SEMANTICS AND MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ARTISTIC IMAGE OF WATER IN LEONARD COHEN’S POETRY AND SONG LYRICS

Abstract

The study presents a comprehensive analysis of the semantic and morphological characteristics of the artistic image of water in the poetic and song lyrics of Leonard Cohen, one of the most significant English-language poetry writers of the postmodern era. The relevance of the study is determined by the insufficient examination of Cohen’s system of imagery within the field of Russian linguo-poetics, as well as by the need to examine the specific nature of classical elemental imagery within postmodern discourse. Based on a continuous sampling of the writer’s poetic corpus, this study identifies and systematizes key water-related images, examining their semantic structure and functional roles, ranging from topos to symbolic sign. Particular attention is paid to the morphological resources of the language – specifically the nominal, verbal, adjectival, and prepositional structures employed to construct the image of water. The authors conclude that in Cohen’s work the image of water emerges as a dynamic process rather than a static object; the poet synthesizes the archetypal semantics of water with a postmodern aesthetic of fluidity and multiplicity of interpretation.