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The poetic specificity of Gilda's "On the Death of Britain" and the "Hesperica Famina": a pragmatic aspect and a dominant analysis. On the 135th anniversary of the birth of B. I. Yarkho (1889-1942)

Kuprin Aleksandr Sergeevich

Lecturer, Department of Early Christian Literature, Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University for the Humanities

127051, Russia, Moscow, lane Likhov, 6, p. 1

al.kuprin@inbox.ru

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8698.2023.12.69344

EDN:

DUJQVB

Received:

16-12-2023


Published:

23-12-2023


Abstract: Τhis article deals with the work of the British writer Gildas the Wise "On the Ruin of Britain" and the poetic text "Hisperica Famina", written in the British archipelago (presumably in Ireland). Both works are written in Latin and represent milestones in the history of the Hiberno-British literature of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. There is no consensus about dating to a year or at least a decade for both texts. "On the Ruin of Britain" was written presumably in the late V — early VI centuries; the Hisperica Famina are usually attributed to the second half of the VII century. "On the Ruin of Britain" contains a brief historical sketch and an protracted invective against the kings and clergy of Britons. The Hisperica Famina represent the Latin versification practice of Hibernian scribes. The methodological ideas of Boris I. Yarkho (1889-1942), set out in his fundamental work "A Methodology of Precise Literary Studies", serve as a conceptual basis for this research. On its basis, the author of the article identifies complexes of stylistic features and their compositional distribution which reflects poetic dominants common to Gildas and the author of the Hisperica Famina (so called faminator). The tendency of syntactic interlocking in the Hisperica Famina regularly prevails over the same tendency in "On the Ruin of Britain", it indicates that a specific attitude to the syntactical style, usual for the faminator and his poetic circle, began to form back in the Gildas's era. The common features of both texts show the prevalence of certain poetic dominants and can serve as a serious argument in defense of the thesis of the continuity from Gildas or writers of his circle to the faminator. The stylometry method may be very useful for comparing texts even if they they differ in genre and era.


Keywords:

De excidio Britanniae, Hisperica Famina, Early Middle Ages, Gildas the Wise, stylistic features, text composition, Hiberno-Latin literature, Latin syntax, stylometry, citation devices

This article is automatically translated.

 

Introduction

The subject of consideration in this work is the message-sermon of the British writer Gilda the Wise "On the Death of Britain" (De excidio Britanniae, hereinafter DEB) and the poetic text "Hesperian Sayings" (Hisperica Famina, hereinafter HF), written in the British archipelago (presumably in Ireland). Both texts were written in Latin during the period of the change of cultural epochs in Europe (from late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages).

There is no consensus dating with an accuracy of at least a decade for both monuments. T. O'Sullivan, in a monograph devoted to the dating of DEB, pointed to "about 515-30, the lower limit of this period seems to be the most likely" [1, p. 178]; N. Nayem refers the writing of DEB to about 479-484 [2, p. 141]. The second half of the 7th century is usually taken as the period of HF writing (a brief overview of the dates: [3, p. 41]), not least due to the tendency of researchers to bring the specifics of the HF language closer to the stylistic features of the writings of the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm (ca. 640-709) ([4, pp. 96-97] [5, pp. 47-49], especially see a brief comment by P. Girbrandi in connection with Aldhelm's 5th letter [6, p. 62]; tj. [7, pp. 155-189]). This article examines the so-called HF A-text, the most integral and extensive monument of this corpus (in references: HF-A).

HF is traditionally included in the circle of works with which DEB is compared (both due to the relatively small volume of the corpus of Latin literature of ancient Britain, and due to the specifics of the language of both monuments), along with the "Church History of the People of the Angles" by St. Bede the Venerable, the pseudo-chronicle "History of the Britons" by a certain Nennius, "Annals of Cumbria" and works Galfrid of Monmouth. Especially noteworthy is the work of Fr. Carluagan, who used quantitative analysis in the study of the DEB language [8], separately highlighting the vocabulary of hisperique ‘Hesperian vocabulary’ [8, pp. 227-235]. At the same time, the comparison of DEB and HF should not lead to an overly bold convergence of both monuments; as M. Lapidge pointed out, "Gilda, due to the complexity of his Latin, was regularly attributed to a certain circle of early medieval authors [writing in] recognizably complex Latin <...>. Such a convergence obscured the objective connections of Gilda's text with late antique Latin authors" [9, p. 27] (my translation is A. K.). This article is devoted to some clarification of the area in which DEB and HF poetically converge.

The conceptual basis for this study is the methodological developments of B. I. Yarkho (1889-1942), set out in the Methodology of Exact Literary Criticism ([10]; hereinafter MTL). This widely branched conceptual system, developed by an encyclopediically educated author, can become an important methodological source for modern literary analysis of an ancient text.

The references for DEB use the division into chapters and paragraphs according to the edition by M. Winterbottom [11], for HF — into poems according to the edition by D. B. Shabelnikov and D. O. Torshilov [5]; the original text is also given according to these editions. The translation of Gilda's text is mine. In cases where a translation needs to be given for HF, a translation by D. B. Shabelnikov is provided. Following R. Ellis and D. B. Shabelnikov, I call the author (or authors) HF faminator (see [5, p. 37]).

The main part

Methodology of B. I. Yarkho. The main methodological achievement of B. I. Yarkho should be recognized as a well-developed nomenclature of concepts conceptualizing quantitative analysis, which stems from the epistemological orientation of the work (as indicated by the author's heading), focused not so much on the synthesis of achievements of a special discipline, as on the development of an apparatus with high heuristic power. In particular, a range of relevant problems is outlined for each stage of the study, and research objects for each of the literary disciplines are highlighted (e.g., [10, pp. 31-54, 77, 79-81, etc.]). The main material for the author is European drama and lyrics (Hrosvita, Racine, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Lermontov, etc.), including small poetic forms (epigrams, ditties). In the research process, B. I. Yarkho strictly separates the stages of analysis and the synthesis following it. One of the fundamental concepts of synthesis is the concept of a complex, which is "not an agglomerate, but an organic whole", "not a sum of features, but a system" [10, p. 109]. Although it is defined very generally ("every object of research is a complex, because in theory everything can be divided, everything consists of parts. In practice, such phenomena are always studied, the complexity of which is striking" [10, p. 109]), according to the composition of the reasoning, it is natural to conclude that we are talking about a complex of features, i.e. "arbitrarily abstracted properties of the complex" [10, p. 68] (however, with this definition we have a "circle in the definition" (idem per idem)). Thus, the concept of a feature in Yarkho almost coincides with that in formal logic. At the same time, the complexes themselves are not considered abstractly and systematically, but necessarily compositionally (the category of succession, see [10, pp. 94-95]; see also Yarkho's very balanced criticism of compositional illegibility [10, pp. 40-41]).

B. I. Yarkho identifies sound combinations (phonics), grammatical (=morphosyntactic?) as the object of literary disciplines forms (stylistics) and "semantic forms" (poetics) [10, p. 73]; literary "research, in order to be scientific, should deal only with the objective composition of the image, carefully clarified on the verbal material of the text" [10, p. 76]. Calling on literary criticism to approach biology in terms of the accuracy of the method [10, pp. 28-30, etc.], the author even likens the concept of a work to the biological concept of an individual, which allows him to raise the question of the degree of organicity of certain complexes and classify them on this basis, comparing them with polyps, coral colonies, the so-called rat king, etc. [10, pp. 111-117]. As can be seen, we are talking about considering the text not as a discrete structure, which in the course of analysis is directly decomposable into elements and connections between them (the metaphor of a brick wall), but as an organic whole, between the semantic depth and the formal structure of which complex relationships take place, described by analyzing the compositional distribution of dominant features, dominants [10, p. 120-127]. Thus, based on the views of B. I. Yarkho, the thesis about the unity of form and content, expressed by B. V. Tomashevsky [12, p. 7] between the writing of MTL and its publication, receives both deeper ideological foundation and direct practical significance.

It can be said that categorically the concept of B. I. Yarkho differs from traditional literary studies in approximately the same way as in Indo-European studies the theory of waves differs from the theory of branches (cf. with [10, p. 346], where the author refers to the physical theory of waves). For a moderate epistemological criticism of the theory of Jarho, see M. Shapir's article in the same edition [13]. Since B. I. Yarkho's position is characterized by biological positivism, which is especially noticeable in filling literary categories "with an eye" to biology (e.g. [10, pp. 111-113]), referring to the analytical apparatus proposed by scientists requires systematic processing, especially in the case of comparative analysis of multi-genre texts.  

Reception of B. I. Yarkho's methodology. In the light of the above, the value core of the theory of B. I. Jarho can be reduced to the following: a) consideration of all aspects of the structure of the work strictly in the light of composition (cf. with the theory of poetics of composition and the "point of view" of B. A. Uspensky [14]); b) the metaphor of a "living organism", which counteracts the non-reflexive mechanical fragmentation of the work during analysis; c) highly comparative (and in perspective – and typological) value due to the categorical conceptualization of statistical data.

First, it should be noted that although B. I. Yarkho in some chapters refers ad hoc to the material of novels, his concept is built in a poetic way, so that even very dissimilar genres (e.g. epigrams and tragedies) appear in it a priori commensurate in formal terms (at least metric). Secondly, in this study we compare texts of such dissimilar genres (moreover, genres that are apparently syncretic) that quantitative indicators become applicable only to a limited extent — due to the difference in the use of formal stylistic means in DEB and HF.

Hence, the position of Yarkho is accepted by us as a theory in which poetic structural subsystems are understood as compositionally given complexes of signs reflecting the internal unity of the whole (a metaphor of the organism). In this case, quantitative analysis acts as a conceptualized and, as a result, a user-friendly and easy-to-understand procedure. This is an understanding necessary at this stage of the study, because it is necessary first to define and describe the range of complexes constituting the product and only then to identify the units of these complexes available for calculation, which, moreover, may turn out to be of different order. At this stage of the analysis, there is reason to assume that the means of including inappropriate text in DEB (citation devices, Anf?hrungsmittel) have a number of isomorphic (with respect to the following dominants) features, so that their description and calculation are problematic. The latter will be feasible after constructing "trees" of super—phrasal rows for quotations in DEB - like what I showed in general in an article about the DEB style [15]. In the following analysis, extended quotations in DEB are described only on one side, quantitatively (as elements of a pile-up), but not on the structural side.

In the course of the study, it turned out to be necessary to pay special attention to the allocation of commensurate textual units subject to formal description, as well as to the theoretical synthesis of data obtained during quantitative formal analysis. The problem of proportionality could not be solved at the level of the whole text: the DEB is divided into disproportionate paragraphs — not at the discretion of the publisher, but due to the fact that the "paragraphs" themselves reveal a very unequal degree of parcellability (for example, chapter 66 is about 4.5 times larger than chapter 2 and more than 2 times larger than chapter 3, however, none of them can be separated as an analysis material). In view of this, the analysis was carried out on selected DEB segments, to which commensurate HF-A segments were selected. Moreover, the formal stylistic features highlighted below are observed throughout the author's text of both monuments (by non-author's text, I mean the Guild's copious quoting of the Bible), i.e. the Guild's style is substantially uniform, as is the style of the faminator.

The above does not eliminate the issue of the distribution of formal signs of any aesthetic trend. Therefore, although we will refrain from calculating proportions and coefficients, we will still give some quantitative data, focusing the analysis on the description of frequency features. The calculable quantity is the stylistic dominants [10, pp. 120-127], and the unit of calculus is the formal signs included in the definition of the dominant (since we are talking about complexes of stylistic means that are paramount for the formation of the structure and genre of the text, it is equally relevant to call the analyzed dominants both stylistic and poetic). This approach (it can be called stylometric) will allow us to talk about the degree of expression of the general poetic tendency (or, more simply, about the poetic community) of both monuments. We will not specifically ask about the lexical (through glossaries or not) legacy of DEB in HF.

The formulation of the dominants requiring calculus will be carried out in the course of a pragmatic analysis, since the poetic structure of the text is postulated by pragmatic relations. Thus, in the course of the research, the so-called hermeneutic circle will be completed: the stylistic dominants, isolated in a general way from the standpoint of pragmatics, will be calculated and described, which will give the basis for the synthesis of formal data in the problematic field of the aesthetic community of DEB and HF.

On the analysis of the pragmatics of the text. According to B. Uspensky, "the pragmatics of compositional construction considers the problems of composition of a work in connection with its reader, i.e. those to whom this text is addressed. Compositional construction can specifically provide for a certain behavior of the reader — in such a way that the latter is included in the calculations of the author of the work, as if specially programmed by him" [14, p. 164]. Thus, the clarification of the pragmatic specifics of the text is built around the well—known communicative framework "addressee - message — addressee". Of the entire range of problems in the pragmatics of these texts, we are interested in those that are able to explain the specific poetic structure studied in the framework of the analysis of dominants.

Addressee and addressee. The type of author's speech presented in DEB and HF can generally be characterized as speaking from a collective (or, in a psychological way, collectivist thinking): the main characters of the image from both the familiar and the Guild are groups of people (in HF — not only people), so any described The conflict is understood by the authors as a confrontation not of individuals or ideas, but primarily of groups and representatives of groups. It can be said that both Gilda and the faminator are not strangers to "party" thinking, however, if political and church parties are really involved in DEB as recipients of invective, then in HF we are talking about a literary "circle", which, however, like the party, is thought esoterically (typologically a natural phenomenon, cf. with poetic fraternities and partnerships in the biographies of Alcaeus, Horace, Alcuin, Dante, E. A. Boratynsky, N. S. Gumilev and many others).

The poetics of quantity. In DEB, these group oppositions are most vividly formulated in DEB 27 (invective to kings, reges, and judges, iudices) and DEB 66 (invective to clergy, sacerdotes, clerici). In addition, among the parties of interest to the Guild, a special group consists of the Old Testament prophets (sancti vates 37.3), who, like a political party, have their leader (auctor prophetarum Esaia 42.1). It is against the background of "party thinking", i.e. the author's habit of thinking of political and historical reality as an arena of a clash of collective forces, that it is noticeable how tragically the Guild experiences the loneliness of his manifestation: "in zeal for the house of the Lord, the sacred Law, whether prompted by [my own] arguments and considerations or the pious prayers of my brothers, I am now paying a loan, received a very long time ago" (DEB 1.16). It is in this respect that the image of the author merges with the image of the Old Testament prophet, set on a lonely and thankless ministry.

In HF, this poetization of quantity acquires a more total principle; it is not only "partisanship" (cuique adheretis rhetori 'what kind of rhetorician do you stick to' HF-A 21), but also the enumeration of the "twelve vices of the Ausonian sky" (and the numeral bis senos HF-A 116 stands in a strong position: not just at the beginning of the verse, but also at the beginning of the "catalog" itself, in principle, and if we take the point of view that the "twelve vices" are a separate text, at the beginning of the text), and the "catalog of animals" (HF–A 146-184), replete with plural subjects (collective nouns are also given as the subject, such as like curia ‘assembly, flock’ 146, coetus ‘host’ 154, 164), and a description of the sky (HF-A 358-380; in addition to the numeral quinos ‘five’ HF-A 366, we also note the abundance of plural nouns), etc. It is significant that one's own poetic creativity is also described by the faminator in terms of quantity (for example, loquelosas strues ‘piles of words’ HF-A 359), which is very pronounced in the description of the scribes themselves (HF-A 497-512): in it, 21 of the 25 nouns are used in the plural, and of the four remaining ones, one is collective (caterva ‘army’ 497), and to the second (ligo ‘coloring’ 499) the adjective multigenus ‘diverse’ is given, so that only 2 nouns (8% of all nouns in the fragment) do not convey the imagery of the quantity.

"Aesthetics of the vine". "The first [in Hesperian verse is usually A. K.] is an adjective and makes you wait for the noun to which it refers. This energy of waiting for the promised noun is the core of the Hesperian verse" [5, p. 89]. This very subtle observation by D. O. Torshilov reveals the actual poetic and stylistic specificity of HF, which is directly present in DEB, - holding the reader's attention due to the abundant use of intonation tension; the latter is achieved using inverted word order, since in writing this is almost the only way to distribute intonation tension. This stylistic device common to HF and DEB is directly regularly read in the text, so there is no need to prove its presence in both texts; quantitative analysis is intended only to formalize and clarify the specific structure of this style, with the help of which Gilda and faminator achieve the desired psycho-emotional effect.

This use of syntax represents a direct literary (formally speaking, linguistic) application of the aesthetic value of the authors, a kind of poetics of quantity, which from the point of view of psycholinguistics can be considered as a reflection of the above-mentioned "collectivist thinking".

Since such aesthetic (poetic) phenomena as the "energy of expectation" of a sentence member noted by D. O. Torshilov are easily amenable to metaphorical conceptualization, the style we describe can be called the aesthetics of the vine, since both Gilda and faminator seem to force the reader to glance along the line (vine) in order to find the "closing" word (a grape brush), and Gilda, unlike the author of HF, the length of the "vine" is unpredictable.

On the principles of dominant analysis. "The "rules" (more precisely, the principles) of the Hesperian verse do not require unconditional fulfillment — they are fulfilled in most cases, and not always in the overwhelming majority. The faminator is always free to choose between different types of verse or even create a new one ad hoc, more or less consistent with the general principles. But these principles themselves (not the rules) undoubtedly exist" [5, p. 86] (italics of the author). "Conscious disregard for details is the fundamental principle of "Speeches"" [5, p. 131]. It is this tendentious laxity that is one of the grounds for formal analysis: in the case of total compliance with the stylistic means allocated by us, there would be nothing to measure (as, for example, it is impossible to talk about a more or less original lexical content of one or another part of the HF A-text, since the originality of the dictionary is taken by the familiar as a total principle). Since this analysis is of a comparative nature, we are only interested in the stylistic dominants common to both texts.

Of the two style dominants presented below, common to HF and DEB, the closure dominant is most fully subjected to quantitative analysis. For the dominant of the pile, a brief description is given and an attempt is made to problematize its formal description in future works.

The dominant of the closure. I call closure cases of "tension" of a syntactic connection, when other members of a sentence or subordinate clauses are placed between two carriers of a syntactic connection, as well as when two carriers of a syntactic connection (i.e., two pairs of phrases) are used in a certain order (see below). This syntactic technique is used extensively by both authors. It is against the background of the regularity of the specific word order that such techniques as the anaphoric inversion of the predicate "habet Britannia rectores, habet speculatores" (DEB 1.14) and the "syntactic" coverage (inclusio; see [16, p. 573]) "sciebam misericordiam Domini, sed et iudicium timebam" (DEB 1.11) become especially expressive (here and below, the members of one phrase are indicated in bold; the members of another phrase "intertwined" with it or "ringed" by it are in italics).

During the analysis, a specific problem was the definition of closure terms. As a result, the case of a short circuit was taken:

a) "tension", or the statement between the subordinate and dependent members of the phrase more than 2 members of the sentence;

b) "embedding", or setting a subordinate clause (not counting introductory constructions) inside a pair of such members of the phrase;

c) "weaving", or the use of members of two phrases "in a staggered manner" (such as "quid insipientibus loquatur pastoribus" (DEB 80.1); in Shabelnikov— Torshilov terminology, a cross verse [5, p. 91]);

d) "ringing", or the use of one phrase between members of another (such as "alienum admovendo altari ignem" (DEB 1.3); in Shabelnikov — Torshilov terminology, a round verse [5, p. 91]).

In all these cases, the combination of the subject and predicate is considered a phrase. The choice of the distance between the members of the tension deserves a separate comment (point a). Without counting the members of the sentence separating the tension terms, sentences that would meet the criterion would also be taken into account only by virtue of observing the classical Latin literary word order. Indeed, a sentence like cum sciret eorum opera (DEB 59.4) it cannot be called closing in the sense in which we postulate it for, e.g., haec <subordinate clause, indirect complement, two circumstances> volvens (DEB 1.13). The separation of the control word by two terms of the sentence from the controlled one is taken as unmarked, since it is assumed that these words have one dependent term each (such as quis vestrum sponte expleverit DEB 102.2) in general, the length of the sentence is not strong. This assumption is indirectly confirmed by the citation syntax (citation devices) of the Guild, where the citation marker inquit/inquiens/ait ‘says’ It is 1-2 words away from the beginning of the citation (there are two exceptions: DEB 50.2, 97.1)

Since these types of closure do not equally express the poetic tendencies of the text, it is necessary to find a way to differentiate the conditional degree of severity of the tendency. The most relevant is the division into low (symbol: +), moderate (++) and high (+++) degrees of severity of the trend. We will classify cases of tension into the "+" class (which can be understood as a minor transformation of the usual word order, one observance of which, however, is stylistic), we will classify cases of type bg into the "++" class (due to their greater expressiveness). The phenomena described by the paragraphs of g–d differ from tension in their "instantiation", emphasized by the strict arrangement of the members of the sentence. The calculation of conditional points is an approximate description of the severity of the trend.

It is important to note that the wording of paragraph a, as well as the definitions in other paragraphs, is focused not on the length of the sentence, but on its specific "round" structure: for example, the short subordinate clause quem ille cruda stoliditate caecatus non viderat (DEB 1.15) falls under its criterion precisely because Gilda preferred his own a favorite construction, without bringing the direct complement quem (equal as the subject ille) closer to the predicate non viderat. The "closing" variant was preferred to other expressive variants such as *quem non viderat ille cruda stoliditate caecatus, *quem ille non viderat cruda caecatus stoliditate. Nevertheless, it is worth recognizing as an accidental or non-stylistic phenomenon such a sentence structure as, for example, in DEB 3: the chapter is entirely organized as a chain of nominal (participial) predicates with one subject (formally, this is a construction from participia coniuncta, obtained by the ellipsis of the verb esse ‘to be’: Britannia insula — librata — tenens — vallata — meliorata — decorata — ornata — irrigua), and each predicate, except the last one, is preceded by exactly one subordinate clause. After one paragraph, this structure repeats (4.2–4), but in a mirror image (omittens — nec enumerans — inclamitans — tacens — proferre conabor); each participle is followed by one subordinate clause, the last two (qui <...> vulgati sunt, ita ut Porphyrius <...> adnecteret).

Although, unlike the Gilda text, in HF, weaving and banding often contain not 4, but 5 terms (the predicate "violates" the symmetry of two pairs of phrases), this should not have affected the calculation: in Hesperian, the predicate just plays the role of a "metric" rod, around which the structures familiar to us are built; in other words, the presence of a predicate in a verse is a primary principle that constitutes dominant features such as ringlets, etc., and does not distort them. Thus, for example, a situation like titaneus olimpium inflamat arotus tabulatum (HF-A 133; inflamat ‘ignites’ — predicate) is considered as conditionally equivalent to a situation like suspecta semper mente credentes (DEB 25.1), because fundamentally there is a specific syntactic structure, and not a specific distance between members. Embedding according to the laws of Hesperian verse is, if not impossible, then difficult to implement and therefore was not considered.

In the next paragraph, for the sake of clarity, I give examples of the analysis of some chapters of DEB. They are followed by a summary table for a selection of DEB chapters and corresponding HF-A segments. The selection of proportionate segments is made by counting words, only completed segments ("paragraphs") are selected.

DEB 87.1 (19 words): 1 case of weaving (de vestris olim comessoribus disceptaverit) and 1 case of tension (quid <...> disceptaverit). Total: 3 points. DEB 83.1 (20 words): 2 cases of tension (quod <...> edixit; monens <...> edixit) and 1 case of ringing (deflens detrimentum populi pro iniquitatibus). Total: 4 points. DEB 61.1 (22 words): 3 cases of tension (Ezechiel <...> edixerit; cui <...> deflenti; dominus <...> ait), 1 case of ringing (miserabiliter plagam Israel deflenti). Total: 5 points. DEB 2.1 (87 words): 1 case of piling up (24 additions with the preposition de), 2 cases of embedding (ante promissum <...> conamur; de victoria <...> dicere), 1 case of tension (quae <...> donata est). Total: 8 points. DEB 10.1–2 (94 words): 5 cases of tension, 2 cases of ringing (crassa atrae noctis caligine; non minimum intuentium mentibus ardorem), 2 cases of embedding (qui <...> accendit; loca <...> incuterent). Total: 13 points. DEB 3.1–4 (174 words): 2 cases of tension, 5 – ringing, 5 – embedding, 2 – weaving. Total: 26 points.

In the cells of the left column, the links to the fragments being compared in pairs are separated by a fraction.  The number of words of the analyzed segment is indicated in parentheses at the links. The cells of the middle and right columns to the left of the colon show the total number of points for the corresponding segment, to the right of the colon — the number of cases of detection of a weak, medium and strong degree of severity of the trend (in the form of a multiplier).

DEB / HF-A

DEB

HF

48.1–3 (9) / 331–332 (8)

3+: 1(+), 1(++)

4+: 2(++)

87.1 (19) / 133–136 (18)

3+: 1(+), 1(++)

8+: 4(++)

83.1 (20) / 477–480 (20)

4+: 2(+), 1(++)

7+: 1(+), 3(++)

61.1 (22) / 503–508 (24)

5+: 3(+), 1(++)

8+: 2(+), 3(++)

41.2 (40) / 345–353 (43)

10+: 2(+), 4(++)

15+: 1(+), 7(++)

14.1 (46) / 452–460 (47)

7+: 3(+), 2(++)

16+: 2(+), 7(++)

38.1 (53) / 93–102 (57)

12+: 2(+), 5(++)

20+: 4(+), 8(++)

25.1 (66) / 253–264 (61)

14+: 4(+), 5(++)

20+: 2(+), 9(++)

2.1 (87) / 531–546 (87)

8+: 1(+), 2(++), 1(+++)

23+: 5(+), 9(++)

10.1–2 (94) / 596–612 (99)

13+: 5(+), 4(++)

35+: 5(+), 15(++)

15.1–3 (107) / 1–21 (105)

11+: 5(+), 3(++)

31+: 5(+), 13(++)

3.1–4 (174) / 146–189 (170)

26+: 2(+), 12(++)

74+: 12(+), 31(++)

 

These data confirm what was previously said above in the framework of a pragmatic analysis. So, for Gilda, the studied stylistic techniques serve as a means of distributing intonation, and therefore for DEB we do not have a direct relationship between the increase in the volume of the analyzed segment and the number of points, i.e. the brightness of the stylistic trend. On the contrary, in the familiar, these stylistic techniques are formalized and therefore take place more regularly in the text, although they are constrained by the presence of, for example, ternaries. In the given sample (however, theoretically there are no obstacles to extending these conclusions to the entire HF text), the Hesperian verse usually gives from 0 to 3 points (once 4 points: HF-A 503); 0 usually represent ternaries, and 3 — a cross or round verse, a larger quaternary; tension may occur in cenariums and septariums (occasionally in quinariums), weaving is usually found in cross quinariums, ringing – in round quinariums. In HF, preference is finally given to ready-made structures (see the ratio of multipliers in the right column), and tension is less common, moreover, it often occurs in the same verse with weaving or ringing (e.g. HF-A 101, 158, 253, 477, etc.). "Zero" HF verses in the analyzed material: HF-A 4, 6, 13-14, 16, 20-21, 150, 152, 160, 165-166, 172, 177, 183, 255-257, 349, 352, 457, 480, 504, 506-507, 536-537, 542-543, 546, 598.

The dominant of the pile-up. I call piling a pleonastic technique that Gilda regularly uses, in which the author overloads a section of text with repetitions of a lexical and/or syntactic nature, moreover so expressive that the intonation tension of the author's speech becomes apparent to the reader. This dominant could be called the "dominant of the accumulation of predicates", however, for at least one striking case, such a formulation is not justified: in DEB 66, the control of the predicate habet 'has' is extended to almost the entire text of the chapter, so we are already dealing with a pile of direct additions.

The quantitative analysis of this dominant by itself is not subject to conceptualization, primarily due to the author's freedom to use it on a textual segment of any volume (the "heap paradox"): So, if 10 questions are subtracted or added in a series of rhetorical questions starting with the forms of the word quis (DEB 69.2–74.4), the effect of pleonasticity is not eliminated. Moreover, the entire Gilda text in the segment 35.4–64.2 can be understood as one large pile – due to the number and volume of biblical quotations (as well as due to the insignificant volume of the author's text in comparison with them). A very similar phenomenon is B. I. Yarkho saw in the "Song of Roland": "the main dominant tendency of the author was clearly reduced to the preference of figures on the basis of pleonasticity without distinction of gramatic [sic — A. K.] nature" [10, p. 81].

Accumulation is the clearest means of the above-mentioned "poetics of quantity"; because of this, it can be equated to a high degree of manifestation of a tendency (+++).

It is difficult to find a proper linguistic conglomeration in HF, because due to the formalization of syntactic rules ("syntactic verse"), the distribution of both parts of speech and sentence members (primarily verbs in the finite form, i.e. predicates) acquires some balance and frequency. However, it is difficult not to see a figurative accumulation in HF: although sentences and repetitions do not receive the same volume as Gilda's, the faminator's desire for a comprehensive examination of the poetic world crystallizes in the constant transition from one image to another. In this case, it is more natural to talk about different piles adjacent to each other in those sections of the text where the images form parallel rows. So, for example, in the "Introduction" (HF-A 1-115), the figurative chains of the flower—bearing army — crossroads — skiptras — fight — streams — white members (praise to the scribes), on the one hand, and the gate — flocks — crops — crying — spouse - bed (psogos), on the other, make up two cases heaps (1-19 and 76-86), and not one, since both series of images are constituted by different toposes of poetic speech. For both cases, one can find parallel toposes in Gilda: HF 1-19 = DEB 10.1-2; HF 76-86 = DEB 36.4–6. Note that in the first case we do not have a topos of praise for scientists, but a topos of praise for comrades (cf. with what was said above about "party thinking").

Thus, each case of piling is potentially problematic for comparative description, and although it has had little effect on the above statistics, an accurate quantitative analysis of the piling requires more detailed conceptual study. Since the accumulation is a phenomenon of neither semantic nor formal order, it should be considered a formal phenomenon with blurred boundaries.

Conclusion

Interpretation of the analysis data. The regularity of the predominance of the syntactic closure trend in HF over the same trend in DEB indicates that a specific attitude to the style of syntax, relevant for the familiar and his circle of writers, began to form back in the Gilda era. The use of certain syntactic structures has become entrenched in insular (i.e. British-Irish Archipelago) Latin literature and has become one of the most striking features of these monuments.

The reducibility of stylistic dominants to general principles ("the poetics of quantity", "the aesthetics of the vine"), despite the contrast of the spectra of artistic means, indicates the possibility of an aesthetic relationship between HF and DEB. The constancy of the faminator and Gilda in observing the above-formulated poetic principles, as well as some common features of the so-called pragmatic framework of both texts, can become the basis for problematizing the stylistic and poetic trends of insular Latin literature in general.

It is precisely the value community of both texts, represented by the prevalence of certain stylistic dominants, that can serve as one of the most serious arguments in defense of the thesis of direct succession of faminators from Gilda or writers of his circle. It is also possible to preliminarily agree with D. O. Torshilov's thesis, typologically bringing the literature of the faminators closer to Alexandrian poetry [5, p. 50] (with all the implied difference in cultural background).

Methodological conclusions. The problem of conceptualizing the formal comparative analysis of texts such as DEB and HF is rooted in the fundamental genre difference between the monuments, so that each stage of the analysis must necessarily involve the possibility of rethinking the counting criteria. Such a reinterpretation is carried out when poetic principles inherent in one text and alien to another form a difference in the specific structure of the manifestation of the same stylistic tendency.

Hence, one of the main problems of formal analysis is the procedure for establishing conditional equivalences. Indeed, equivalence can only be established between formalized elements, and formalization, in turn, is revealed based on the frequency of use of the attribute formalized by the author. Since similar but not identical phenomena can have the same degree of formalization (such as ringings in HF and embeddings in DEB), a conditional equivalence can be established between them (we have assigned 2 points to both phenomena), reflecting their functional nature.

Developing the comparison of literary studies with biology conducted by B. I. Yarkho, one can liken the formal analysis of works of different genres to examining an organism through a microscope, since the method of careful sampling ("sampling of material") in it is preferable than a total count throughout the text. In the latter case, an avalanche-like accumulation of calculation errors is inevitable due to the inclusion of a large number of intermediate and problematic phenomena in the material. So, for example, in DEB 108.2 (sane quod sentio proferam) we find an intermediate option between ringing and embedding. Moreover, even with the most accurate formulation of the analysis criteria, some of the stylistic phenomena will remain outside the formal description: for example, the preposition was not considered as an independent member of the phrase, although there is reason to believe that Gilda takes it into account in the construction of these constructions.

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The article "Poetic specificity" On the Death of Britain" by Gilda and the Hesperian Sayings" presented for consideration: a pragmatic aspect and a dominant analysis. By the 135th anniversary of the birth of B. I. Yarkho (1889-1942)", proposed for publication in the journal "Litera", is undoubtedly relevant, due to the author's appeal to the study of the peculiarities of texts of past eras written in Latin. The subject of consideration in this work is the message-sermon of the British writer Gilda the Wise "On the Death of Britain" (De excidio Britanniae) and the poetic text "Hesperian Sayings" (Hisperica Famina), written in the British archipelago. This work is based on the postulates of the outstanding Russian linguist Boris Isaakovich Yarkho, set out in the Methodology of Exact Literary Criticism. The article is innovative, one of the first in Russian philology, the article presents a research methodology, the choice of which is quite adequate to the goals and objectives of the work. The author turns, among other things, to various methods to confirm the hypothesis put forward. It should be noted that theoretical inventions are illustrated by language examples in Latin and Russian, as well as convincing data obtained during the study. This work was done professionally, in compliance with the basic canons of scientific research. The research was carried out in line with modern scientific approaches, the work consists of an introduction containing a statement of the problem, the main part, traditionally starting with a review of theoretical sources and scientific directions, a research and a final one, which presents the conclusions obtained by the author. The bibliography of the article contains 16 sources, among which works are presented in both Russian and English. Unfortunately, the article does not contain references to fundamental works such as monographs, PhD and doctoral dissertations. Technically, when making a bibliographic list, the generally accepted requirements of GOST are violated, namely, non-compliance with the alphabetical principle of registration of sources. The comments made are not significant and do not detract from the overall positive impression of the reviewed work. Typos, spelling and syntactic errors, inaccuracies in the text of the work were not found. In general, it should be noted that the article is written in a simple, understandable language for the reader. The work is innovative, representing the author's vision of solving the issue under consideration and may have a logical continuation in further research. The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of using its results in the teaching of university courses on literary theory, as well as courses on interdisciplinary research on the relationship between language and society. The article will undoubtedly be useful to a wide range of people, philologists, undergraduates and graduate students of specialized universities. The article "Poetic specificity" On the death of Britain" Gilda and the Hesperian Sayings": a pragmatic aspect and a dominant analysis. By the 135th anniversary of the birth of B. I. Yarkho (1889-1942)" may be recommended for publication in a scientific journal.