Rhythm in the 2nd part of Wasyl Barka’s book ‘Ocean’ (mixed trochee)

Abstract

The article is dedicated the verse rhythm in the second part of the book “Ocean” by the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Barka (1979). The rhythm of the first part (iambic) was investigated in our previous article. The meter of the second part of the book is a mixed trochee, the scheme of which is 5454. The stresses in the poetic lines were counted and the rhythm profiles of the trochaic tetrameter and the trochaic pentameter were plotted. The rhythm diagram method developed by Taranovsky, Gasparov (for Russian verse) was used to compare Barka’s verses with Ukrainian and Russian verses. To illustrate the trends in Ukrainian verse, our calculations of the verse of Stus and Andrukhovich were also used. The results of the research showed that the character of Barka’s rhythm is unique; it has no correspondence either in Ukrainian or in Russian verses. In the rhythm of Barka’s poem, ‘the law of regressive dissimilation’, discovered by Taranovsky and extrapolated to the Ukrainian verse by Kostenko, does not work. That is, there is no alternation of strong and weak foot. Barka in trochee avoids full-accented lines, which are commonly used by Ukrainian and Russian poets. The set of rhythmic forms of verse differs from other poets. The drawing of the diagrams is also different. For a trochaic pentameter, this is a “bucket”, with strong 2nd and 5th feet and weak 3rd and 4th feet. And for a trochaic tetrameter, this is an almost equal strength of the first three feet and a strong last foot. A rhythm, approximately similar to that of Barka, was revealed only in Goethe’s verse for a trochaic pentameter and in Schiller’s verse for a trochaic tetrameter (according to Taranovsky). Given the unique nature of the iambic rhythm and rhyme in Barka’s verse, we consider it promising to search for the factors that determined Barka’s poetics.