Gubanov S.A.

Epithetation of death in M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts. Pp. 104–111.

 

UDC 821.161.1-1.09«19»

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2026.90.1.010

 

Abstract. The relevance of the research is related to the development and application of the cognitive-semantic approach to the use of epithets. The novelty of the research consists of the fact that epithetation is considered as one of the leading mechanisms of metaphor formation in the Tsvetaeva’s idiolect. The purpose of the article is to describe the directions of epithetation of the death concept in M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts. The following sources of empirical material were used in the research: the National Corpus of the Russian Language, the Dictionary of epithets of the Russian literary language, the Dictionary of the Russian language, the Philosophical Dictionary; the source of factual material was the poet’s Collected Works and the Dictionary of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetic language. It is proved that the comprehension of the “death” concept in M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts is an existential, creative problem; earthly life is understood as imperfect and is contrasted with death, the afterlife. To fully describe the concept, attributes with the root dead-, which are endowed with objects of the external world, were used. The cognitive basis of the majority of attributive constructions is anthropomorphic metaphorization and metonymization. The cognitive principle of the epithetation of the concept under consideration and the epithetation of the quality of “dead” is the association of death with love, with a desired existence. Death often has a greater value than life, is endowed with axiological attributes, becomes the central existential for the poet, who dialectically passes into life: death is real life. The poet’s understanding of death in connection with the concept of fate, the problem of suicide determines the somatic understanding of death as a subject endowed with attributes of the living. The mechanisms of epithetation of the “death” concept reveal the main idiolectic feature of M. Tsvetaeva’s speech — continuous reflection on the semantics of the word, the tendency to total identification of realities.

 

Keywords: concept of “death,” Marina Tsvetaeva, epithetation, cognitive blending, metaphorization, attribute.

 

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