Polish Studies of Kyiv: works of International scientific conference, Kyiv, 23-25 of May, 2018. / chief editor R. Radyshevskyi. – vol. XXXV. – Kyiv: Talkom, 2019. – P. 216-222.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/psk.2019.35.216-222

Lanovyk M.

POETICS OF NOCTURNE IN LYRICS OF JURIJ KOSACH

Abstract. The article deals with the poetical works of Ukrainian writer in exile Jurij Kosach in context of Frederic Chopin nocturne tradition in the European art. The parallels to the visions of Ukrainian oral national tradition, romantic writers (particularly T.Shevchenko), Ukrainian emigrant poets of the previous generation (B.Lepky, E.Malaniuk, Alexander Oles’ and others), and European symbolists (Sh. Baudelaire, A.Rimbaud) are given. The author outlines the nocturne tendencies in music, literature and other arts as traditions of cultures in bondage as well as the artists in exile. The main attention is drawn to the influences of existential situations after the revolutions of the beginning of the 20^th century and two World Wars. In Soviet space the minority of nocturne music was interpreted as a protest against major tone of so called social realism pseudo art.

Night as the main concept of Jurij Kosach’s lyrical selections (especially “Manhattan Nights”, “Summer in Delaware”) is analyzed in different poetical intentions and interpretative perspectives: night in Motherland as an idea of national and spiritual darkness of enslavement Ukraine, as lost land (in parallel to Atlántida); night of exile as the way of uncertainty and lost, as the nostalgia; night travelling by sea as a development of antique Homeric tradition of Odyssey as well as Alcaeus traditions of the idea of life obstacles; night travelling by land as a development of Goethe’s tradition – way of life to the calmness of death; mystery of night as the reinforced Faustian and Wagnerian ideas; solitude of night as a reflection of Nietzsche’s ideas of the world sorrow and existential fear.

Motives of night, night travelling, poetics of starlit sky, constellations as secret signs and silent language etc. are analyzed in their projection upon the philosophic concepts of destiny, solitude, and bondage. They are interpreted on different levels: in the life of one person (night reflections of different artists in exile, such as T. Shevchenko, A.Pushkin, M.Tsvetaeva, F. Villon, E.A. Poe, A. Mickiewicz, W.Whitman and others are outlined in the contexts of their destiny situations); in the existence of a city (European, American and Ukrainian in their “night” living in different centuries and historical circumstances); or in the life of the nation at large.

Key words: lyrics, nocturne, image, motive, musicality, symbolism, night poetics.

Information about author: Lanovyk Mariana, PhD, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Department of Theory and Methodic of the Ukrainian and World Literature, Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University.