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The Beauty of Misleading: Ambiguity in Persian Poetics and Ghazal Poetry
Ch. 5. P. 115–140.
Figures of speech based on a double meaning of a word are well known in Eurocentric poetics; amphibology is generally considered more suitable for jokes and anecdotes. The story of Persian īhām (ambiguity, amphibology) also started with jokes, but soon it took a serious turn. Persian critics shaped a localized version of Arabic literary sciences more by choosing the compatible configuration, than by enriching the range of tropes. However, with time, some topics of discussion grew more important and acquired a specific rendering proper to Persian poetry. The adaptation of tawriya or takhyīl, which the Persians renamed īhām (lit. ‘causing a deception, illusion) serves here as a good illustration. In this chapter, I translate passages on īhām from Persian manuals on poetry (11 ‒ 15th cent.) and discuss minor changes in definitions as opposed to stylistic and semantic shifts in the illustrative verse examples.
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Açil B., Alfaisal H., Askari N., Carpentieri N., Chalisova N., El Yazghi Ezzaher L., Fontana C., Gould R. R., Jones L., Handan Konar A., Lawson T., Rashwan H., Seyed-Ghasem L., Seyed-Gohrab A. A., Toutant M. Oxford University Press, 2024.
Bodrova A. S., Русская литература 2026 № 3 С. 64–75
The article discusses the previously ignored parallels between The Same Old Story by I. A. Goncharov and a fragment of V. F. Odoyevsky’s unfinished novel Year 4338. Letters from Petersburg published in Issue 1 of Moskovsky Nabliudatel magazine in 1825. A detailed analysis of plot, motif, imagery similes between the two texts is provided, the ...
Added: September 2, 2026
Павел Успенский, Новый мир 2026 № 5 С. 181–192
This paper is devoted to the influence of Chodasevič’s poetic technique on Mandel´štam’s poetry. In this work we make an attempt to analyze Mandel´štam’s late Novye stichi (“Ne govori nikomu…”, “Kuda kak strašno nam s toboj…” and “My s toboj na kuchne posidim…”), which are connected to each other through the theme of fear. From ...
Added: August 30, 2026
Uspensky P., Федотов А. С., В кн.: Панаева А. Мелочи жизни. Женская доля. Романы / Сост., вступ. ст., коммент. П. Успенский, А. Федотов; подгот. текста З. Гусева, К. Колюпанва; словарь З. Гусева, К. Колюпанова, П. Успенский, А. Федотов.: М.: Редакция Елены Шубиной, 2026. С. 7–27.
The article is devoted to a reassessment of Avdotya Panaeva’s literary legacy, presenting her as an independent writer and a significant figure in nineteenth-century Russian realism. The authors examine her work in the context of the development of women’s literature, public debates on women’s emancipation, and the activities of the circle surrounding Sovremennik, demonstrating that ...
Added: August 30, 2026
Uspensky P., Новый мир 2025 № 3 С. 199–215
The second article examines the possible influence of skaldic poetry on Mayakovsky's metaphors. I analyze in detail the translations and analyses of skaldic poetry available in the 1900s. I demonstrate that readers at the turn of the century could have formed a certain understanding of this poetry. Moreover, the article introduces an archival document—a letter ...
Added: September 27, 2025
Uspensky P., Федотов А. С., В кн.: Некрасовский сборник. Вып. XVII.: СПб.: Институт русской литературы (Пушкинский Дом) РАН, 2025. С. 16–40.
The article is devoted to the reform of love lyrics that Nekrasov made in his dying verses addressed to Zina. ...
Added: September 25, 2025
СПб.: Институт русской литературы (Пушкинский Дом) РАН, 2025.
A collection of articles and materials about N. A. Nekrasov and his era. ...
Added: September 25, 2025
Федотов А. С., Uspensky P., Studi Slavistici 2025 Т. 22 № 1 С. 5–28
The article analyzes the Nikolai Nekrasov’s poem “Yes, Soldier! You in That War…” (“Tak, sluzhba! sam ti v toy voyne…”) (published in 1856), dedicated to the war of 1812. Since in the poem the peasant tells the story of the terrible murder of a captive French family, in which he took part, the main theme ...
Added: September 25, 2025
Афанасьев В. А., Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета. Серия 3: Филология 2025 № 83 С. 9–25
Tolkien’s poems, particularly those which are included in his prose, are not often studied in a way that would take into account not only individual poetic features of a certain text, but also its link with other poems and with the literary world of the prosaic text. Meanwhile, it is in such texts as the ...
Added: August 7, 2025
Uspensky P., Новый мир 2024 № 12 С. 183–200
The article explores the role of metaphor in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetic language, with a particular focus on genitive metaphors. The author analyzes their linguistic structure, mechanisms of perception, and function in the poet’s texts, highlighting how these metaphors influence rhythm, syntax, and semantic organization. The study examines Mayakovsky’s poetics in relation to the Symbolist tradition ...
Added: February 19, 2025
Федотов А. С., Uspensky P., Slovĕne 2024 Т. 13 № 1 С. 152–171
Nekrasov’s epic poem Who is Happy in Russia? traditionally is regarded as a realistic work, which poetics is based on russian folklore. In the article we suggest a different view and argue that the fund of European literary plots was no less important for the poet. We show that the chapter of the poem The ...
Added: February 19, 2025
Афанасьев В. А., Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов. Серия: Литературоведение, журналистика 2024 Т. 29 № 4 С. 685–692
Concerns rhythmic prose in The Lord of the Rings novel by J.R.R. Tolkien which, though extensively represented the novel, is seldom considered in most research papers. The novel contains over 70 poetic texts and should be viewed as a complex prosimetrum, as multifarious interconnections between prose and verse is an integral part of The Lord ...
Added: January 4, 2025
Lagutina I., В кн.: Комментарий: теория и практика.: М.: ИМЛИ РАН, 2024. С. 667–687.
This article examines the instrumentalization of literature in Soviet ideology during the Stalin era. It considers the (im)possibility for humanities scholars in the 1930-s to maintain the balance between poetics and ideology while working with classical material, in particular, to interpret Goethe’s works on the edge between Marxism and bourgeois literary studies, between Engels and ...
Added: November 27, 2024
Açil B., Alfaisal H., Askari N. et al., Oxford University Press, 2024.
Arabic, Persian, and Turkic Poetics: Towards a Post-Eurocentric Literary Theory is a pioneering book that offers a fresh perspective on Arabic, Persian, and Turkic literature in their interrelations. The authors challenge Eurocentric paradigms while creating a framework for exploring these traditions on their own terms. Authored by an international team of scholars, the chapters centre ...
Added: November 13, 2024
Федотов А. С., Uspensky P., Детские чтения 2024 Т. 25 № 1 С. 201–244
This article analyzes two of the main aspects of Nikolay Nekrasov’s poem for children, "Grandpa Mazai and the Hares" (1871) — the pedagogical and the ecological. The article demonstrates that this story about the rescue of hares during the spring flood, which is a standard selection in poetry readers in Russia, was intended as a ...
Added: October 16, 2024
Uspensky P., Париж: Éditions Tourgueneff, 2024.
Книга «Травма эмиграции: случай Владислава Ходасевича» совмещает филологическую и психологическую оптику. Обращаясь к письмам и снам поэта, его серьезным и шуточным стихам, критике и прозе, Павел Успенский рассматривает эмигрантский период жизни и творчества Ходасевича как длящуюся травму, которая и мучила поэта, и определяла созданные им шедевры. Книга выходит, когда Россия вновь разделилась на уехавших и ...
Added: April 11, 2024
Uspensky P., Файнберг В. В., М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2024.
В гуманитарном мире сложился устойчивый образ О. Мандельштама — сложного, «темного» поэта, чьи стихи нуждаются в кропотливой дешифровке. Увлеченные поисками интертекстуальных связей, филологи зачастую игнорируют первооснову мандельштамовской лирики — язык. В своей монографии «К русской речи» П. Успенский и В. Файнберг исследуют роль идиоматики в поэтическом языке Мандельштама: как поэт систематически использует фразеологию для создания ...
Added: April 11, 2024
Александрова М. А., Bolshukhin L., Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Язык и литература 2024 Т. 21 № 2 С. 293–303
The recent publication of a volume containing the Pushkin studies authored by Vladimir Markovich Markovich provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on this aspect of his research legacy. The complexity and responsibility of this task is determined by the innovative and programmatic nature of practically every article by V. M. Markovich on Pushkin, even though ...
Added: March 24, 2024
Uspensky P., Федотов А. С., Новое литературное обозрение 2023 № 6(184) С. 352–366
This article is on Nikolai Nekrasov’s canonical poem “Listening to the Horrors of War…”. Examining the text against the background of poetry of the Crimean War of 1853—1856 Crimean campaign’s poetry, the article describes its place on the discursive map of the era. The authors conclude that the poet invented a new subject of wartime ...
Added: December 23, 2023
Lagutina I., Текст. Книга. Книгоиздание 2023 Т. 33 С. 137–157
This article considers the possibility for humanities scholars in the 1930s to maintain the balance between poetics and ideology while working with classical material, in particular, to interpret Goethe’s works on the edge between Marxism and bourgeois literary studies. The anniversary edition of Goethe’s works, scheduled for the 100th anniversary of the author’s death, illustrates the ...
Added: December 22, 2023
Пригарина Н. И., Chalisova N., Rusanov M., М.: Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2024.
Ghazals of Hafiz. Texts, translations, commentaries is a long-term project aimed to prepare a complete translation into Russian of the Divan of Ghazals by Shams ad-Din Muhammad Hafiz (1315–1389), a great Persian lyricist who entered the pantheon of world literature.
This book is Part 2 of the project’s publications; Part 1 is based on the 2012 ...
Added: October 30, 2023