Opera slavica (Jul 2013)

Semantics of an individual word and global interpretation of the text

  • Zdeňka Trösterová

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 22, no. Supplementum

Abstract

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The paper investigates the texts of poetry as far as the relation between semantics of individual words and the sense of the whole text is concerned. There are some cases where the semantics of one key word affects the interpretation of the whole work – it is demonstrated by the author on the Pushkin's Eugene Onegin with reference to investigation of A. B. Penkovskij (different interpreting of the word "skuka" – either as "boredom", or "sorrow", "despondency"). In some other cases the reader is addressed by the text of poetry, and understands it in his own way even if he does not understand the semantics of many individual words (as proved on the Pasternak's poetry).

Keywords