LESIA UKRAINKA’S SONNET POEM AS A DYNAMIC SYSTEM

Abstract

A sonnet poem, typically consisting of a thesis, an antithesis, and a conclusion, is a dynamic entity by its very nature. In the sonnets by Lesia Ukrainka, various aspects of such dynamics can be observed at both the proper textual and intertextual levels. At the textual level, an important role in the dynamization of the text system is primarily played by numerous lexical and syntactic repetitions. While tradition has long prevented the use of lexical repetitions in sonnet texts, the experience of outstanding masters, such as Lesia Ukrainka, proves that disregarding this tradition occurs due to the author’s creative approach to the issue. The figurative and semantic dynamics of Lesia Ukrainka’s sonnets are often initiated with the very first word, which is further actualized through anaphoric and other repeated elements. In the first version of the “Fa” sonnet, the highly expressive dynamics of gradation in rhetorical interrogative sentences, introduced in the second quatrain, reach their intense paradigmatic expression in the tercet endings. To a large extent, a different character of the figurative and intonation course, corresponding to the meaningful intra-dialogical unfolding of the literary canvas, can be traced in the compositional system of the sonnet “The Last Song of Maria Stewart”, where the initial interrogative construction finds a logical continuation in the final lines of the exclamatory sentence. The sonnet “Breath of the Desert”, the figurative dynamics of which are realized mostly due to the intertextual situation, shows still another character of the compositional course. Based on the perception of Lesia Ukrainka’s poem “Khamsin”, written, by the way, on the same day as the sonnet (both poems belong to the “Spring in Egypt” cycle), the image of the free and capricious wind (‘khamsin’) acquires a deep meaning. Intertextual and apperceptive dynamics can also be observed in the Bakhchysarai triptych from the cycle “Crimean Memories”, which undoubtedly alludes to Adam Mickiewicz’s “Crimean Sonnets”. However, the perception of the literary heritage here is highly individual: unlike Mickiewicz’s generally romantic interpretation of events, Lesia Ukrainka discusses the affairs of long-gone days in her sonnet from the standpoint of a narrator ‒ a contemporary of the new age, who interprets historical processes in relation to present realities.