The history of verse studies and formalism
... fundamental idea of formalism, explaining poetic facts in terms of poetics itself, rather than through economic, sociological, or psychological means. This is precisely the approach taken by Mikhail Gasparov in his article on the history of Russian rhyme, where, without resorting to reductionism, he constructs his concept of cultural history as a sequence of crises and their resolutions. Maxim Shapir, in his well-known work on the evolution of the Russian iambic tetrameter, specifically highlights ...
On the question of the syllabic system of versification: the poetic practice of Theophan Prokopovich
... 8-syllable verses, as well as non-isosyllabic cants and arrangements of psalms, demonstrate a high (reaching the level of ideal trochaic, iambic, anapestic and dactylic lines) degree of rhythmic orderliness, supported by anaphoric repetitions, internal rhymes, rare inter-verse hyphenations, which together bring the rhythm and intonation of Theophan's elegies, cants and songs closer to the melodious syllabo-tonic verse, while the thirteen-syllable verses and some humorous heterosyllabic verses are saturated ...
