Metrical complexity in Russian iambic verse: A study of form and meaning (2002)

Readers of poetry make aesthetic judgements about verse. It is quite common to hear intuitive statements about poets' rhythms, such as 'this poet sounds complex'. Yet, it is far from clear what these statements really mean. In the traditional theory of Generative Metrics (Halle and Keyser 1971, Kiparsky 1975, 1977, Hayes 1989) the complexity of poetic meter was understood as a deviation from the monotonous metrical template. This dissertation proposes a new way of measuring verse complexity. I argue that complexity is the ability of a poet to control a number of independent linguistic and non-linguistic domains at once. The dissertation includes three case studies. In chapter 2 I show that 18th and 19th century Russian iambic tetrameter is a case where poets deviate from meter, and at the same time, control the overall statistical distribution pattern and certain proportions of the deviating lines. In chapter 3, I show that certain deviating patterns in Brodsky's iambic verse written in Russian consistently correlate with the theme of exile. Thus, Brodsky simultaneously controls rhythm, semantics and the general statistical distribution pattern. Chapter 4 shows that Brodsky creates a metrical elision rule, which involves a simultaneous manipulation of metrics, phonetics, and phonology. This dissertation contributes to the linguistic study of poetic meter by proposing a unified cognitive explanation of various aesthetic judgements about verse