The search for the Meanings of the Soul in philosophical Lyric Poetry

Abstract

The image of the soul, which has deep roots in the mythology and culture of many peoples, has attracted our attention. The soul is an important object of philosophical inquiry. Poetry, as a special form of philosophising, is engaged in the search for its meanings embodied in images. Images of the soul are closely associated with images of the heart; therefore, these images are examined together in this article. They are widely represented in the Russian poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries. The soul and the heart are conceptualised through figurative classes such as human beings, fire, birds, music, dwellings, houses, plants, celestial bodies, atmospheric phenomena, animals, insects, fish and others, which were formed over a long period of time and display a number of distinctive features in different individual poetic idiostyles. The most prominent category is that of human figures, whose range expands in the 20th century. The semantic groups of personifications of the soul and the heart are analysed. The soul is usually portrayed in a feminine image, while the heart is portrayed in a masculine one: the heart is a boy, the soul is a girl (A. Blok); “The soul is a woman – she likes trinkets” (O. Mandelstam). In some cases, there is a mismatch between the grammatical gender of the personifying figure and that of the per sonified entity: the soul – a slave (I. Bunin, A. Tarkovsky). Figurative classes evolve over time. Images that were widespread in the 19th century are pre served and further developed in the 20th century (fire, water, birds). Some im ages traditional for the 19th century fade in the 20th century (the temple). In 20th-century poetry, there is a clearly expressed tendency to “lower” traditionally elevated images. This tendency is realised through likening the soul to everyday objects: the soul is a night-lamp (M. Tsvetaeva), the soul is a bathroom (A. Voznesensky). The same goal of lowering the lofty is served by the inclusion of stylistically reduced words and names of “unattractive” animals, for example: the soul is a nag (V. Vysotsky), the soul is a mouse (I. Brodsky), as well as words with diminutive suffixes that undermine the mythological associations of the derived word, such as “the little river of the soul” (I. Brodsky).