Interestingly, Nika Turbina knew
what a stanza or sillabo-tonic was, when poems were flowing from her nurseries - adults, sad, filled with completely non-childhood experiences? Unlikely. And she didn’t need to, like Pushkin at the beginning of poetic experiments. Like other prominent poets. But they were geniuses, their gift was born with them, but even they studied the technique of versification and its laws. Moreover, we need it, "not geniuses." So that poetry can reach the consciousness and heart, you need to learn to read, perceive, understand the lyrical work. From the lyrics, we expect shocks caused by the clutch of sounds, words, images, rhythms, meanings, which create a lyrical experience, for which we open poetry collections. And one who truly loves poetry cannot but be interested in how a poetic miracle is created. What is a stanza, if such ordinary words, gathered in harmonious lines and couplets, are able to touch the innermost strings of the soul? And the language of poetry is perhaps the most complex form of the existence of a language, and one needs to learn to understand it. But how?
How do poems do it?
Modern psychology recognizes in the most effective way an activity that is adequate to that which is embedded in the object being studied. If this is so, then from the recipient (the one who perceives), poetry requires the same creative work of the imagination and the active inclusion of emotions, as well as from its creator. It turns out that if you want to understand poetry, you must try to write poetry yourself. But first you need to find out what and how "make poetry", what a stanza, rhyme, rhythm and other subtleties of "versification" are. By the way, some types of stanzas, like the verses themselves, have authors, that is, they were specially created by poets. Spencer stanza, Byron octave, Onegin stanza, tercet are known in the literature. In all names except the last, the author's name is guessed. But Dante, who invented the tercet for "Divine Comedy" in the form that we know him today, deserves his name to sound. Dante's invention is a stanza of three verses (verse - line), which rhyme according to the scheme: lines 1 and 3 rhyme with each other, the second with the first and third next stanzas, then everything repeats. Look at the example from the poem:
It should be noted that not all three-line stanzas are called tercins (this is called tercet in a different way). Japanese poetry has hoku. It also has three lines, but no rhyme. A fixed number of lines is also inherent in the octave (8), quatrain (4), distich (2) and monostich (1).
You can grab a pen
Having found out what a stanza is, what kinds of stanzas are, we continue our poetic education, mastering the rhythm, dimensions, types of rhymes. Now you can take up the pen. A modern pen is a pen, felt-tip pen, and a computer mouse. It should work out! It is unlikely that something ingenious, but at least slim and sonorous. The truth is, after so much effort, you start to perceive poems in a different way, to understand how many labors the ease and simplicity of the masterpieces of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Fet is ... And you also probably want to find a listener for your first and already favorite poems? Nothing is impossible! Why not arrange a poetry contest? The most eminent poets of antiquity, Ancient China and
medieval Japan did not consider it to be shameful to compete in the poetic ring
. In such competitions mastery is perfected, poets gain fame and the opportunity to convey their feelings and thoughts.
Do not say "praise"!
Finishing our short lesson, we emphasize once again his main idea: it is impossible to discover the meaning of a poetic work without revealing the features of the art form in which this meaning is embodied - a poetic composition (stanza). Lotman is right in asserting that even a simplified “schematic description of general structural laws” reveals more to us the originality and beauty of lyric lines than repeated repetition of laudatory phrases about their genius. After all, no matter how you say “halva” (“praise” is more appropriate here), it won’t be sweet.