Modernist poet as the singer of tales

The purpose of the article is to offer an explanation of the intertextual density characteristic of the poetry of Russian modernism. Intertextuality is viewed from two perspectives — the reader’s and the author’s. In terms of perceiving the text, intertextuality is not needed to “encode” the meaning of a work (according to Taranovsky’s and Ronen’s ideas, derived from the large intertextual theory) — it implements a memorial function (maintains the memory of significant canonical texts) and brings the reader special cognitive pleasure. The main focus of the article is on the author’s perspective. The citation thinking of modernist poets may be comprehended through the categories of folklore studies, first of all, within the framework of the model of epic storytelling. The use of this theory allows one to give a systematic explanation of the intertextuality of many poets (first of all, V. Khodasevich, but also other poets with neoclassical features or with an intense dialogue with literary tradition) and to see in the consciousness of the modernist writer features peculiar to the consciousness of the bearer of the folklore tradition. Particular attention is paid to the topics, the lexical cliches and to work with tradition in modernist lyrics, as well as to the mechanisms of text generation.

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