GENRE PECULIARITIES OF THE «POEM OF A THOUGHT» BY A. P. PLATONOV

Abstract

The article is devoted to genre features of the «Poem of a Thought» (1920–21) by A. P. Platonov. The researchers seldom examine this work, but it is a good example of the principle of a polygenre characteristic of early Platonov’s works. In the analysis, we take into consideration the author's name of this work (poem) which serves as a key to its comprehension in paradigmatics of a high genre. We examine the content and formal characteristics of the text. On the one hand, these characteristics (brevity, structural and rhythmic orderliness, the use of a large number of methods of poetic diction) point out to proximity of this work to «poem in prose». On the other hand, specifics of subject organization of the «Poem of a Thought» and manipulation techniques (rhetorical questions, form of address and others) allow to speak about the signs of the publicistic style which is used by the narrator to convince the reader of correctness of his ideas. Eventually the use of large number of verbs of obligation and prohibitions in the last paragraphs of the text are considered as markers of manifesto. The author tries to increase communicative impact on the reader using mixture of the genres mentioned above. On the basis of genre analysis it is shown that the «Poem of a Thought» gradually changes from philosophical reflection about the Universe into the author’s manifesto giving an idea of what the world has to be like.

Keywords

• writing, literature genre, poem in prose, russian literature, russian writers