Poetic phonetics of Venera Petrova – Venus: the case of the poetry collections “Liberation” and “Timid Breath”

Abstract

The article is devoted to revealing phonetic features of the verse of a Yakut poetess Venera Nikolaevna Petrova – Venus. The aim of the research work is to prove that alliteration and rhyme represented in her two main books are original and contribute to a deeper disclosure of the lyrical main character’s inner world, help to reveal the author’s main idea. To achieve this aim, we use methodology of linguopoetics: the complex approach to the studying of poetic material and descriptive, structural methods of research. Unfortunately, the works of the talented modern poetess Venera Petrova have not fully been studied. Her poetry collections and book of stories have not yet received specialists’ due attention. Her works have been considered by literary critics in the context of the development of the modern literary process. Meanwhile,  Venera Petrova – Venus is the owner of several prizes at regional literary contests. Her poetic phonetics is a demonstration of the achievements of modern Yakut poetry in the fild of sound organization of the verse, while the content of the poems represents an extension of the thematic range of women’s poetry in general. In this article we consider poetic phonetics as a part of linguopoetics, which develops as a science at the intersection of literary criticism and linguistics. We studied 3,092 poetic lines of the poetess and revealed the following: 2,145 lines are alliterated, making 69 % of the total percentage of all lines, and 2,046 lines are rhymed, making 66%. We found 8 types of initial rhyme with variations and 15 types of rhyme (according to the classifiation of N.N. Toburokov and M.N. Dyachkovskaya), which indicate the high skills of Venera Petrova – Venus. In the development of all Yakut poetry, we can observe a variety of alliterations and rhymes only among such famous poets as Ivan Arbita and Rafael Bagataisky. In the course of our research, we came to the conclusion that the poetic phonetics of Petrova-Venus is not only a demonstration of her abilities in the fild of the sound organization of the verse, but also the ability to convey the inner experiences of the lyrical main character.