Mayakovsky's neologisms are a very vivid phenomenon in Russian literature of the 20th century. The poems of Vladimir Vladimirovich have always been distinguished by innovation and originality. For example, the poet very often violated the poetic size, focusing on rhyme. However, neologisms have always given the highest expressiveness to Mayakovsky’s lines. We will talk about them in this article.
What is neologism?
Before we begin to analyze Mayakovsky’s neologisms, we define the term “neologism”. So, this word has ancient Greek roots and consists of two roots: “neos” (translated as “new”) and “logos”, which means “word”. That is, neologisms are called new, only created words or combinations of words. In speech, they immediately become noticeable due to their freshness and novelty.
Speaking of author's neologisms, they mean those words that were invented by the writer and used by him in his works. These neologisms, unlike those used in everyday speech, exist mainly only on the pages of literary works.
Why are there so many neologisms in Mayakovsky's texts?
Neologisms in Mayakovsky’s poem are not just an attempt by the author to decorate his text, this is, however strange it may sound, a social phenomenon. Scientists have long proved that the active formation of neologisms begins to occur at a time when instability is beginning in the country or technical progress is actively developing. Based on this, it is not surprising that a huge number of neologisms appeared precisely at the beginning of the 20th century. This time is characterized by a change of power in the country, and active urbanization.
By the way, the futurists themselves, to whom Mayakovsky belonged, proclaimed the beginning of the technical revolution and predicted a great future for technology.
However, besides these purely external facts, one should not forget about the talent of the poet himself. Mayakovsky invented new words in order to more vividly and figuratively convey his feelings and sensations. For example, “fried” sand (from the poem “Lilichka”) - in this neologism there are much more emotions than in the words “hot” or “hot”, it represents neologism from the word “fire”, which introduces additional meanings: to burn, burn burn, burn, lose (since in a fire, usually something is destroyed), etc.
A little about the language of Mayakovsky
Mayakovsky's neologisms are an integral part of the original language of his poetry. But why did this particular technique become one of the main ones for him?
As noted above, Mayakovsky belonged to the futurists, and more precisely, to his direction, which was called cubofuturism. Cubo-futurists believed that new forms needed new forms, so they actively supplemented and updated the language of their poetry. Their goal was to create an unconventional, original and fresh word. Mayakovsky as one of the cubo-futurists expanded the word-formation framework of his native language, which allowed him to create original and vivid images.
For an example we will take a line from the poem “Lilichka” already mentioned by us: “... I will become mad, I will despair and disappear.” These two neologisms (I go crazy and dissipate) help the writer very accurately convey the state of the lyrical hero.
The most interesting neologisms of the poet
Now we list the most famous and unusual neologisms of Mayakovsky. Examples:
- "Heart-humans" - this name Mayakovsky gives people who could live on Mars (the poem "About This").
- “Goloshtanny” - the poet gives this characteristic to the people, who were to choose the power of the bourgeois or the Soviets, in his work “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”.
- "Jerkiness" - this epithet goes to the ballerina Kshesinsky, who was the favorite of Nicholas II.
- “Crescent” and “hammer” passport becomes the pride of the poet.
- “To be spirited” - Mayakovsky gives this characteristic to the house, from each window of which flowers should have been visible.
- “Bull-faced” and “meat-and-meat” hordes appear before the reader in the early works of the poet.
- The "camel-crab-dragon" squadrons are described in the poem "The Fifth International."
- Mayakovsky refers to the police in the same poem as devoted to Lenin.
Mayakovsky's neologisms: “An extraordinary adventure ...” (poem)
The work was written in 1920, and its author became the main character. The main theme is a difficult but noble poetic work. The poem is built on dialogues and is characterized by a pronounced journalistic beginning. The main artistic device was the comparison - Mayakovsky compares the poet’s career with the life of the sun.
Now we’ll talk in more detail about the neologisms used by Mayakovsky’s poem “Extraordinary Adventure”. More precisely, we list them and describe their function:
- "Humped" hillock - a comparison of a hillock with a hump.
- "Village" - the word village is used in masculine gender.
- "Goldilocks" - about the sun, that is, the "golden forehead" - neologism is used for a more beautiful and capacious expression of meaning.
- “Ray-steps” - the rays of the Sun are compared with the steps, which indicate the approach of the Sun to the Poet.
- “Let us see” - that is, let us rise — as the Poet the Sun calls with him.
- “Sonnitsa” is the opposite of the word “insomnia,” that is, drowsiness, a desire to fall asleep.
We have listed all the neologisms in Mayakovsky's poem "Extraordinary Adventure." From the above examples, it can be noted that the poet uses new words to give a more vivid imagery to his poem, as well as wishing to make his expressions more accurate and accurate.
Features of the formation of words in Mayakovsky
Studying the poet’s work, philologists realized that there were so many words created by the writer that a whole dictionary of Mayakovsky’s neologisms could be created. In addition, they deduced certain patterns in the formation of the poet. We list some of them:
- The writer often uses the prefixes "races" and "times." For example, “celebrate”, “unzip”, “warm up”, “get excited”, “prove”, etc.
- Mayakovsky likes to add “you” and “to” to verbs, which endows words with meanings such as complete completion, completeness and exhaustion: “drill”, “pile up”, “throw out”, “expel”.
- Using the verbs “for”, the poet gives them the meaning of the onset of action: “whistle”, “screw up”, “have been troubling”.
- Joining the prefixes “to” and “pro” means bringing the matter to the end: “we jump on”, “we kissed”.
- Mayakovsky forms part of the verbs from nouns using the above-mentioned prefixes: “he has corrupted”, “has metalized”.
A few more examples of word formation
Mayakovsky's neologisms are quite multifaceted. For word formation, the poet uses not only prefixes, but also suffixes:
- For example, the outdated suffix “e”, which has not been used in the Russian language for a long time: “uncle”, “lady”, “guest”, “junk” (this word, so widely used today, was first coined by Mayakovsky for the first time).
- Very often the poet uses diminutive suffixes: “luchenki”, “tongue”, “article”, “life”.
Conclusion
Thus, we can conclude that the poet's neologisms are not just a stylistic phenomenon, but a kind of original system that works according to its own laws. It is in this system that the charm of Mayakovsky’s poems lies, which to this day captivate readers with its imagery and accuracy of expression. Therefore, it is not surprising that of all the Russian cubo-futurists, Vladimir Mayakovsky became the most famous.