Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1968 A Descriptive Analysis of the Phonology of Selected Poems by Andrei Voznesensky. Mary Frances Hopkins Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Hopkins, Mary Frances, "A Descriptive Analysis of the Phonology of Selected Poems by Andrei Voznesensky." (1968). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1492. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1492 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been 69-4475 microfilmed exactly as received HOPKINS, Mary Frances, 1932- A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PHONOLOGY OF SELECTED POEMS BY ANDREI VOZNESENSKY. Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1968 Speech Please note: Name in vita is Mary Frances McKoy HopKins. University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan (c) Mary Frances HopKins 1969 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PHONOLOGY OF SELECTED POEMS BY ANDREI VOZNESENSKY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech by Mary Frances HopKins B.S., Louisiana State University, 1952 M .A ., Louisiana State U niversity, 1959 August, 1968 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The writer wishes to thank Tamara Kaszkurewicz for her invaluable help and supervision in translating the Russian poems. For their encouragement and helpful criticism the writer wishes to thank the members of her committee: Dr. Waldo Braden, Dr. Fabian Gudas, Dr. Claude Shaver, and Dr. John Wildman. For constant help and supervision during the writer’s professional edu­ cation and especially for perceptive guidance and encouragement with the present study, the writer wishes to thank Dr. Francine M e rritt. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENT................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1 Review of the L ite ra tu re .................................................... 3 Establishment of the Phonology of the Poems . 7 Sources of Phonological Data .......................................... 12 Sources of the Printed P o e m s ..................................... 13 Method for Interpreting the D a ta ............................... 19 Organization of the S tu d y .............................................. 20 II. SIGNIFICANT GRAMMATICAL AND PHONO­ LOGICAL FEATURES OF RUSSIAN...................... 22 Transliteration ......................................................................... 22 Grammar and Syntax .......................................................... 25 P h o n o lo g y ................................................................................... 30 Versification .................................... 46 Sum m ary ............................................................... 51 III. ANALYSES OF THE POEMS ................................................. 53 "Autumn in Sigulda" .......................................................... 55 iii CHAPTER PAGE "Parabolic B allad" .................................................................. 112 " G o y a " ............................................................................................ 151 "You Sit Pregnant and P ale" .............................................. 170 , "Motor Races on a Vertical W a ll" .............................. 203 "Night Airport in New York" .............................................. 231 '•'Antiworlds" . ........................................................................ 283 "Foggy S treet" ....................................................................... 333 S u m m a r y ............................................................. 348 IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .......................................... 366 Russian Language and Versification. ......................... 368 Phonological Structure of Voznesensky's Poems 37 0 The English Translations .................................................... 372 Significance of the S tu d y .................................................... 372 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................. 374 APPENDICES A. THE RUSSIAN TEXTS ..................................... 385 B. LITERAL TRANSLATIONS PROVIDED BY THE RESEARCHER ............................................................................. 395 C. TRANSCRIPTIONS......................................................................... 406 D. AUDIO TAPES AVAILABLE FOR ANALYSES . 428 VITA ........................................................................................................................... 430 iv ABSTRACT A thorough understanding of the literary work of art is basic to oral interpretation both as a critical discipline and as a per­ forming art. For poetry in particular careful analysis of the oral structure is essential to understanding, but literary scholars have long puzzled over what constitutes oral structure. The problem be­ comes both more complicated and more pertinent with the increase of translated poetry. The poetry of Andrei Voznesensky, one of Russia's leading contemporary poets and a world literary figure, is of particular interest. He is recognized as an outstanding poet and fine craftsman, he reads his poems publicly all over the world, and his poems have been widely translated into English. The problem of selecting and judging translations confronts the literary scholar. How can the phonological structure of a poem be compared with that of its translation? A comparison of the sounds alone would be futile. Instead, the comparison must be be­ tween the function of the sounds of the original poem and those in the translation. Of particular interest to the present study was an ex­ periment in translation. Patricia Blake and Max Hayward, both scholars of Russian literature and culture, supervised a project shared by six English-speaking poets: W. H. Auden, Jean Garrigue, Stanley Kunitz, Stanley Moss, William Jay Smith, and Richard Wilbur. The poets, knowing little or no Russian, were given literal translations and prosodic models of Voznesensky's » w‘ poems and heard the poems read aloud in Russian. The poems resulting from this collaboration have achieved a degree of standardization because they have been read on the stage, on tele­ vision and on a commercial recording. For the present study eight poems were selected on the basis of variety and availability of oral readings by the poet and availability of English translations. Four poets of the experiment, Auden, Kunitz, Smith, and Wilbur, were represented by two poems each. Additional English translations provided thirty-five English p o em s. The procedure was first to establish the lexical and pho­ nological features of each Russian poem and the structure of the poem as a whole. A literal translation was made in order to study the lexical content. A transcription of phonetic and phonemic features of the poet's oral performance provided the basis for the phonological structure. Relationships between lexical and pho­ nological features were noted and the total structure of the poem was described. Both the phonetic and phonemic features of the English poems were compared with the Russian pqems. More important, subjected to analysis in the English poems was the relationship of the phonology to the lexical structure and to the total structure of the poems. Though none of the English poems showed the intricate phonological patterns of the Russian or the closeness of lexical and phonological features, on the basis of this analysis the translations of Auden, Kunitz, Smith, and Wilbur were judged to be closest to the Russian p o em s. The present study provides descriptions of Voznesensky's phonological technique and the relationship between the phonological structure of the poem and his oral performance. The study further indicates that it is possible to make a worthwhile comparison of the phonology of a translation and of the original poem. Moreover, it is possible to make judgments about translations of poetry, judgments based on describable charac­ teristics of the original poem and various translations. The study also provides additional support for the usefulness of phonetic and phonemic analysis as a tool of literary criticism for the interpreter. A transcription of the significant phonological features of the poet's reading is a basis for the analysis of the phonological structure, an integral part of the literary artifact. viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Critics have long speculated and argued about what constitutes literature in general and poetry in particular. Although such discus­ sions have as yet not evolved a consensus of any kind, they have helped to define the problem if not the poem, and critics and readers alike have continued to study what they can neither define nor unerringly