The goals and the tasks of the research:
The main goal of the project is to study the mechanisms for the emergence and evolution of the syllabo-tonic system of versification, based on the works of Russian poets of the eighteenth century, primarily V. K. Trediakovsky, M. V. Lomonosov, and A. P. Sumarokov.
The main task entails the comparative study of the dynamics that gave rise to the iambic verse of the poet-reformers, primarily Lomonosov and Sumarokov, during different periods of their careers, based on the formal analysis of verse structures. A number of examples from the works of Trediakovsky are also included in the research. An important task of the project consists in studying verse structures that emerged in the eighteenth century, but achieved full development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (polymetric versification and free verse). Within the framework of this project, particular attention will be devoted to the Western European sources that influenced Russian letters, particularly conceptions that influenced the development of poetics and the literary language.
The main task includes a number of more specific objectives:
- identifying and confirming the sources of foreign influence, among them the influence of the German language and German versification on Lomonosov and other Russian poets;
- researching the impact of Classical and modern Western European traditions on the development of conceptions that became the basis for Russian poetics and culture;
- analysis of the reasons for the intensive evolution of Russian verse during the second half of the eighteenth century;
- studying the interconnection between rhythmic reforms in versification and linguistic developments;
- analysis of the semantic predispositions of various metrical and rhythmic structures.