ture was open to the West'.10

III

Many symbolists pointed to the emancipated versification of

Verlaine as the preceding stage from which modern French free verse

emerged. Although there is a tendency to regard Verlaine's versi?

fication as an incidental evolutionary phase deriving from the free?

dom of mediaeval metres and rhythms,11 the fact remains that his

line, the vers libere, was accepted by many poets before and even after

1886 as more or less their standard medium.12 Verlaine's rhythmical novelties appeared first in Romances sans paroles (1874)?a work of a

real revelation to Bryusov, which he lovingly translated in 1894.

Although the poems in question were examples of modification

rather than of innovation, Verlaine enriched the rhythmical forms in

use. He boldly multiplied the subdivisions of the alexandrine, slurred

the caesura and, perhaps most important of all, popularised the vers

impair. He frequently used lines of nine, eleven, and even thirteen

syllables?numbers seldom found in regular poetry. The use of the

impair by the French symbolists can be compared to some extent to

the use of trisyllabic metres by the Russian romantic poets. Both the

impair and the trisyllabic metres were more suitable to the 'musical'

lyric poetry. Both are definitely connected with the break-up of the traditional metres. In France the impair leads to verse becoming polymorphe. In Russia the trisyllabic metres are closely connected with the leaning towards tonic versification. In the 18th century trisyllabic metres are used only exceptionally. They become somewhat more

popular with the romantics, starting with Zhukovsky. But while Fet still uses only twenty trisyllabic metres out of a total of a hundred

poems, Bryusov already has fifty, and the trisyllabic metres become

typical of symbolist poetry.13 9 Quoted by Tynyanov, op. cit., p. 537. 10 Ibid. 11 This is Robert de Souza's view, op. cit. 12 The poetry of Mallarme as well as the greater part of that of Rimbaud was also

written in 'liberated' verse. 13 See B. Tomashevsky, Teoriya literatury, Leningrad, 1925, pp. iii sq. For examples of

trisyllabic metres, cf. Bryusov's Otstupi, kak otliv . . . and Blok's Moy lyubimyy, moy knyaz' . . .




Verlaine still counts syllables, though not so strictly as his pre? decessors. He almost reaches, and certainly prepares, that stage of

French versification which has been characterised as 'the stage of

penultimate dislocation':14

Il est, en poesie, un resultat tangible de 1'effort du symbolisme: le brisement du vers. On ne fait plus le vers fran^ais comme Sully-Prudhomme, cela est certain. La cesure est abolie et ne revit que par hasard, par habitude, en vue d'un effort particulier. Le nombre exact des syllabes rf est plus necessaire a la mesure des vers; les muettes comp tent ou ne comptent pas, selon la

musique que Ton veut dessiner... ,15

Thus an exact number of syllables is no longer necessary to the

measure of the verse. And this variability in the quantity of syllables is one of the most important traits of purely tonic versification. In

most cases, the number of stresses is constant, as in native German

poetry. But there is also a free tonic verse in which the number of

accents varies from one line to another, for instance:

Eejitie BCTajna cyrpoGu (3) M MpaKH OTKpHJIHCb (2) Blhijihji cepeSpHHBin cepn (3) H MH yHOCHJIHCB (2)

OSpeneHHtie 06a (2) Ha ymep6. (1)

(Blok)

This is the nearest the dol'niki come to the French vers libre and, in a

way, the free verse is only a special case of the purely tonic verse, it is a dol'nik in which the number of accents varies. As the free dispo? sition of accents was already inherent in French verse of the 19th

century (the secondary accents of the alexandrine), it is natural that

the French symbolists?in their attempt to dislocate the old forms

?should have arrived straight at the vers libre. But in Russian

prosody, vers libre being a variety of dol'nik, this implied a further step. According to Pyast, there were two currents in modern Russian

versification?one towards romanisation, through the weakening of

the importance of stress; the second?towards germanisation, through the cultivation of every kind of pauznik.16 The Russian dol'niki fol? lowed the German pattern when the number of stresses in one line remained the same as that in the corresponding line (allowing for occasional pauses). The type of dol'nik correlative to the French vers libre implied a different number of accents in every line of the poem and it usually occurred when the basic foot was slurred or a mixture

14 The expression is used by P. Mansell Jones, The Background to Modern French Poetry, Cambridge, 1951. 15 Remy de Gourmont, Promenades UtUraires, IV, 7th ed., Paris, 19020, p. 90. 16 V. Pyast, Sovremennoye stikhovedeniye, Leningrad, 1931, p. 49.




of metres was used. In other words, the basic foot of such a verse was

constantly varied (the variation being thus qualitative as well as

quantitative) to the point of its being practically non-existent and

replaced by syllables. Thus, from the Russian point of view, such free

verses are even freer than the dol'niki of German type and are some?

times described as prose-verse. The distinction between Russian free

verses of French and German type was made by Bryusov.17 One of the first experiments in modern dol'niki was Zinaida

Hippius's poem Pesnya (1891), in which a tonic verse with four

accents was used in combination with shorter lines:

... Ybh, b nenajin 6e3yMH0H h yMHpaio. H yMHpaio.

OrpeMJiiocL k TOMy, êro h He 3Haio, He 3Haio.

H 9to >KejiaHHe He 3Haio orayfla,

IIpHHIJIO OTKyâ, Ho eepflne xoneT h npocHT nyâ,

^yâ ! ...

It has been noted that the first verse of this poem can fit the metrical

scheme of the iamb.18 But when compared to the following lines

which are built on purely tonic principle, the first line too must be

considered as a dol'nik (there are only three stresses in the first verse, four in the remaining long lines). It is not surprising therefore that

the first attempts at a theoretical study of Russian dol'niki were made

from the usual syllabo-tonic schemes. The theory of rhythmical 'deviations' advanced by Bely led him to consider the particularities of purely tonic verse as deviations from traditional metres. Bely maintained that there could be no rhythm without irregularity of

metre. He thus described the first dol'niki of the Russian symbolists as

dipauznyy stikh, a kind of a catalectic line in which the syllable missing from the regular metrical pattern was explained by the presence of a

pause in its place. Bely traces the first pauses in the triple dol'nik feet of Zinaida Hippius and Bryusov, and quotes:

Tboh ,n;eBa co B3opoM mryqHM... A

He includes in the same category many of Blok's poems, viz.

A BeTep 30ByniHH c ceBepa...19 A

Historically, the Russian romantic dol'niki came from the trisyllabic metres (dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest), and in a way Russian accen? tual verse still bears traces of a metrical system, the accent being the

17 Cf. fM.,, p. 305. 18 V. Zhirmunsky, Vvedeniye v metriku, Leningrad, 1925, p. 219. 19 A. Bely, Simvolizm, Moscow, 19io, p. 557.




fundamental element of the foot. Following Bely, Bobrov considered

the Russian dol'niki as a variation of the anapaest with pauses. So did

Pyast who claimed that the pauznik (Bobrov's term) was the most

characteristic rhythm of the first volume of Blok's poems.20 According to this school of thought, the following dol'niki of Blok's would be

interpreted in this manner:

IIpHCTaHB 6e3MOJiBHa. 3eMjin 6jiH3Ka.

3eMJin He BHftHO. HoHb rjiy6oKa. A AA

Ctoio Ha ceptix mokdbix ,o;ocKax. AA AA

Bypa xoxoneT b ce^tix Ky^pax. A AA

the whole poem being constructed on a triple dol'nik rhythm, and the

occasional dissyllabic feet being adjusted to the general pattern by the

inclusion of a pause. Zhirmunsky is against such an interpretation, for

though he admits that in certain cases there is some relation between

the dominating rhythm of a poem written in purely tonic verse and the traditional syllabo-tonic scheme, he rejects Bobrov's view that the

two systems can be united into one single?metrical?principle.21 Dol'niki already appear in Bryusov's work by the beginning of the

1890's, especially in his poems of 1896 (Me eum esse). Bryusov varies

the usual pattern of the romantic dol'niki by alternating the normal

one or two unaccented syllables between the stresses with three or

even more unaccented syllables. He thus gives to his metre an inter?

rupted character which better renders the rhythm of conversational

language:

C onymeHHHM B3opoM, b nejiepHHOHKe 6eJion

OHa mhmo Hac npocKOJib3Hyjia necMejio, C onymeHHtiM B3opoM, b nejiepHHO^Ke Sejioii...

... H tojibko He6o ? Bcer,o;a rojiy6oe, ?

Chhjio, npenpacHoe, b CTporoM noKoe,

Oaho jihih He6o, Bcer.ua rojiySoe !...

(?Ha 6yjibBape?)

To the same period belong the dol'niki of Ta deystvitel'nosti nashey ne

vizhu, Tedva yey bylo 14 let, Test' chto- to pozornoye v moshchi prirody, Mechta (Me eum esse, 1896-7). The same rhythm is used much later by Balmont (viz. Boloto, Staryy dom, 1906). Blok follows Bryusov's dol'nik

when he wants to create the impression of a weaker rhythm and bring the poem nearer to the conversational pulse of prose. And so he uses

three or more unstressed syllables in the intervals, as for instance in: 20 V. Pyast, 'O pervom tome Bloka' (Ob Al. Bloke?stat'i, St Petersburg, 1921, p. 227).

In his study of Russian rhythm, Pyast considered the term dol'nik as vague and unsatis? fying. He preferredpauznik (cf. Sovremennoye stikhovedeniye, p. 56). 21 Cf. Zhirmunsky, op. cit., p. 195.




BcTajia b chhhbh. KpeeTHJia AeTen. H flera yBHjiejiH paftOCTHbin coh.

nojio>KHJia, ao nojiy kjiohhcb tojioboh,

nOCJieAHHH 3eMH0H nOKJIOH.

Kojih npocHyjica. Pa^ocTHO B3,n;oxHyji,

TojiySoMy CHy erne pa3 HaHBy.

npoKaTHjicH h 3aMep CTeKJiHHHHH ryji: 3BeHHHi,aH ABepb xjionHyjia BHH3y.

nponiJiH naen. npnxoAHJi neJiOBeK

C ojiobhhhoh 6jihxoh Ha Tenjion nianne.

CTynaji h jjOHomajicfl y ftBepn nejiOBeK.

Hhkto He OTKpmi. HrpajiH b npHTKH...

(?H3 ra3eT?)

Even two accented syllables are allowed to stand side by side:

Cmotph, nana, CMOTpn KaKOH k HaM Kopa6jib njiuBeT...

By weakening the rhythm in this kind of dol'niki, Bryusov and Blok

prepare the vers libre and the type of tonic verse used by Akhmatova,

Mayakovsky, and the 'proletarian poets'. But Blok's usual dol'nik

belongs to the melodious, romantic type and almost regularly involves

the use of one or two unstressed syllables, viz.:

Bxomy h b TeMHue xpaMti,

CoBepuiaio SejiHLiH oSpflji;. TaM >Kjiy h npeKpacHoii flaMbi B MepnaHHH KpacHBix jiaMna,n...

Bryusov adheres to the same pattern in:

T^e bli, rpflflymiie ryHHbi, Hto Tyneii HaBHCJin Has MnpoM ?

CjiBiniy Bani TonoT qyryHHBin no eme HeoTKpbiTLiM naMnpaM...

This is the pattern of the German romantic dol'niki and the lyrical poems. It has been said of Blok that he approached Russian verse as if it were German verse.22 Without denying German influence on

Blok, especially the influence of his translations, one may say that on the whole he achieved what the French verslibristes demanded?the

acceptance of rhythm as the only matter of lyrical thought. Bryusov's

experiments certainly contributed towards this to a certain extent.

Assessing the Verlainean stage of poetry in France, Verhaeren once said that the mistake of the new poets was to stop half-way in their

22 V. Pyast, 'O pervom tome Bloka' (op. cit., p. 228).




experiments. In his view, either one had to adopt the classical verse

completely, \ . . ou bien faut-il aller droit au rythme et le prendre comme moelle unique de l'idee lyrique'.23 This is what Blok did. His

predecessors, including Bryusov, merely experimented. Their experi? ments proved most fruitful, but it is only with Blok that the tonic

versification becomes really organic in Russian poetry. After Bryusov had followed Verlaine in his resistance to the vers

libre, he became involved in the experiments of the verslibristes. On the

one hand, free verse was only a particular case of the dol'niki and, as

such, was already acceptable to those who had recognised the prin?

ciple of tonic versification. On the other hand?especially for Bryusov ?the vers libre was a metre used by Verhaeren. Verhaeren's influence

on the Russian poet cannot be underestimated. Although the Belgian

poet was not one of the most successful verslibristes, Bryusov considered

him the most perfect exponent of the new rhythm:

. . . Verhaeren is a wonderful master of the word, he is undoubtedly the

greatest master of'free verse'. He raised this type of versification to heights where even the most inspired of his contemporaries have no power to follow him. . . .24

And thus Bryusov approached the vers libre as a new rhythm? Verhaeren's rhythm?completely independent of the dol'niki. He

experimented in both simultaneously. The vers libre was for him

primarily the indispensable new medium demanded by the new

poetry, the new language which alone could express the new sensi?

bility:

[This new poetry] . . . finally frees the poet from the fetters of the 'laws of versification'. Contemporary verse must be subordinated to the vibra? tions of the poet's soul and not to the count of syllables. Every line and not

[only] the whole poem must have its own metre, in accordance with what it expresses. . . . The most perfect models of this new vers libre can be found in the work of Verhaeren, Viele-Griffin, Evers, Dehmel. . . . The very creation of the new free verse is primarily the result of the need for widen?

ing the sphere of verse, for putting into it more content than is possible when it is merely a sonorous compilation. The human soul needs verse far more than hitherto, and that is why it changes its aspect and gives it the

opportunity of marking the slightest changes of mood, of reflecting every expression, every word, every shade of thought. . . ,25

Bryusov introduced the vers libre to Russia, but he himself used it com?

paratively seldom. Tri svidaniya (1895) is probably the first attempt in Russia to imitate the free verse of the French school:

HepHoe Mope tojiob KOJiuxaeTCH

Kan mHBoe HyftOBHine, 23 E. Verhaeren, Impressions, III, 2nd ed., Paris, 1928, p. 155. 24 Bryusov in his review of Les villes tentaculaires (Vesy, 3, 1904, p. 55), 25 Bryusov, 'Otvet g.Andreyevskomu' (Mir Iskusstva, 1-6, i90i,p. 247).




C npoxoftflnniMH SjiecTKaivra

KpaeHHx uianoneK,

TojiySeHbKHx niap(f)OB BnojieTOB ApKO-cepeSpflHbix

}KHBeT, KOJiHxaeTCfl.

Kan xoponio HaM OTdoâ,

OTKyâ-TO CBepxy ? bbicoko, bbicoko ?

G T06010 CMOTpeTb TOJiny.

KpacHBafl paMa CBHâHHii !

3ajiHT naccam BJieKTpiraecKHM cbctom,

3ByKH OpKeCTpa flOHOCATCA.

Grapbie penn jiioSbh

K eepAU,y H3 cepAna BOCTopmeHHO npocflTCfl.

Mnjiafl, HeT, h He Jiry, roBopfl, hto jhoSjho a TeSfl.

The characteristics of Bryusov's vers libre are singularly akin to those

of Verhaeren. Verhaeren's work displays resistance to the impair and

only 4 per cent of his verse is really impair, which is rather little for

poetry reputed free. Moreover the Belgian poet's weakness for

sonorous and very long words is well known; it can already be seen in

his titles: hal-lu-ci-nees, il-lu-soi-res, sou-ve-rains, tu-mul-tu-eu-ses. He

accumulates an extraordinary number of syllables: this gives the

impression of weight to his verse and weakens the notion of metre.

By contrast, when he uses short-syllable words, he quickens the

rhythm of his poems. Delivery and intensity are the dominating con?

ditions of Verhaeren's vers libre. The rich use of alliteration and asson?

ance makes his phrasing even heavier and thus reinforces the rhythm. This is also why he prefers sonorous rhymes. In comparison to other

symbolists, Bryusov also uses relatively few trisyllabic metres. He

prefers the iamb and the trochee, especially the latter. The long line

is also characteristic of him, as well as hyperdactylic rhymes.26 Heavy alliteration and assonance give weight to his verse, and he has

frequently been accused of too many sonorous rhymes. The pon? derousness of many of Bryusov's poems is strikingly reminiscent of

Verhaeren's.

Bryusov was the first to use the vers libre and he established thus the

basis of an entire trend in Russian poetry, best represented perhaps

by Mayakovsky.27 All the symbolists tried occasionally to write in

vers libre. Blok used it several times in his second volume of verse28 and

sometimes produced an extraordinarily light effect:

? Cf. Kholod (1908). 27 Cf. M. Shtokmar, *0 stikhovoy sisteme Mayakovskogo' (L. I. Timoveyev and L. M. Polyak (eds.), Tvorchestvo Mayakovskogo, Moscow, 1952, pp. 258 sqq.). 28 Cf. also Ya zhalobnoy rukoy szhimayu svoy kostyV . . ., V pyVnyy gorod nebesnyy kuznets prikatil..., Kogda vy stoite na moyomputi...




OHa npHiujia c Mopo3a,

PacKpacHeBniaacfl, HanojiHHJia KOMHaTy

ApoMaTOM B03jj;yxa h jjyxoB, 3bohkhm tojiocom

M COBCeM, HeyBaJKHTeJIbHOH K 3aHHTHHM

BojiTOBHeii...

Balmont was much less successful. In such lines as:

Il03a6HBHIHCL,

HaKJIOHHBHIHCL, H He3pHM0 ot jjpyrax, YAHBJieHHO

3arjiHHyTb. ?

9to ny tb,

Rim Toro, hto6 B0CC03AaTb

To, nero HaM b 3toh jkh3hh bhjiotb 30 CMepTH He BH^aTb.

he achieved an external, graphic likeness rather than a real likeness to

vers libre. Balmont's part in the renovation of Russian prosody was

rather insignificant. Bryusov criticised him for failing to acquire 'the

broad manner of the poetry of Verhaeren'.29 He himself tried to reach

Verhaeren's 'broad manner' and almost succeeded in ?amknutyye

(1900-1), Mir (1903), Parizh (1903), Kon' bled (1903-4), Slava tolpe

(1904), Dukhi ognya (1905), V skvere (1905) which are written either

entirely or partly in vers libre.

IV

The absence of a well-defined metrical composition in the vers

libre brought to the fore other essential structural factors in symbolist

poetry. The growing disregard for metrical division into periods and

strophes intensified the need for various forms of rhythmico-syntactic

parallelism, syntactic lines being usually connected in some way with

the distribution of stresses. The vers libre consisting of lines linked into

rhythmical groups varying in length and structure, demanded a

marked syntactic articulation at the end of every line or strophic

group, the more so in view of the weakening of rhyme. Thus the

various forms of parallelism or symmetry become especially impor? tant with the appearance of free verse. They are characteristic how?

ever of all symbolist poetry. This may be partly explained by the growing popularity of folk-

poetry and the tendency to secure a similar effect?naive and at the

29 Bryusov, 'K. D. Balmont5 (Mir Iskusstva, 7-12, 1903, pp. 35-36).




same time emphatic. What the symbolists retained from their admir?

ation for popular poetry was mainly its repetitive devices. On the

other hand, repetition?in all its forms?suited symbolist aesthetics

extremely well: it met the demand for 'musicality' and enabled the

poet to impart to the reader his obsession with imagery. The simplest

images, by dint of constant repetition, could be driven home to the

reader, and even more often to the listener, to the extent of becoming a magic formula. This was one of the simplest means of producing that hypnotic effect which Mallarme declared to be one of the prin?

cipal aims of poetry. Thus the image, from being purely decorative

becomes an attribute of action, and the repetition itself already con?

tains the intense and brilliantly concise expression of the lyrical refrains of folk-poetry.

Baudelaire had already made great use of the technique of repe?

tition; this is even more frequently used by Verlaine; and subsequently

parallel constructions become the outstanding feature of all French

symbolist poets, including Maeterlinck and?to a somewhat lesser

degree?Verhaeren. The same applies to the Russian symbolists:

repetitive devices are the most characteristic trait of the style of

Balmont, Bryusov, Sologub, and Blok, the ratio of parallelisms being

approximately 1:3 in the case of Bryusov and Blok, and 1:2! m the

case of Balmont and Sologub.30 These devices have been studied and

classified elsewhere;31 here only a few characteristic types will be

mentioned.

The most common examples of rhythmico-syntactic parallelism are those of parallelism within the verse and within the strophe. Internal epanaphora, in particular, is widely used both by French

and Russian symbolists. Verlaine's example is well known:

Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glace, Deux formes ont tout a Pheure passe . . . Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glace, Deux spectres ont evoque le passe . . .

Bryusov and Sologub build many poems on the same principle, viz.:

B ee i\na3a 3e?JieHbie * ,3,Ba enyTHHKa cjryeatable,

B3i\JiAHyji a b nepBbiii pa3, B MOjraaHHH 6e3 omen, B ee rjia3a 3eJieHbie, flBa cnyTHHKa ejiynanHHe, Kor^a Ham cbct norac. Mbi CTajiH 6jih3kh c Hen...

(Bryusov)

Ha Onjie ftajieKOii h npeKpacHOH BCA JIIoSOBB H BCA AyHia MOA.

Ha Onjie ftajieKon h npeKpacHOH 30 Cf. V. Zhirmunsky, Kompozitsiya liricheskich stikhotvoreniy, St Petersburg, 1921, foot?

note p. 105. 31 Zhirmunsky, op. cit., passim.




IlecHeH cjia^KorjiacHOH h corjiacHofi

GnaBHT Bee 6jiameHCTBa Shthh...

(Sologub)

One aspect of extended epanaphora in Russian verse?the amoebic

or chainwise composition?can almost certainly be ascribed to foreign influence. This device, in which the alternate periods of a stanza

are linked both by an obvious epanaphora and by an internal one, is a common and very popular trait of English and German folk?

songs, and is probably due to the popular tradition of a song being executed by two voices or two groups of voices. While amoebic com?

position can also be found in Russian folk-songs, though to a lesser

degree than in the West, it seems that the Russian symbolists did not

attempt to reproduce the traditional popular style, but were influ?

enced rather by Heine, Rossetti, Maeterlinck, and Verlaine. The

chainwise composition penetrated Western poetry in the period of

romanticism, when popular songs began to be deliberately imitated, and became very popular with the French symbolists. Maeterlinck's

famous poem:

Et s'il revenait un jour Que faut-il lui dire?

?Dites-lui qu'on l'attendit

Jusqu'a s'en mourir. . . .

as well as several of his 'Twelve Songs' were many times translated in Russia32 and undoubtedly influenced some original verse. An inter?

esting review by Bryusov appeared in Vesy on the occasion of Ghul- kov's translation of the 'Twelve Songs'. Criticising Chulkov's attempt to render mainly Maeterlinck's imagery, Bryusov claimed that the character of the 'Songs' derived from the movement of the verse, from its structure and not its imagery. He especially drew attention to the parallelisms which Chulkov failed to render.33 His own trans? lations preserved the characteristic parallelism of Maeterlinck's

'Songs'. How conscious Bryusov was of the structure of Maeterlinck's verse is best seen in his poem written 'in the manner' of the Belgian poet:

CeMb cecTep Ha ceMnSpycHoii Gaume

JK^ajiH cbohx meHHxoB.

CeMb cecTep Ha ceMHSpycnoii Gannie

3acjiyniajiH inyM niaroB.

32 In 1904 appeared the first volume of a translation of Maeterlinck's collected works by Sablin; in 1905 a translation of the same was published by Pirozhkov; Chulkov's trans? lation of the 'Twelve Songs' also appeared in the same year; several translations of single poems by Bryusov and others appeared in the symbolist press before and after 1904. 33 Bryusov, 'Fialki v tigele' (Vesy, 7, 1905, pp. 9-17).




M o#Ha, ynaB, yMepjia ot cMymeHbA, HT0 HCnOJIHHJICA COH.

flpyran, ynaB, yMepjia ot comhghha

9to jim oh...

TpeTbA, e^Ba pacTBopmracb flBepn, B CTpaxe, ynaB, yMepjia.

HeTBepTaA, npe^BHÂ cKopSb h noTepn, Ce6A 3aAyniHJia caMa...

Other examples of chain wise composition can be found in Bryusov's Dva golosa, Kamenshchik, in his ballads Adam i Teva and Orfey i Yev-

ridika, and in Blok's Vsyo li spokoyno v narode.

The amoebic construction can be motivated not only by dialogue, but also by psychological parallelism, as is often the case with Heine.

Examples can also be found, among others, in Verlaine's La bonne

chanson: La lune blanche, and more typical perhaps:

Avant que tu ne t'en ailles, Pale etoile du matin,

?Mille cailles

Ghantent, chantent dans le thym. Tourne devers le poete, Dont les yeux sont pleins d'amour;

?L'alouette Monte au ciel avec le jour. . . .

Sologub's translation of this poem is not very effective, but retains the

same structure:

noKa SjieCTHT TBOH 6jie#HbIH ahck, 3Be3,n;a Ha He6ocKjiOHe,

? H muran nncK, H BOJIHbl 6jiar0B0HHH !

Bpocb Ha noaTa, b *n>nx onax

OrHH jiioSbh 3ap#ejra, ? B jrHeBHbix jiynax

Bot maBopoHKa Tpejin...

The same device is frequently used by Balmont:

OHa OTâjiacb 6e3 ynpena. OHa nejiOBajia 6e3 cjiob.

? KaK TeMHoe Mope rjrySoKO. ? Kan flbimaT Kpan oSjiaKOB.

OHa He TBep^HJia : He Haô !

OTBeTOB OHa He JKâjia. ? KaK cuaôcTHo ahhiht npoxjia.ua, ? KaK TaeT BenepHan Mrjia...




The chainwise form originated from the Malay 'pantum' and was

popularised in France and Germany during the romantic period. In their effort to revive mediaeval forms of poetry, the symbolists

also paid some attention to the epiphoric structure of poems. There

are several examples of coda (Abgesang)3*, but the most popular form

of epiphoric structure?the refrain?so widely used by the pre-

Raphaelites and Maeterlinck, is rather rare in Russian poetry. The

symbolists did not develop this compositional device.35

Certainly the most constantly used and perhaps the most charac?

teristic repetitive device of symbolist poetry was the symmetry of the

first and last lines of either the stanza or the whole poem. Examples are already numerous in Les fleurs du mal.36 Several variations occur in

Verlaine, Maeterlinck, Gustave Kahn, and Jules Laforgue.37 In

Russia, the so-called kol'tso (epanalepsis or anadiplosis) is the most

popular compositional structure of 19th-century lyrical poetry,

especially the form which encloses a whole poem and not only a

stanza. The device, with all its variants, is also a favourite with

Russian symbolists. Historically, the kol'tso originates not only from

popular poetry, but also from ballad. Significantly, the first ex?

amples of this form in Russia are all described as 'romance' or pesnya

(song). Fet, Polonsky, A. Tolstoy, and Grigor'yev all share in pro?

moting the genre, but it is only in the poetry of the symbolists that we

find a completely free use of the kol'tso, unqualified by words like 'romance' or 'song'. French influence in this case can hardly be denied if one notes that the German romantics used the form very

rarely. More usual in English, the structure is still limited to parti? cular, isolated cases, but in the French poetry of the latter half of the

19th century it is widely resorted to.

The various forms of the kol'tso are so numerous in Russian sym? bolist poetry that they evade all attempts at classification. Among the

most frequent are the kol'tso of a stanza, with an exact or merely

partial repetition.38 In the kol'tso of the whole poem, either the first

and the last stanzas may be identical or only the first and last lines.39

They can also be deliberately contrasted as in Blok's 0 doblestiyakh or in Noch', ulitsa, fonar' . . ., and in Balmont's 0 Khristos or Ad, infinitum.

34 Viz. Bryusov's sonnet Tsvety ronyayut robko lepestki, and Balmont's Morskaya pena and Spi, moya pechal'naya ... 35 Zinaida Hippius's Pesnya is the only known original example of amoebic refrain, in the purely song sense, in modern Russian poetry. The second example, Balmont's Gornyy korol' is a translation from the Dutch and represents a typical ballad in the spirit of popular poetry (cf. Zhirmunsky, op. cit, p. 60). 36 Cf. Le balcon, Reversibilite, Virreparable, Moesta et errabunda, Hymne. 37 Cf. Verlaine's Dans Vinterminable ennui de la plaine . . ., Je ne sais pourquoi, Charleroi, A Poor Young Shepherd, Impression fausse, Crepuscule du soir mystique, N'est ce pas? . . . Kahn's File a ton rouet, Laforgue's Le brave, brave automne, etc.

38 Viz. Balmont's Vy umryote, stebli tr av ..., Sologub's No ne smeyuya vstat' i skazat'... 39 Cf. Balmont's Vetergori morey.




Several variations of this device occur frequently in Blok's first

volume of verse,40 in Balmont, viz.:

B xpaMe Bee ? Kan npe^K^e 6bijio. B xpaMe 6y#eT Tan, nan 6hjio.

CjIBIHieH THXHH B3MaX KaftHJI. CjIHHieH THXHH 3B0H Ka#HJI. ?fl CMeHJTCH, H HiyTHJI. ?A HeBepHHH ! TH HiyTHJI

?HeyjKejin th jnoSnjia ?? ?rope ! rope ! H JiioGnjia .?

as well as in Bryusov41 and in Sologub, of whose technique all

repetitive devices are a constant feature:

H He cnaji, ? h 3Byqajio A pycajma cMenjiacb

3a peKofi, 3a penoH.

TpeneTajio, pbnjajio HeT, He th H3,n;eBajiacb

Ha#o mhoh... Ha,a;o mhoh.

Examples can be endlessly multiplied. There is a tremendous

amount of variation. The repeated stanzas can have one or more

common lines, either in a symmetrical or a contrasting position. They can coincide completely or only partly?in rhymes, or phonetically, or in the thematic content of a poem.

In contrast to the kol'tso, the use of the chain structure as a method

running through a complete poem is rather rare. It occurs in Baude?

laire's Harmonie du soir, and Bryusov attempted the same movement in

his Opyty. The compositional styk, or epanastrophe, can also be used

in order to link only one of the periods of a stanza, as in Balmont's

Vdali ot zcmli and Sologub's Byl shirokiy put'. In mediaeval poetry and

in Old French epanastrophe is frequently used in every line of a

poem. The French symbolists' imitation of the popular songs accounts

for the partial revival of this form in modern poetry. A slightly differ?

ent form of styk may be found in Russian popular poetry, where each

second line repeats initially the ending of the preceding line; this

structure is linked with the characteristically Russian superimposed

repetition (povtoreniye s narastaniyem). As has been already stated, all the forms of lyrical repetition are a

distinctive feature of the symbolist style, especially of its romantic

trend. In the 18th century compositional parallelisms did not play an important role. Likewise Pushkin and his Pleiade considered the

word primarily as having a logical significance, while the symbolist school stressed its inherent emotional colouring. Zhirmunsky has

supplied us with statistics on this subject: in Pushkin the number of

poems with compositional repetitions is 43 out of a total of 558, in

Baratynsky 12 out of 222, in Lermontov 27 out of 377. What is more

significant from our point of view, in Tyutchev whose influence is

considered by some critics as the most important in Russian sym- 40 Cf. Ty otkhodish' v sumrak alyy ..., Noch' na novyy god. 41 Cf. U zemli, Sladostrastiye, Kak poy du ya po bul'vam . . .




bolist poetry?the figure is only 17 out of 277, i.e. about 1 in 16. But

with Fet the number of poems making some use of repetitions is

already 115, and the ratio increases as we approach the symbolists. It seems that the attention which the Russian symbolists paid to all

forms of parallelism derives from three sources, viz. the Russian late

romantics (including Solov'yov), Heine and the German romantics

in some degree, and undoubtedly, to a great extent, the French sym?

bolists, especially Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Maeterlinck. The French

were certainly responsible for the revival of such fixed poetical forms

of Romance origin as the rondeau, rondel, triolet, and Persian

gazelle, whose structure is determined by repetitions. On the other

hand, the growing popularity of the vers libre and the preparatory vers libere, which came from France, demanded a well-defined com?

positional structure. In 18th-century syllabo-tonic free verse42 the

impression of rhythmical order was achieved by the uniformity of the

basic rhythmical movement, the accented and the unaccented syl? lables alternating, and the movement was divided, as it were, into

separate rhythmical waves of different length. In the rhymeless blank

verse, the limits of every line or strophic group were marked by a

syntactic articulation. The latter had to be even stronger in the vers

libre, in which hesitation in the number of stresses is also added to the

usual alternation of the number of syllables between stresses in the

dol'niki. The basic rhythmical movement of the vers libre is provided

by the accent dHmpulsion, which rises to a certain pitch and then

recedes. Rhythm is thus strictly connected with the distribution of

syntactic groups, and rhythmical parallelism corresponds to syntactic

parallelism.

V

Compositional structure in poetry is closely linked with the ques? tion of euphonic organization. The instrumentation of poetical

speech is indeed the outcome of the interrelation of different laws of

harmony, of which those of rhythm and compositional structure are

two of the most important. The third vital law of harmony?if we are

to number them quite arbitrarily?is represented by a group of

normal euphonic media, or what may be termed the external, visible

media of harmony: alliteration, assonance, rhyme, etc. Although these obvious manifestations of harmony are a constant preoccu?

pation of all poetry, it is understandable that, consistent with their

aesthetics, the symbolist poets paid particular attention to them. The

42 In the 18th century, the usual syllabo-tonic rhymed verse was called free, provided the number of feet in the line changed and the rhyme was ordered in the stanza. Krylov's fables, comic poems, and comedies in verse were written in such free iambs.




symbolist tendency to approximate poetry to the art of music was

bound to affect their technique. We shall not study here the verbal instrumentation proper to the

individual symbolist poets and shall merely note the extensive use

of euphonic devices made both by the French and the Russian poets. Two general trends can be seen: one towards vocalism, the other

towards orchestration, i.e. the simultaneous use of assonance and

alliteration to reproduce in poetry the equivalent of orchestral music.

Verlaine was the supreme exponent of the use of vowel-sounds in

modern French poetry, whereas Baudelaire had been the first to

make extensive use of assonance and alliteration in order to produce a composite impression. Mallarme drew attention to euphonic form

as the best expression of thought: the poet must discover and bring out the mysterious affinities which exist between sound and thought; verse is to be approached as a musical phrase, as a small orchestra, a kind of chamber music.43 The younger genera tiohls more precise: it raises alliteration and assonance to the dignity of a system. Rim?

baud's famous sonnet on vowels?a simple reminiscence of childhood

?sets in motion an endless controversy on the tonality of vowels, on

the associations between sound and the impression it conveys. In all

seriousness, Rene Ghil draws up a table of vowels and some con?

sonants, indicating their respective use. Poetry becomes for him a

science, and he claims that precision of expression can be achieved

by a scientific application of the magic of onomatopoeia. The

numerous examples of alliteration and assonance in French sym? bolist verse, as well as the endless theoretical statements which sup?

port this extensive use of euphonic media, can leave no doubt that

these represent something more than a traditional poetic device. The Russian symbolists were just as sound-conscious as their

French predecessors. Obviously, the earlier Russian poets had also

known the secret of alliteration and vowel harmony (and made a

discreet use of them). But while Gogol' could only vaguely say that

harmony of sounds was 'not such an empty phrase as those who are

unacquainted with poetry think',44 Balmont analysed the sounds of

the Russian language in order to discover a direct link between the

phonetic elements of speech and the significance of words, and to

reveal the mythopoetic force of individual words, the dormant

energy of sound-material, the magical music of speech.45 Advancing a step further, Bely tried to ascribe to sounds a meaning independent of the usual significance of words; he tried to free the 'latent energy' of words from the bonds of accepted terminology. In Glossolaliya he

43 Cf. 'Crisedevers' (Divagations). 44 Cf. L. P. Yakubinsky, 'O zvukakh stikhotvornogo yazyka' (Poetika, Petrograd, 1919, p. 40).

46 Cf. Poeziya, kak volshebstvo, passim.



RUSSIAN SYMBOLIST VERSIFICATION l8l

strove to recreate the relation of sound to movement. All the Russian

symbolists, at one time or another, pronounced themselves on music, and revealed how highly developed was their emotional attitude to

sound.

A cursory review of the practice of the Russian poets would reveal

Bryusov's characteristic vocalism and his awareness of the fact that

the judicious distribution of a vowel within a verse is more important than merely its use (hence instances of repetition and symmetry); Blok's assonances which endow his verse with such remarkable

fluidity; Bely's careful disposition of both vowels and consonants, in

a deliberate attempt at orchestration. Alliteration is used to an un?

precedented extent. Blok insistently exploits certain letters without

hardly ever transgressing the limits of harmony; Bely can be either

extraordinarily expressive or unpleasantly florid; sustained allitera?

tion in Bryusov is rare, and when it occurs it is usually a tour deforce in the tradition of Balmont's school, which, in its constant pursuit of acoustic expressiveness, sometimes exceeded the bounds of har?

mony. There are very few poems of Balmont's which do not bear

visible traces of tonal organisation, but perhaps we should quote

Sologub to show how indiscriminately the pure sound-value of a

letter could be exploited by the symbolists:

Jlnjia, jiHJia, jiHJia, Ka^ajia

,D,Ba TejibHO-ajine CTeKJia.

Bejieii jinjieft, ajiee Jiajia

Bena Snjia th h ajia...

It is precisely this use of alliteration solely for the sake of its sound that shows at its most extreme the difference between the practice of verbal instrumentation by earlier poets and by the symbolists. The

symbolists expressed the intensity of lyrical feeling primarily through sound-organisation. This was not a mere accompaniment; the words

acquired an entirely individual character through their euphonic associations, and these were carefully stressed by their distribution. The symbolists even strengthened the power of sound-organisation by enlarging its sphere, and making the rhyme a particular instance of it. They heightened every possible device of poetic technique in

order that poets might be 'the true magi in the province of the word'.

Henceforth, words were to obey their command, like 'a mighty incantation'.46 The logical sense of the word could be obscured and overlaid by its musical meaning; the clarity of imagery could recede to a secondary plane; differentiation in the choice of words was of less

importance. All these qualities gave way to the expressiveness of

sound, to a specific understanding of melody, to a vague sequence of 46 Bryusov in Opyty.




musical impressions which were to evoke a lyrical mood and emo?

tional sensibility. Sound-organisation was in fact the basic principle of symbolist poetry.

VI

The romantics and after them the parnassians claimed that rhyme was the essential element of French verse?that as French words were

not composed of short and long syllables like Latin words, it was

almost rhyme alone which differentiated French prose from poetry. Hence the necessity of rich rhymes. But with the attack against the

traditional metrical system came also the attack against rhyme. The

revolutionary seeds had already been sown by Hugo and even by Chenier, but it was Verlaine and Rimbaud who first simplified rhyme and tried to replace it by assonance. Verlaine did not condemn

rhyme in general, he condemned only the rigid rhyming system. A

few years later, the symbolists had achieved their revolution in the

field of rhyme. In the 1890's rich rhyme belonged to 'parody'.47 A similar process of the decomposition of traditional rhyme can be

observed in Russia. In the 18th century and at the beginning of the

19th there were several sporadic attempts to disrupt traditional

rhyme (Derzhavin, Kol'tsov, Nikitin), but in the field of unaccented

vocalism the majority of poets demanded not only acoustic but even

graphic precision. Beginning from the mid-1830's the demand for

graphic coincidence is given up, and even acoustic rhymes are no

longer rigidly exact. The movement develops with A. Tolstoy.

Yakubinsky quotes a letter by the poet which shows him to be quite unaware of the attempts made in France (true, not yet very pro? nounced at that time), but protesting already against the tyranny of

regular rhyme.48 In practice, Tolstoy is a cautious innovator,

although we find truncated rhymes in his work. He is, on the whole,

opposed only to the rigid exactitude of traditional rhyme, whereas the

symbolists cultivate the imperfect rhyme deliberately, as part of their

struggle against tradition.

Bryusov takes up Tolstoy's experiments in the field of approximate

rhyme, although most of his own attempts to renovate the rhyming

system originate from France.49 The diffusion of imperfect rhymes by the end of the 19th century cannot be ascribed to the general slacken?

ing of prosodic technique. Apukhtin and Nadson are conservative in

this respect, their use of banal rhymes preventing them from experi? mentation. Among the symbolists, Balmont, Sologub, and Zinaida

Hippius are relatively conservative; the new manner is represented chiefly by Bryusov and Blok.

47 Remy de Gourmont, op. cit., p. 90. 48 L. P. Yakubinsky, 'O zvukakh stikhotvornogo yazyka' (Poetika, pp. 38-9). 49 Cf. Zhirmunsky, Rifma,yeyo istoriya i teoriya, St Petersburg, 1923, p. 332, footnote 93.




We find in Bryusov a certain predilection for rich rhymes, this

being often said to derive from his parnassian leanings. Lunacharsky is particularly insistent that Bryusov's teachers were the parnassians and not the symbolists.50 This statement seems to be exaggerated, unless one includes Baudelaire and Verlaine in the ranks of the

parnassians. Bryusov is much closer to these two than to any other

French poets, with the exception of Verhaeren. It seems that his

so-called 'parnassianism' was inherited through Baudelaire and per?

haps even Verlaine, rather than as the result of direct influence.

There are sufficient traces of parnassian technique in these two fore?

runners of symbolism to support this point. And Bryusov's 'brazen

sounds', his heavy, polysyllabic rhymes, which are often rare and

recherche, belong on the whole to his early poems, to the period when,

having discovered Baudelaire and Verlaine, he was closely perusing their works.51 Verlaine's insistence that there can be no verse without

rhyme52 may have influenced Bryusov to a certain extent; on the

other hand, we must remember how closely the Russian poet fol?

lowed Verlaine's dictum De la musique avant toute chose . . . Verlaine

impressed by this melody, musicality, and suggestive vagueness;

Bryusov, an essentially non-musical poet, understood this more

literally: in addition to all the things it implied for Verlaine, for

Bryusov it meant everything connected with the sound-organisation of poetry. Bryusov loved sounds in order to convey either a meaning or an impression, and, not infrequently, he loved them for their own

sake. This predilection can also be detected in his rhymes. We have

his own testimony to this effect:

. . . How strangely and how marvellously foreign words sound, especially as a rhyme! Is it possible you do not know the delight of verse as verse, beyond its significance, of the sounds alone, the imagery, the rhymes? flpeMJieT CTOJinna, Kan caMKa MepTBoro CTpayca. Already the very expectation of a rhyme with the word CTpayca provokes a mysterious flut? ter. I do not say anything?there is also something else in poetry, there is another poetry. But this and that, both of them, are enchanting. . . .53

Twenty years later, Bryusov still writes in the same vein:

CaM ;a;jiH ce6n jiioSjiio b CTHxax cbohx

GreHeHHe pn$M, nopoii HeoSbiHanHbix, M ;o;jih ce6n nnniy

? He RJin ^pyrnx. (i9J5)

50 Cf. Lunacharsky's preface to Bryusov's Izbrannyye sochineniya, Moscow, 1926. 51 In his later poems they are often inspired by Verhaeren. 52 'La rime n'est pas condamnable, mais seulement Tabus qu'on en fait. Rimez faible-

ment, assonez si vous voulez, mais rimez ou assonez, pas de vers sans cela.' Cf. 'Un mot sur la rime' (Le Decadent, March, 1888). 53 Bryusov to Pertsov, 17 August 1895. Cf. P. P. Pertsov (ed.), Pis'ma V. T. Bryusova k P. P. Pertsovu, i8g4~i8g6?k istorii rannego simvolizma, Moscow, 1927, p. 36.




The inclination towards rare rhymes is also linked with the sym? bolists' avoidance of the cliche in general. The unexpected word which

strikes the reader is much more likely to provoke a spell-binding

impression than the banal word. Mallarme always made a cult of

the unexpected word and felt horror at the cliche. In spite of the fact

that the French symbolists regarded rare rhyme as a parnassian relic,

they often tried to infuse some originality at the end of the line in

order to secure a certain variety and avoid the monotony of hack?

neyed rhymes. This tendency explains at the same time the use of

rare rhyme, including compound rhyme, as well as the use of asso?

nance. In Bryusov's case, rich and rare rhymes suited his somewhat

bombastic and solemn style. The number of rare rhymes in Bryusov is much greater than in the

majority of his contemporaries of the 1880's and 1890's, and some of

the younger poets?the so-called Bryusov school?generalised this

interest in rich and rare rhymes. Bryusov tended to combine

categories of words not related grammatically or logically, and

approximate rhymes {priblizitel'nyye rifmy) favoured this preference. Bryusov indeed developed their use. The number of truncated rhymes in his work is such that they may be considered the dominant type.54

Bryusov also set the fashion in compound rhymes. Although these had

been used to a certain extent by earlier poets, the heavy type?

especially those with a heavier second element?became character?

istic of symbolist poetry. In France they had been used by Baudelaire and some later symbolists. By enlarging the possibilities of word-

combinations, Bryusov answered Pushkin's complaint that there are

too few rhymes in the Russian language. Bryusov renovated rhyme by including morphologically diverse combinations in customary

rhymes. He was followed by Blok, in whose first poems the new

manner is already apparent, and by Kuzmin, Gumilyov, and Akhma?

tova, who use the new rhymes quite freely.

Bryusov was also responsible for the introduction of imperfect rhymes, or assonances (netochnyye rifmy), into Russian poetry. The

sporadic attempts of his predecessors had resulted merely in an

occasional and exceptional use of this type of rhyme. Bryusov's experiments in this sphere were prompted by the example of the French symbolists who had returned to the assonances of Old French

poetry. The naturally longer Russian rhyme lent itself to this even better than the acoustically simple French rhyme. In Russian the

assonances were more sonorous. Already in 1893 Bryusov uses imper? fect dactylic rhymes (Unyniye); a, few years later they become much

more frequent. One finds combinations of dactylic rhymes with im-

54 Bryusov has about 400 truncated rhymes, as compared with 180 in A. Tolstoy. Cf. Zhirmunsky, op. cit., p. 326, footnote 70.




perfect masculine rhymes (Mesyats blednyy . . .), and even assonances

in feminine rhymes (Utomlyonnyy, sonnyy vecher... or Tapomnyu vecher).

Bryusov uses assonances especially in rhymes belonging to different

grammatical groups, for instance 6poHeHOcn,eB: rpo3HHM, aHTHxpHCT :

yTHXHeT, poflHHH : ycBoeHHOii. Deviations in the correspondence of

consonants also include rhymes with truncated final consonants:

npnSHJi: MorjiH 6h, po^Hoe : BoeM, cepbiM : ropejio. Bryusov was also

the first to use imparisyllabic (neravnoslozhnyye) rhymes. He began by

rhyming words in which the dropping of the unstressed vowel is

scarcely audible, thanks to similarity in the articulation of the pre?

ceding sounds: 3apn : Mapnn, jKejiamni : TyMaHe, Tonojien : ajuiee.

Sologub later used many similar rhymes. This device is frequently

applied in Tertia vigilia, where we can find hyperdactylic and dactylic

rhymes combined, e.g. ,o;eBCTBeHHHHa : jiecranna, 6o?KecTBeHHaH :

.ijeBCTBeHHa. Although undoubtedly very audacious in his use of im?

perfect rhymes, Bryusov limits them to a certain number of his poems and avoids using them simultaneously with the normal system of versi?

fication. Thus he has a series of poems with assonances55 and a whole

cycle constructed on consonantal deviations,56 while in the majority of

his poems there are no deviations at all. It is in Blok's poems that the

imperfect rhyme ceases to be part of a particular system of versifica?

tion. It spreads to all his poems and appears alongside customary

rhyme, thus becoming a recognised and normal method of rhyming.

Bryusov's experiments in the field of rhyme?partly based on French

example?began a new period in the history of Russian rhyme. But

the canonisation of imperfect rhyme belongs primarily to Blok.

Before 1902, imperfect rhymes are rare in Blok's work, and the

examples are limited to feminine rhymes with a truncated final con?

sonant. From 1902 onwards, under the influence of Bryusov and the

other symbolists with whom Blok became acquainted at that time, a

much more varied and general use of imperfect rhymes can be

observed. They appear most frequently when Blok departs from the

usual syllabo-tonic versification, when he does not adhere to strict

strophic composition, and also when he uses catachresis to underline

the irrational mood of a poem. The second volume of Blok's poems is

particularly significant in this respect.57 As far as consonantal devia?

tions are concerned, the most frequent irregularities occur in feminine

rhymes. Most of these have a truncated final consonant, as in: rjiySn :

jiioShm, 3Be3,o;HHM : 6e3AHH, and this type becomes increasingly popu? lar. Assonances usually occur in rhymes belonging to similar gram? matical categories, viz., nanepTb : cnaTepTb, Kpenqe : Jierqe, 3aiiqHK :

55 Twenty-one poems in Puti ipereput'ya are based on the principle of imperfect rhymes, and in fifteen there are only isolated instances.

56 The group of poems Nagranitakh in Vse napevy. 57 There are 114 examples of imperfect rhymes in this volume.




MaJibHHK, or?somewhat less frequently?in different morphological

groups, viz. Kynoji: cjiyinaji, CBeTeJi: neneji. The number of irregular masculine rhymes is extremely small, and these consist of assonances

proper, viz. #Bepi>: TeHb, bhh3 : jihit. Blok also uses dactylic asson? ances usually in words belonging to one morphological type, viz.

mojihtcji : kjiohhtch, npopySbio : nocTyntio. Besides finally incor?

porating assonance in Russian verse, Blok also makes great use of

consonance, disregarding either the final or the intermediate vowel, even if stressed.

The fact that rhyme was incorporated by the symbolists in the

sound-organisation of their poems is best seen in the use they make of internal rhymes. Examples of these are especially numerous in

Blok and Bely, but they occur in one form or another in all the sym? bolists. Every aspect of parallelism may be found in the distribution of rhymes.

Blok's spectacular innovations in the field of imperfect rhyme be?

long to the 1903-7 period and are especially characteristic of his two

collections of poems: Nechayannaya radost' (1906) and ?emlya v snegu

(1908). Though there are cycles strikingly rich in cases of irregular

rhymes,58 Blok mixes them with regular rhymes. In contrast to

Bryusov, however, he does not consider imparisyllabic rhyme as a

special system of versification. But in the third volume of his collected

poems, Blok returns to more traditional forms in the field of both metre and rhyme. This does not mean that he forsakes the imperfect rhyme altogether; but the days of experimentation are over, and he

retains only some irregular rhymes which are now part of his tech?

nique. What he retains from his previous experiments however is

significant from our point of view. Out of a total of fifty-three irre?

gular rhymes, forty-four have a truncated final consonant. This type of assonance becomes generally accepted in Russian poetry after

Bryusov and Blok. The work of Kuzmin, Gumilyov, and Akhmatova

abounds in assonances, their treatment having already outgrown the

experimental stage. Although acoustic reasons (the weakening of final consonants in unstressed positions) may perhaps partly explain the popularity of this particular irregularity of rhyme, this does not diminish the significance of the fact that assonance in Russian poetry was introduced thanks to the example of the French symbolists. In

Russia, assonance grafted much better than in France, because of the

divergent phonetic characteristics of the two languages. In their revo?

lutionary mood, intent on destroying all classical rules, the French

symbolists had failed to see that the almost imperceptible difference in the length of syllables, and especially the usual acoustic mono-

syllabism of French rhyme often imposed limitations on the variety 58 Cf. Puzyrizemli (1905) and Snezhnaya maska (1907).




of assonant combinations. The comparative sonority of word-endings in Russian and the number of polysyllabic words favoured, however, the development of assonance.59 Yet even in Russian, rigid forms of

assonance?those modelled on the 'romances' (ballads)?are rather

scarce and usually occur as metrical experiments only. This again is

explained by the natural weakening of unstressed final vowels, while

the acoustic differences in consonants are very prominent.

Regardless of their application and results, the motives of the sym? bolists in breaking up traditional rhyme were the same in France and

in Russia. Partly they were a conscious reaction against everything their predecessors had done; partly the symbolists wanted to achieve

complete freedom in the field of versification, and that is why rhyme ?like verse itself?had to be mobile, flexible, and unfettered; and,

perhaps most important of all, their musical preoccupation extended

to the province of rhyme, and rhyming for the eye had thus to be

abandoned in favour of rhyming for the ear. This is connected with

the importance the symbolists attached to the word in general and

to its invocative, almost magical quality. Such an approach to the

word explains, on the one hand, why the same rhymes are often used

over and over again by the symbolist poets?the sonority, the lumi?

nosity of the tail-words being so suggestive?and on the other hand,

why in addition to rhymes they use dissonances, which attract atten? tion by their absurd position in relation to sense, the individual myth of word-rhyme not having to be on the level of meaning but of audi?

tory impression. 59 This is why examples of assonances in masculine rhymes are scarce. Bryusov demon?

strated the richness of Russian rhyme in his poem Noch' (1915), where all types of rhyme, from hyperdactylic to masculine, are used.



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