Научная статья на тему 'Lexico-semantic variation in the pictures of earthly Aphrodite in the poetic works of Vladimir Solovyov'

Lexico-semantic variation in the pictures of earthly Aphrodite in the poetic works of Vladimir Solovyov Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
аnalysis / text / poetic picture / semantics / dominant lexemes / authorial style / eternal femininity / Universal Unity (Всеединство) / human

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Simona Korycankova

The paper presents a stylistic analysis of the representation of the earthly Aphrodite in the poetic works by Vladimir Solovyov. The main focus is on the specific features of linguistic expression of the semantics of poetic picture, associated with the philosophical perception of the role of feminine inception in the process of spiritual development of the world and human. The research deals with lexico-semantic devices which form the pictures of the earthly Aphrodite with respect to the author ́s world view, his creative methods, and the philosophical and religious sources which influenced the poetic picture of the world as he saw it. The function of key lexemes which form the principal esthetic dominants of the poetic picture is examined from the point of view of determining the combination of the key lexis with textual associations, lexical environment and semantic relations to other lexemes within the framework of one semantic whole. The practical material used in the research are selected poems by Vladimir Solovyov whose theme is representation of eternal femininity as the ideal divine inception in earthly conditions. The place and the role of an enlightened man in the creative process is another important element of the semantic structure of figurative representations of integration of heavenly worlds, the Higher and the physical, Lower. The scholarly contribution of the presented analysis rests in the insufficiently researched linguistic aspect of the analysis of Solovyov ́s poems. This paper extends research by the current author, dealing with the comprehensive linguistic analysis of representation of beauty in the poetic work of Vladimir Solovyov.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Lexico-semantic variation in the pictures of earthly Aphrodite in the poetic works of Vladimir Solovyov»

DOI: 10.24411/2470-1262-2019-10029

УДК (UDC) 81’42 Simona Korycankova, Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Brno, Czech Republic

For citation: Simona Korycankova, (2019). Lexico-semantic Variation in the Pictures of Earthly Aphrodite in the Poetic Works of Vladimir Solovyov. Cross-Cultural Studies: Education and Science. Vol.4, Issue 1 (2019), pp. 15-24 (in USA)

Manuscript received: 03/15/2019 Accepted for publication: 03/17/2019 The authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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LEXICO-SEMANTIC VARIATION IN THE PICTURES OF EARTHLY APHRODITE IN THE POETIC WORKS OF VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV

ЛЕКСИКО-СЕМАНТИЧЕСКАЯ ВАРИАЦИЯ В КАРТИНАХ ЗЕМНОЙ АФРОДИТЫ В ПОЭТИЧЕСКИХ ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯХ ВЛАДИМИРА

СОЛОВЬЕВА

Abstract

The paper presents a stylistic analysis of the representation of the earthly Aphrodite in the poetic works by Vladimir Solovyov. The main focus is on the specific features of linguistic expression of the semantics of poetic picture, associated with the philosophical perception of the role of feminine inception in the process of spiritual development of the world and human. The research deals with lexico-semantic devices which form the pictures of the earthly Aphrodite with respect to the author's world view, his creative methods, and the philosophical and religious sources which influenced the poetic picture of the world as he saw it. The function of key lexemes which form the principal esthetic dominants of the poetic picture is examined from the point of view of determining the combination of the key lexis with textual associations, lexical environment and semantic relations to other lexemes within the framework of one semantic whole.

The practical material used in the research are selected poems by Vladimir Solovyov whose theme is representation of eternal femininity as the ideal divine inception in earthly conditions. The place and the role of an enlightened man in the creative process is another important element

of the semantic structure of figurative representations of integration of heavenly worlds, the Higher and the physical, Lower.

The scholarly contribution of the presented analysis rests in the insufficiently researched linguistic aspect of the analysis of Solovyov's poems. This paper extends research by the current author, dealing with the comprehensive linguistic analysis of representation of beauty in the poetic work of Vladimir Solovyov.

Keywords: analysis, text, poetic picture, semantics, dominant lexemes, authorial style, eternal femininity, Universal Unity (Всеединство), human

Introduction

The research is devoted to examination of individual authorial specifics of the poetic texts by Vladimir Solovyov. The analysis focuses on the employed lexico-semantic devices serving to create pictures related to the image of the earthly Aphrodite, reflected in the distinctive stylistic properties of the author's artistic world.

The importance of this analysis stems from the necessity to study the poetic discourse of V. Solovyov from a new communicative and cognitive perspective. Regardless of the large number of works devoted to research of philosophical texts, scholarly research dealing with linguistic analysis of poetic works by Solovyov is not numerous. Z. G. Mints and M. Yu. Lotman [5] carried out a detailed examination of the theoretical and practical aspects of the aesthetics of Solovyov's poetic work, distinguishing thematic and lexical correspondences in selected poems. D. Ksicova [4] puts emphasis on the thematic analysis of the poet's work, identifying concrete examples of figurative and lexical characteristics in relation to other poetic works of the period of symbolism. The study of lexico-semantic, ethical and esthetic concepts in a literary text, as well as the new lexico-systematic approach to Solovyov's poetry are presented in dissertations by I. B. Zolotareva [13], who analyses the expressive means of the determining concepts of Solovyov's poetry, and А. R. Zabolotskaya [12], concentrating on the artistic expression of the idea of the beautiful and on the perception of images of Sophia, as the fundamental esthetic concept of the poet's artistic world. The relevant contemporary works also include the compilation of a frequency dictionary by O. N. Zotova [14], proving also relevance of the given topic for increasing the interest in the poetic work of V. Solovyov and its analysis using contemporary computer technologies.

Theory

In the present-day linguistic practice of research into literary texts the attention is focused on synthesis of the signifiant components at various levels of a text with the whole represented by the complex analysis at the structural, cognitive, semantic and pragmatic levels, as well as with respect to the onomatological, communicative, gnoseological, esthetic and ethical functions. Within the framework of analysis of literary text it is very important to adopt a deterministic approach to the selection of specific lexical units which have a decisive importance in the organisation of the linguistic structure of the work. Identification of the core lexical units allows to determine in the poetic text the dominant linguistic means and semantic fields which then form the complex lexical

and semantic system of thematic organisation of a literary text and its esthetic perception. Understanding the core lexemes of a text appears to be the principal approach to a philological analysis of a literary text. Psycholinguistic perception of the given topic is conditioned, for example, by an analysis of a literary text, which was realised already by the renowned psychologist L. S. Vygotsky. He observes that a poem, composed of various elements and organised in different degrees of hierarchy, always contains a dominant semantic component which carries the semantic core of the whole text [11, p. 206]. Any poetic text possessing a systemic-structural organisation is analysed on the basis of examining its semantic development [see e.g. 6], which then presupposes a communicative-stylistic approach, related to the associative structure of the text. The process of perception and interpretation of a text connected with its associative structure supposes dominance of idiostylistic characteristics which exercise a determining influence on the manner of associative development of the text and placement of an associative dominant unit in the lexical microstructure of a literary work [1]. In this way the associative dominant unit in the semantic structure of a complete text represents the central unit, allowing to focus attention on the concrete lexical features of the text [2, p. 186]. The dominant units of lexical expression include key words, word combinations (collocations) and the connotative and cognitive system.

The chosen research approach is built on the lexico-semantic analysis of dominant units, identifiable within the framework of an artistic picture, formed on the basis of thematic and structural orientation of the authors poetic mind. In our approach, the expression poetic picture is understood as such an extract from the text (a word, a collocation, a sentence, a strophe etc.), in which incompatible and even contradictory senses grow closer, whereas they normally do not get in contact in the ordinary everyday language use. This is how the poetic picture exists in the language system realised by the poet, in connection with the gradually evolving other pictures of the outer or inner reality. In this way, the idiosyncretic authorial semantic interpretation is realised for these pictures, representing a particular model of viewing and representation of experienced reality, i.e. the spiritual and philosophical unity of the poet's world.

Lexico-semantic analysis. Variety of pictures

According to Solovyov, a human is a creature produced by a natural process, endowed by a certain intellect which, regardless of the human living in the physical world (the Lower one), can lead him to the understanding of the higher world (the Higher one). A human as the only creature can sense the ideal, divine love and observe the beauty of creation. The ideal created form seems to be a female being, such «where the greatest power and fullness of inner life states unites with the most perfect visible form in a beautiful woman's body, in this higher synthesis of animal and vegetable beauty» / «где наибольшая сила и полнота внутренних жизненных состояний соединяется с наисовершеннейшею видимою формой в прекрасном женском теле, этом высшем синтезе животной и растительной красоты» [10, p. 231]. In this way, a woman is not only the ultimately perfect result of natural evolution, but also an ideal embodiment of the spiritual inception in a human. In herself, she represents a specific earthly expression of divinity, an eternal feminine inception, which descends to earth and is expressed in ideal beauty. An embodied creature then, in the opinion of the philosopher and poet, is the earthly Aphrodite, whose

realisation is tied with the perception of an esthetic inception as the basic condition for representation of a spiritual picture of a female in earthly conditions. The poetic pictures of her descent are accompanied by an emission of light and glare, specific colour emotionally-evaluative characteristics. As a physical part of earthly nature, the earthly Aphrodite represents a materially passive side of creation, related to the vegetable part of nature, in contrast to the masculine, active and animal part. Such Solovyov's philosophical idea corresponds also to the poetic representation of the essence of life and joy for the purposes of foregrounding the natural, vegetable, organic, as well as inorganic substance in connection with the phenomena of the earthly world, belonging to the personified feminine inception: «Все, чем красна Афродита мирская,/Радость домов, и лесов, иморей/Всё совместит красота неземная/ Чище, сильней, и живей, и полней.»1 2). (All that makes the earthly Aphrodite beautiful / Joy of homes, forests and sees / That all will be encompassed by unearthly beauty / More clearly, more strongly, more vividly, more fully.)

The idea of an esthetic inception of the earthly nature and its enlightenment takes the animated and spiritualised nature to higher worlds, and as an integral part of the divine idea it becomes the goal of integration of everything in the Universal Unity (Всеединствo). Solovyov assumes that the esthetic spiritual basis of unity is unveiled in several kinds of heavenly beauty, and the feminine inception is closely bound with the second of them, lunar one2: «Мировое всеединство со стороны воспринимающей его материальной природы, свет отраженный пассивная женственная красота лунной ночи. Как естественный переход от солнечного вида к лунному красота вечернего неба и заходящего солнца, когда уменьшение прямой центральной силы света вознаграждается большим разнообразием его оттенков в озаренной среде» (The earthly universal unity from the part of the accepting physical nature, the light reflected is the passive feminine beauty of a moonlit night. What a natural transition from the sunny mode to the moonlit one is the beauty of an evening sky and the setting sun, when the weakening of the direct central power of light is being replaced by a great variety of its shades in an illuminated environment) [10, p. 219]. As an example of such a philosophical thought can serve the poem «Был труден долгий путь» 3 4 (The journey was long and hard) («Поляна чистая луною серебрится,../И феи бледные задумчиво скользят»)[9]4 (A pure meadow basks in the monlight /And pale fairies slide melancholically) in which the image of a passive feminine element (феи) is connected with the epithet бледные and accompanied contextually by the lexeme задумчиво. The associative connection between the quoted lexemes corresponds with the concept of semi-transparence, lightness, timelessness. Moonlight (серебрится) supplies a shade of immaculacy (чистая) and unclear mystery.

The poetic expression of the image of descent of divinity onto the Lower is one of Solovyov's authorial methods which grows out of a neatly elaborated structure of individual strata of expressing the divine idea on earth, i.e. reflection of the Higher on the Lower. As an epigraph to the poem «Знамение» (Sign), he uses a biblical quote from «Откровения Иоанна Богослова» (Revelation of Saint John): «И явилось на небе великое знамение: жена, облеченная в солнце;

1 «DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. Слово увещательное к морским чертям», 8 - 11 апреля 1898.

2 Первой является красота солнечного неба, третьей звездная небесная красота.

3 «Был труден долгий путь», январь 1892.

4 Все стихотворения цитируются по указанному источнику.

под ногами ее луна, на главе ее венец из двенадцати звезд» 5. (And a big sign appeared in the sky: a woman clad in the sun; below her feet there was the moon, on her head a wreath of twelve stars). As an extension of the biblical picture the poet draws a picture of the Virgin of Nazareth, descending onto the Lower with the goal of its improvement: И только знак один нетленного завета/Меж небом и землей по-прежнему стоял. /А с неба тот же свет и Деву Назарета, /И змия тщетный яд пред нею озарял. (And only one sign of everlasting fate / stood invariably between the heaven and earth. / And the same light from the heaven illuminated the Virgin of Nazareth, /And the poison spat by the viper in front of her.).

The image of heavenly lights, realised by means of the lexemes солнца (облеченная) (sun / clad) and луны (под ногани) (moon / under feet), is contextually connected with the words небо (с неба) (heaven / from the heaven), свет (тот же) (light / the same); and озарял (illuminated), having the spatial chacteristics described by the paraphrase меж небом и землей (between the heaven and earth), i.e. when the movement from the top down is associatively made precise with the help of the meaning of preposition c (c неба) (from / from the heaven).

The poem «Das Ewig-Weibliche. Слово увещевательное к морским чертям» is particularly valuable for the analysis of the images of beauty. As is well known, Solovyov wrote the most philosophical and personally relevant poems in an anecdotical form6, mitigating thus the deep personal philosophical background. The effect of a poetic text with a deep philosophical meaning is achieved here by virtue of incorporated authorial meaning of the employed images, foregrounded by means of semantic intensification of the employed mystical and philosophical key lexemes and by altering the generally accepted semantks of ordinary words. Using the ancient myth of Aphrodite, V. Solovyov developed his own concept of transforming the meaning of the image of the earthly Aphrodite as a metaphor of a beautiful body («Все, чем красна Афродита мирская») (All that makes the earthly Aphrodite beautiful) into the ultimate universal beauty, incorporating both material and supermaterial inceptions. Aphrodite was created for the ideal world, but its image is corrupted by ugliness («Адское семя растленья и смерти/ В образ прекрасный вы сеять могли») (Plants of hell s seed and death / You managed to sow to a beautiful picture), and it cannot defend its perfection and submits to the reign of chaos: («Та красота своей первою силой,/ Черти, недолго была нам страшна;/ Дикую злобу на миг укротила,/ Но покорить не умела она»). (The beauty is its own main power /Devils, you did not fear it long; /it tamed wild wrath for a while, /but it could not defeat it.)

Accentuated esthetic beginning of the poem is realised by means of the key lexeme красота (beauty) (3 occurrences), красна (beautiful) (1 occur.) and a derived adjective прекрасный (beautiful) (2 occur.). Following the esthetic-philosophical conceptions of the poet, we remember that natural elements are only partly defeated7, and not fully penetrated by the forces of light, and, although Aphrodite as such represents a realisation of the ideal model of beauty, she illuminates the physical world for a short time only: «Помните ль розы над пеною белой,/Пурпурный отблеск 5 6 7

5 Библия, Книги нового завета. Апокалипсис. Глава 12, 1.

6 Сравни, напр., «Три свидания», 26 - 29 сентября 1898.

7 «Природа с красоты своей/Покрова снять не позволяет,/И ты машинами не вынудишь у ней,/ Чего твой дух не угадает» , 1872.

в лазурных волнах/ Помните ль образ прекрасного тела,/ Ваше смятенье, и трепет, и страх?». (Do you remember the roses over the white foam, / A purple reflection on blue waves? /Do you remember the picture of a beautiful body, / Your confusion, and tremor, and fear?). The poetic picture of esthetic perfection is accompanied by a number of light and colour characteristics, underlining visual perception (белой, пурпурный, лазурных) (white, purple, azure), and associated words emphasising such perception (розы, пеною, отблеск, волнах, тела) (roses, foam, reflection, waves, body). Thus, the images of the Higher, giving birth to Aphrodite, brimming with light and colours with explicitly expressed beauty («образ прекрасного тела») (a picture of a beautiful body), are placed in a stark contrast to an emotionally loaded picture of the feelings of sea devils. The poet arranges a series of lexemes verbalising emotional states into a lexico-semantic chain of synonymic expressions смятение, трепет, страх, used with the conjunction и (and), and it highlights simultaneity of the experienced feelings. A chain of authorial synonyms is built, forming a text paradigm which is associatively bound with expression of the emotional atmosphere of the Lower, corresponding to Solovyov's artistic perception of the world's conditions.

The lexeme красота (beauty), used in the strophes «Та красота своей первою силой,/ Черти, не долго была вам страшна» (The beauty is the first power, /Devils, you did not far it long) and «В ту красоту, о коварные черти,/Путь себе тайный вы скоро нашли» (To that beauty, oh cunning devils, /you soon found your secret path) foregrounds perception of the sign of time in a covertly formal manner, using the pronouns та, ту (this) and specifying in such a way that namely that beauty is subjected to corruption.

The myth of created beauty was very crucial for Solovyov. As early as in one of his first philosophical works «Мифологический процесс в древнем язычестве»8 (Mythological process in the ancient paganism) [8] Solovyov remembers the important role of Aphrodite as one of the first personified goddesses of the ancient world. Developing his ideas of the divine feminine inception, in «Философски начала цельного знания» (Philosophical rudiments of holistic knowledge) he presents an idea of two embodiments of Aphrodite - the vulgar (common) and the heavenly, and adds that «вульгарная Афродита не может обладать венцом Афродиты небесной... так как низшие ступени не могут заменить собою высших... и внутренние формы проявления могут быть,.. лишь лучшим, то есть полным, всецелым осуществлением тех же высших начал, а никак не отрицательным действием начал низших» (the vulgar Aphrodite cannot possess the wreath of the heavenly Aphrodite.. .just as lower levels cannot replace higher ones... and inner forms of her expression can be. only a better, i.e. full, complete realisation of the same higher inceptions, and by no way a negative effect of lower inceptions) [7, p. 164]. In the analysed poem, the heavenly Aphrodite, who has a divine inception, is submitted to the reign of chaos and ugliness (дикая злоба) (wild wrath) and becomes a vulgar, earthly Aphrodite, and so loses the bond with the ideal inception and is thus unable to complete her mission. However, V. Solovyov introduces a new substance into the picture of salvation of beauty - an eternal feminine inception, a new goddess, who stand higher that the previous Aphrodite and recognises her mission of uniting the heaven and the earth («Небо слилося с пучиною вод») (The sky merged with the depth of waters). The gifts of unearthly beauty are enumerated by the poet in order to create an intensive associative picture of capabilities and spiritual power оf the new goddess. Use of adverbs in the comparative form intensifies the meaning

8 Год написания 1873. СОЛОВЬЕВ, В. С. Полное собрание сочинений, Т. 3, 2001, с. 105.

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of lexemes чище, сильней, живей, полней (more purely, more strongly, more vividly, more fully) and contributes to foregrounding the significance of the contrasting images of the earthly Aphrodite with the eternal femininity («Всё, чем красна Афродита мирская,/Радость домов, и лесов, и морей,- /Всё совместит красота неземная/ Чище, сильней, и живей, и полней...») (All that makes the earthly Aphrodite beautiful /Joy of homes, and forests, and sees / That all will be encompassed by unearthly beauty / More purely, more strongly, more vividly, more fully). The chain of antithetic images develops on the basis of a dualistic meaning of the role of feminine inception in the development of the world. At the moment that the first goddess, the earthly Aphrodite, emerges on earth in the form of a beautiful body, accompanied by light and colour characterisation («Пурпурный отблеск в лазурных волнах») (A purple reflection on azure waves), this descent of a new goddess is explicated by the poet as телом нетленным (immortal body) and в свете немеркнущем (in the light that does not go out), associated with immaculacy, unchangeability and perfection («Знайте же: вечная женственность ныне/В теле нетленном на землю идет./В свете немеркнущем новой богини/ Небо слилося с пучиною вод..») (Know ye: the eternal femininity now / Goes to the earth in an immortal body /A new goddess in the light that never goes out / The sky has merged with the depth of waters).

The lyrical hero in the analysed poem (я) (I) is convinced of an immaculate arrival of the new goddess and he persuades devils by kind words («Доброе слово для вас я припас») (I have saved a good word for you) about inevitability of realising the sense of the natural process. The expression доброе слово (good word) foregrounds Solovyov's idea of integration of Beauty, Good and Truth as equal structural components of a universal world idea, i.e. the picture of salvation by means of word acquires a new authorial ethical, esthetic, as well as cognitive significance («С женщиной спорить, не честь для мужей»/, «Милые черти, сдавайтесь скорей!») (Arguing with a woman is nothing to be proud of for men / Dear devils, give up sooner!). The authorial philosophical idea of the eternal feminine inception, expressing itself in every physical being, is lexically reflected in an evolving synonymic chain, while the shades of meaning of collocations vary due to the authorial specific understanding and putting the collocations in context of a particular part of the poem. In this way, a chain of lexico-semantic figures is formed: образ прекрасного тела - та красота - Афродита мирская - вечная женственность - тело нетленное - женщина (picture of a beautiful body -that beauty - earthly Aphrodite - eternal femininity - immortal body - woman/female), whose general sense is to specify the role and depth of spiritualisation of the depicted feminine element. The chain is finished by the lexeme женщина (female), which is utilised by Solovyov to express explicitly the antithesis женщина - мужчина (female - male). Use of such an opposition foregrounds the ugly inception of the Lower, expressed by means of a synonymic series морские черти - божья скотинка - мужчины (sea devils - God's dumb animals - males). The positive picture of a woman is associatively contrasted with the picture of men-devils which, although softened by a light mockery by means of the utilised evaluative lexemes (умные, милые, скотинкою, гордые) (clever, nice, dumb animals, proud), acquires a negative connotative and contextual sense.

In such a perception of Solovyov's philosophical thoughts it is possible to see an ideal inception in a feminine passive element which, however, has to go through the path of spiritualisation in the real world conditions. Approaching the masculine active element and even its evil side invariably ends in the victory of the powers of light, as much as the progress of nature («То, чего ждет и

томится природа») (That which the nature awaits and longs for) appears to be an undisputable cosmic rule («Вам не замедлить и не одолеть») (You are not to slow down and surpass). Based on the analysis of the text, we can confirm that, regardless of the humorous and ironic tone, it represents a strictly construed system of esthetic understanding of the feminine inception in the natural process of spiritualisation in the world.

The world view of Vladimir Solovyov is characterised by a significant fact, namely by the esthetically philosophical perception of the concept of the world and of the process of human refinement. Incorporation of such a philosophical idea into a poetic work can be examined also in the poem «Три подвига» (Three heroic deeds), in which the poet elaborates the motifs of Ancient Greek myths. Pygmalion, who turned a stone into a gorgeous statue of a woman, fell in love with his creation and asked the Heavenly Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to breathe life into the statue; and Aphrodite, moved by the unearthly love of the artist, breathed life into his work. Expression of ideal beauty and love in an ideal form is only possible under the auspices of an irreplaceable divine feminine inception (referring implicitly to the Heavenly Aphrodite). The masculine element, expressed explicitly in the picture of a sculptor sculpting a statue from a stone, becomes an ideal example for representation of an esthetic inception in his work, i.e. in inorganic nature. Using figurative, metaphorical connotation with an intensified significance of light and emission by means of the epithet ясный (bright/shining) and a contextually bound lexeme пламень (flame) (мощный) (mighty), the sculptor incorporates light as the fundamental spiritual substance into his creative method: «Когда резцу послушный камень/ Предстанет в ясной красоте/ И вдохновенья мощный пламень/ Даст жизнь и плоть своей мечте,..» (If the stone obeys the sculptor / It emerges in a shining beauty / And the mighty flame of inspiration/ Gives life and body to his idea.). The philosopher indicates a hidden parallel to the Heavenly Aphrodite, who breathed life in Pygmalion's statue. However, as a carrier of divine love in the esthetic and philosophical perception by V. Solovyov, she does not appear to be the goal of completion of refinement of the nature's process. Its goal is rather a spiritualised man, standing at par with God. Solovyov's anthropocentric philosophy found its reflection in the picture of an irreplaceable role of human in divine creation, illumination of the material world and its refinement.

Poetic pictures of women's beauty, described by the poet with the help of metaphorical and periphrastic expressions, represent the most evident presentation of the philosophical idea of Universal Unity (Всеединствo). Based on the lexical environment of the picture expressed by means of lexemes and figures employed with author-specific meanings, we can claim that the idea of eternal femininity, whether expressed implicitly or explicitly, acquires in the given context the meaning of a higher esthetic attribute of the Higher, whose aim is to descend onto earth. In such a sense the poetic pictures of women's beauty represent a pair of semantic opposites to the description of the Lower. Nevertheless, Solovyov does not aim at duality, but at a Universal Unity (Всеединство), a poetic image of which can be seen in the poem «Три свидания» («Three encounters»). The Higher and the Lower form a dichotomic unity, in which the nature of earth and man merged ideally in a feminine all-embracing look: «Все обнял тут один недвижный взор.../ Синеют подо мной моря и реки,/И дальний лес, и выси снежных гор./Все видел я, и все одно лишь было -/ Один лишь образ женской красоты./ Безмерное в его размер входило,/Передо

мной, во мне - одна лишь ты»9. (All was embraced by one focused look... / The sees and rivers below me are blue / as well as the distant forest and the peaks of snowy mountains. /I have seen everything and it was all in unity - / It was all merged in the picture of women's beauty. / Infinity became its part / Before me, in me - there is only you).

Conclusions

Esthetic modality reflected in the pictures of feminine inception represents one of the most important ideological assumptions in the portrayal of a spiritual inception in Vladimir Solovyov's artistic world. To conclude, it can be said that verbalisation of the pictures of descent of feminine inception is realised in various semantic ways, reflecting the individual authorial mystical and philosophical, cosmological view. The method of antithesis and utilisation of antonymic pictures serves the purpose of foregrounding the esthetic inception in a direct relation to the ideal characterisation of the real world. In this way the reflection of the nature's beauty of the visible organic world is made explicit, for example, by means of lexical units with explicit nature-related denotations (roses, waves, forest, mountains, rivers) as a general semantic whole with the reflection of beauty. Embodiment of divinity in the picture of a new goddess, the Eternal Femininity, the Heavenly Aphrodite, corresponds to the understanding of beauty as a basic condition for drawing the picture of the earthly Aphrodite - a woman in the earthly conditions. Pictures of her descent are accompanied by emission of light and glare, specific colour characteristics, and perception of a human-creator animating the visible nature corresponds to the philosophical idea of anthropocentric understanding of the process of ascension of the Lower into the Higher. The idea of esthetic inception of the earthly nature and its enlightenment by means of human activity take the animated and spiritualised nature to a higher world, and the nature as an integral part of the divine idea becomes the goal of integrating everything in Universal Unity (Всеединства).

The authorial meaning of ordinary words, a strictly construed linguistic system for verbalisation of images and for employment of lexemes, a particular author-specific meaning of epithets, as well as the formal semantic features of a poetic text are naturely incorporated in the poet's and philosopher's systematic conception of the world.

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Information about the author:

Simona Korycankova (Brno, Czech Republic) — Assoc. Prof. PhDr. Mgr., Ph.D. Head of the Department of Russian Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, address: Porici 9, Brno 603 00, Czech Republic, e-mail: [email protected]

Research on Russian lexicology, lexical semantic analysis of particular philosophical works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Russia. Research on Russian Symbolism, especially manifestos of Russian symbolism and its cultural base.

Research on Russian philosophy, particularly the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Specializing in the personality and work of Russian philosopher and poet V.S. Solovyov. Author of over 170 scholarly publications.

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