Metabole in Olga G. Komarova’s poetics. Part 1

The literary map of contemporary Russian poetry is distinctively and unquestionably centered around Moscow and St. Petersburg. The authors born and living outside the ‘literary centers’ most commonly remain little-known and/or undiscovered. However, the poetics of the Russian literary periphery is frequently notable for its originality, integrity, and philosophical nature. Additionally, Russian peripheral poetry bears significance for local cultural studies as it reflects the history and social issues of a particular region. This article provides a brief overview of the current studies on the contemporary Russian peripheral poetry - a phenomenon that the authors designate as Russian regional postmodernism. The authors review a number of prominent figures in Russian regional postmodernism - namely, Oleg Dozmorov, Boris Ryzhy, Ruslan Sidorov, Roman Tyagunov, etc. - in terms of both similarities and differences between their poetics and the poetics and philosophy of postmodernism, as well as the organization of lyrical topos. The poetics of these representatives are characterized by the irony, high quotability, a blend of the high and low, and the desire to fit their lyrical subject into the hypertext of the global literary tradition - features that are quintessential to postmodernism. At the same time, the poetics of some are marked by tragedy and a serious tone, which aligns poorly with the postmodernist canon. The organization of lyrical topos in the poetry of regional postmodernists is defined by contradictory relations between the center and the periphery. Thus, the periphery can be perceived as a source of spiritual enrichment for the center, as exemplified by Boris Ryzhy, who sought to integrate the features of his surrounding reality into the Russian poetic tradition. The periphery may appear to the lyrical subject as a source of existential longing, evoking thoughts of abandoning it in favor of the center (Ruslan Sidorov, Mikhail Chatkin). The lyrical subject of a regional postmodernist can rise above the "center - periphery" opposition, interpreting it in philosophical and logical categories (Roman Tyagunov). Finally, the periphery can exist independently of its relationship with the center, as a valuable phenomenon in its own right, requiring everyone associated with it to cast aside shame and take pride in being its part (Gennady Aygi, Iosif Trer). The central focus of this study is the lyrical poetry of Olga G. Komarova, a poetess who currently lives and works in Tomsk, West Siberia. The authors model the lyrical topos of Komarova’s poetry collection "Love Song of the She-Wolf" (2007). Komarova’s poetics and individual style appear to be rich with metabole - an intricate verbal-poetic complex. According to Mikhail Epstein, metabole is designed to broaden the functions of metaphor through the explication of so-called "intermediate concept", or the metaphorical ground. The theoretical background of the research is the concept of metabole as a fundamentally new trope, first introduced by M.N. Epstein in the conceptual manifesto "What is Metarealism? " The methodology of this study is based on the integrated approach to metabole formulated by Alexey Masalov. The latter is the author of the first fundamental work devoted to Russian poetic metabole. The purpose of the integrated approach is to combine literary and linguistic methods, therefore, the authors applied the techniques of biographical method and mythopoetic modeling combined with linguopoetic, stylistic, and corpus analyses. This approach allowed for designing a model of the lyrical topos in Olga Komarova’s poetry where the features of the real world transgress into the realm of the fantastic by means of metabole. The literary periphery - the city of Tomsk in Komarova’s case - becomes the center of her lyrical topos, while the "real" center of the Russian literary map is represented by randomly scattered points. Thus, Komarova voluntarilty decentralizes the Russian literary map. As for the metabolic imagery of Komarova’s lyrical topos, it can be represented via two models: 1) real ↔ metabole = transgression ↔ fictional/mystical; 2) periphery ↔ metabole = transgression ↔ center. Units of metabolic imagery can be expressed through various syntactic relationships, but they can also be syncretic. Only a careful deconstruction of the symbolic and semantic weight of the poetic fabric allows for the identification of a metabole. The study of metabolic imagery is a promising area for further philological research. Metabole can be studied both in terms of its formal organization and typology, as well as its aesthetic function in the works of contemporary poets belonging to various literary movements. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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