ELEGY AND BALLAD: GENRE CODE OF A.A. AKHMATOVA’S CYCLE “MIDNIGHT VERSE”

Abstract

Based on the opinion of domestic researchers about the genre originality of poetry of the XX century, the article attempts to determine the genre code of the cycle of A.A. Akhmatova “Midnight Poems”. In the course of the research, the main motives, signs and features characteristic of the genres of elegy and ballad are determined (the motives of transformation and borderline worlds, the motive of meeting, the motive of silence / sound, the motive of the dead groom / bride, the motive of dreaming, the description of the natural locus – an important feature of the ballad genre). The analysis of these motifs allows to conclude about the transformation of the genre components of the cycle, in which the elegiac grows into the ballad, as a consequence – the ballad and elegiac codes in the cycle become elements of the encryption of the entire content. The uniqueness and fundamental novelty of poetic solutions allow us to speak about the discovery of new paths in Russian and world poetry by A. Akhmatova.