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“(kakˮ znat’)”. The (Epistemological) Bracket in Tatiana’s Letter and “Rhythmanalysis”

  • Holt Meyer
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Taktungen und Rhythmen
This chapter is in the book Taktungen und Rhythmen

Abstract

In this contribution, the technique of bracketing in Aleksandr Pushkin’s verse novel Evgenii Onegin is linked to the Romantic fragment and analyzed making use of Lefebvre’s concept of “rhythmanalysis”, particularly the concepts of “arrhythmia” and “polyrhythmia”. This allows for working through not only purely literary factors such as perspective and voice, but also social and historical aspects. A particular bracket, the one in Tatiana’s letter to Onegin in the third chapter, is in focus, also in an intertextual network involving mainly English literature. This particular passage allows for a plurality of approaches to the place of the parenthetical in rhythm, which is viewed in the broader sense of verse rhythm, but also in the Lefebvrian sense of societal rhythms which are embodied in the text of the letter in verse in its linguistic and cultural complexity. In a general and formal sense, this study is a contribution to the analysis of the relationship between punctuation, scripturality and orality. This can open up the Lefebvrian methodology for more systematic media approaches. At the same time the study underscores the relevance of these approaches for the representation of societal processes, also and especially at the beginning of the 19th century.

Abstract

In this contribution, the technique of bracketing in Aleksandr Pushkin’s verse novel Evgenii Onegin is linked to the Romantic fragment and analyzed making use of Lefebvre’s concept of “rhythmanalysis”, particularly the concepts of “arrhythmia” and “polyrhythmia”. This allows for working through not only purely literary factors such as perspective and voice, but also social and historical aspects. A particular bracket, the one in Tatiana’s letter to Onegin in the third chapter, is in focus, also in an intertextual network involving mainly English literature. This particular passage allows for a plurality of approaches to the place of the parenthetical in rhythm, which is viewed in the broader sense of verse rhythm, but also in the Lefebvrian sense of societal rhythms which are embodied in the text of the letter in verse in its linguistic and cultural complexity. In a general and formal sense, this study is a contribution to the analysis of the relationship between punctuation, scripturality and orality. This can open up the Lefebvrian methodology for more systematic media approaches. At the same time the study underscores the relevance of these approaches for the representation of societal processes, also and especially at the beginning of the 19th century.

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