2024 Issue №1

Not only in contemporary philological science but also among those in broader society in­terested in poetic creativity, commentary is one of the most sought-after genres of philological discourse that elucidates poetic works. This is linked to the distinctive position of the commen­tator in relation to the poem, characterized by flexibility, reliance on facts, and various inter­pretational possibilities. While numerous scholarly materials have been written in the genre of literary commentary, there appears to be a limited reflection on the parameters such commen­tary should possess, the goals it should set, and the factors it should consider. This article fills this theoretical gap, demonstrating that commentary on poetry should primarily be oriented towards the genre-specific nature of this type of artistic work. The main focus is on under­standing the two-stage character of commentary. The first stage relies on precise textological information, while the second takes on an explanatory-interpretative character. A balance is determined between interpretation and commentary, the pursuit of objectifying meaning, and the subjectively personal experiential aspect, which is realized in the aesthetic experience, in the encounter between the author and the reader in the work.

The material of the late poems by G. Shpalikov, one of the prominent representatives of poetry during the Khrushchev Thaw era, is singled out and examined in terms of the sphere of key images and motifs in the poet’s artistic world, which are encoded by the ontological-tragic situation of the lyrical subject in the enclosed chronotope of society. The central motifs of Shpalikov’s work during this period have been identified: motifs of loneliness, rootlessness, abandonment, vulnerability, farewell, hopelessness, and suicide. The semantic structure of the artistic world of the late (and not only late) poems is marked by a ternary model of “nature — human — civilization/society.” The movement of the “plot” in most late poems is determined by the internal catastrophic change in the psychological state of the lyrical subject, seeking voluntary departure from life, which is reflected in the expressive, emotionally evaluative, and reduced lexicon, the tightness of poetic lines, and tense syntax.