Sound painting is one of the techniques of artistic visualization in literature, which is based on the effect of phonetic expressiveness of a word. Speech, organized in a certain sound manner, has great emotional and expressive power.
How do literary genres differ from receptions?
Often they ask a question: is sound recording a genre or an artistic device? Of course, this is a device, tool, tool with which the author can create fascinating works in any genre. In this context, it is worth saying a few words about various genres of literature. A genre is usually called a long-established system that combines works that have similarities in form or content. In form, literary creations can be divided into novels, short stories, novels, etc. According to the content, this is, for example, the division of a playwright into drama, comedy or tragedy, and of lyric works into an ode, epigram, or elegy.
Genre Features
If the novel is a large work with an abundance of heroes, storylines, problems, then the story is a small form, usually it is limited to the narration of one event in the life of one or more heroes. If the poem involves a serious lyrical-epic story with a plot, then the lyric poem tells about the psychological world of feelings and emotions. Each of the genres has its own set of artistic tools to create greater expressiveness. Fine-expressive means, to which sound recording belongs, are characteristic most of all for lyrical and lyro-epic genres.
Poetry speaks a special language
Soundwriting is the prerogative of poetry, which is why a phonetically refined poetic work cannot be retold without loss in ordinary prosaic language. The main principle of enhancing the sound expressiveness of poetic speech lurks in specially selected words, the sounds of which are peculiarly merged, echoed or, conversely, contrasted with each other. This increases the imagery of words and presents an incredibly expressive picture in front of the reader’s inner gaze.
Sound recording
They are diverse. Among them, one can distinguish such a wonderful technique as the selection in adjacent poetic lines of words with close sound. For example, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin in the poem “The Bronze Horseman”, in the description of “Petrov’s city”, uses combinations of consonants “g”, “t”, “s” and a rolling “p”, which makes the appearance of a grandiose strict city clearly appear in the minds of the reader, a turbulent river bound in granite, and tall slender buildings. And in the poem "Poltava" Pushkin paints a portrait of the emperor, whom he admired, through repeated vowels "o", "a" in combination with the consonants "p", "t", "p". And before our eyes there appears the image of a majestic king, carried away by big ideas: he is “beautiful”, and his look is “proud”, “full of glory” and “clear”. He “feasts”, and his feast is not a table laden with dishes, but the breadth and scope of transformations.
Why do we enjoy good poems
Acceptance of sound recording, in which several times repeated sounds are involved in the roll call, gives the listener a special aesthetic pleasure. These are the opening lines of the famous poem “Sail” by Mikhail Lermontov, creating music of space and smooth movement of water. We see the same technique of sound recording in the poem by Athanasius Fet “The Wonderful Picture”. A special melody is in the verses of Sergei Yesenin and Alexander Blok, as well as in the lyric works of other brilliant poets.
The language of literary criticism
There are also own literary terms that define sound recording: alliteration, assonance. They are due to a certain consonance of either consonants or vowels. Alliteration refers to the intentional repetition of the same consonants in a string. For example, in the third chapter of the novel "Eugene Onegin", in the description of the moonlit night, when he does not sleep, tormented by love, Tatyana, Pushkin uses the alliteration of the sound "n" in the ninth line of the sixteenth stanza. In the tenth line - this is the repetition of the consonant "d", in the eleventh - we see the alliteration "c", and in the next - "c".
Harmonious verses not only give pleasure, they cut into memory. Often the headings in which the author uses phonetic techniques, in addition to the will, attract our attention. Soundwriting (alliteration) is present, for example, in the title of the lyric work by Vladimir Mayakovsky “Poems about the Soviet Passport”, where the consonants “c” and “t” are repeated alternately.
Soundwriting and meaning
Often, using alliteration, the author manages to convey the inner meaning of the described events. So, in Konstantin Balmont’s poem “I am tired of tender words” by repeating the sounds “p” in the words “tear”, “screaming”, “azure” and “storms”, the author achieves the semantic effect of separation, breaking. He writes about them as his desired state.
Symbols in the sounds
Often, sound recording is also a way to symbolically indicate certain things. In the poem “The Mermaid”, which was written by the eighteen-year-old Lermontov, the alliteration of the consonant sounds “c” in the description of how the naiada tried to add silver silver foam to the moon gives us some non-sonic sensations. We feel a special state - semi-fantastic, supernatural, reminiscent of the world of spirits and dreams. Also, the combination of sonor consonants in the speeches of the Forest Tsar from the ballad of the same name by Vasily Zhukovsky conveys a drowsy, inhibited state of a terminally ill child.
Sounds and Associations
Researchers are convinced that the phonetic system is able to create an associative circle in the human mind, when the sound of a word affects the way we perceive it. Compare the words “cucaracha” and “valley”, “lily” and “rattle”. The word "crystal", through a combination of phonemes, draws in the imagination something fragile, transparent, bright. Yes, and in these adjectives themselves, thanks to the alliteration of "p", "p", "s", this is the same meaning. Consonant sounds are trembling, caressing or rattling. With the intensified repetition of the sounds “r”, the combinations “gr”, the poet manages to draw the rumble of a booming thunder, as Fedor Tyutchev does in “Spring Thunderstorm” or a fierce battle, as Pushkin suggests in the poem “Poltava”. Since it is customary to divide all phonemes in poetic speech into sharp and gentle, quiet and loud, harmonious and disharmonious, the use of one or the other becomes a vivid stylistic tool in the art arsenal of the master.
The power of alliteration
Alliteration as a successful speech technique is used widely in tongue twisters, some sayings and proverbs. Consonants in the Russian language have a meaning-distinguishing function, they are much more than vowels. If we write a word using only vowels, its meaning will not be revealed to us. For example, what does the combination of sounds say? If we write the same word with consonants alone, we will still read it: “zlltrsn”. The encrypted word is “earthquake”. The alliteration that the sound recording represents is the most common technique in literature. However, do not underestimate the sonic imagery of vowels.
Mystery of Assonance
The repetition of vowels in a string is called assonance. It is based on the repetition of stressed vowels, however, unstressed, if not modified, can enhance assonance. In Lermontov's “Sail”, the repeated vowel “e”, developing into a roll of sounds “o”, creates the impression of immense space in which the boundaries of heaven and earth are indistinguishable. In the center of this picture, the tiny point of a lone sailboat, struck by the broad vowel “a”, clearly shines.
There are harmonious repetitions of the phoneme “u” in the poem “Borodino”: “our ears are on the top ...” The assonance of the same sound in Balmont’s poem “The Reeds” is wonderful.
Even more spectacular is the combination of alliteration and assonance. In “The Bulrushes,” for example, the dominant vowel “u” is successfully combined with the rustling phonemes “sh”, “h”. All this creates an atmosphere that the reader almost feels with his hearing, sight, touch. The soundwriting (assonance) is perfectly manifested along with the alliteration in the poem “Candle” by Boris Pasternak. The first line is replete with lingering "e", the second - deaf "s" and sonorous "l". All together gives us an amazing image of a winter night in which the sacrament of love takes place. And the lines caress the ear with an unsurpassed melody.
Contrast as an expressive device
Sometimes a poet may use contrasting sounds contrasting with each other as an expressive artistic tool. So, in Balmont’s already mentioned poem “I’m tired ...” the combination of sounds giving rise to a feeling of bliss in the words “dreams”, “words”, “whole”, “tired”, “lullabies”, “tunes” is sharply contrasted with sounds in the epithets “ burning ”,“ screaming ”,“ rattles ”,“ feasts ”,“ exclamations ”in which one can hear noise, onslaught, rapid movement.
Anaphora
Soundwriting is also an anaphora, a stylistic device in which the phrase is based on the repetition of similar sounds at the beginning of each syntactic series (stanzas, half-stitches, etc.). We observe the sound anaphora in the lines “A deep sleep will overtake you / The depths of thoughts are torn apart”. Sometimes anaphora is manifested in the repetition of equally sounding parts of the word, as in the poem “Prisoner” by Lermontov, where the hero asks for the “black-eyed girl” and the “black-maned horse”. The semantic anaphora can be used by authors building a poetic narrative on the repetition of whole words: "The rays do not reign yet / The song of birds over the world is still not at all dominant." Sound repetitions can also consist in repeating whole syntactic constructions: “If I were a military man / I would wear shoulder straps”. A kind of stanza anaphora is when one sound composition, most often expressed in one single word or phrase, is repeated at the beginning of each subsequent stanza or at its end. An example is the well-known poem by Arseny Tarkovsky "Summer is Passed."
Tool Union
Anafora is a faithful ally of another stylistic figure - gradation. Its meaning is rooted in the gradual intensification of emotional tension: "The street is dreaming, the city is dreaming, the planet is dreaming in the cradle of stars." Here, gradation is created by using anaphora and words that lexically expand the scope of the description.
Finally
We examined the meaning of the word “sound recording”, made sure that genres and artistic techniques are not the same thing, and sound recording cannot be attributed to genres, but it can be considered an expressive and graphic means in literary creation. We also examined some types of sound recording and their features on the example of creations of Russian poets.
Of certain interest are the principles of sound recording in works created in other languages, but this is the topic of a separate study.