20 terms
Iamb
The iamb is a disyllabic foot with the stress on the second syllable (U—), one of the most widespread in European and Ukrainian versification. Iambic rhythm is considered the closest to the natural intonation of spoken language, which is why an enormous part of classical lyric, epic and drama is written in it. Iambic tetrameter is the dominant measure of nineteenth-century narrative poems and lyrics; iambic pentameter is the classical measure of dramatic verse and the sonnet. In Ukrainian poetry the iamb was handled masterfully by Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka and Maksym Rylsky. Despite its fixed scheme, living iambic verse abounds in pyrrhics — omitted stresses that lighten the line and make the rhythm flexible and conversational.
Idea
The idea of a work is its main thought, generalizing conclusion, and the author's comprehension and assessment of the depicted phenomena — that for the sake of which the work was created; its ideational-emotional orientation. If the theme answers the question 'what the work is about', then the idea answers 'what is said by it, to what the author calls'. The idea is not always formulated directly: for the most part it follows from the whole artistic entity — from the development of the plot, the fate of the characters, the system of images, and the authorial assessments. The idea is inseparably joined with the theme: together they constitute the ideational-thematic basis of a work. One distinguishes the idea as the objective content of a work and the authorial tendency (a conscious orientation). For example, the idea of Ivan Franko's poem Moses is the indestructibility of the people and faith in its future, the greatness of a leader who leads the people to freedom despite loss of faith; the idea of the drama The Forest Song is the affirmation of beauty, love, and spirituality over everydayness and self-interest. The depth, humanism, and artistic conviction of the idea determine the value of a literary work.
Idiom
An idiom is a variety of phraseological unit with the highest degree of semantic fusion, whose meaning is not derived at all from the meanings of its components and often cannot be translated literally into another language. Idiomaticity — the property of an expression to be an indivisible semantic whole — is inherent in every language and closely linked to its national specificity and the figurative thinking of the people. In literature idioms lend speech authenticity, aptness, emotional saturation and national colour. Because of their literal untranslatability, idioms present a particular difficulty for translators, who must seek equivalent counterparts in the target language. Idioms are the central object of phraseology and an important subject of contrastive linguistics and translation theory.
Idiostyle
Idiostyle (individual style) is the unique aggregate of linguistic and artistic means, devices and principles that distinguishes the oeuvre of an individual writer and makes it recognisable. Idiostyle is manifested in a characteristic selection of vocabulary, favourite images and tropes, peculiarities of syntax, rhythm, composition, tonality, in through-themes and motifs. It is the linguistic "face" of an artist, the expression of their world-view, temperament and aesthetic preferences. The study of idiostyle allows one to establish the distinctiveness of a creative manner and also serves as a basis for the attribution of texts. Thus deeply individual idiostyles are possessed by Taras Shevchenko, Pavlo Tychyna, Vasyl Stefanyk and Lina Kostenko. Idiostyle is a central concept of linguostylistics, poetics and the theory of authorship, uniting linguistic and literary approaches to the study of a literary text.
Idyll
The idyll is a short lyric-epic work depicting the carefree, harmonious life of a person in the lap of nature — mostly rural, pastoral life, an idealized calm and concord. The genre was inaugurated by the ancient Greek poet Theocritus with his bucolics and developed by the Roman Virgil in his Eclogues. The idyll contrasts the peaceful simplicity of country life with the vanity and vices of the city. In Ukrainian literature idyllic motifs are organically woven into the poetry of Taras Shevchenko — the image of a harmonious Ukrainian village (A Cherry Orchard by the House; And I Grew Up in a Foreign Land), where family peace and the beauty of nature appear as a lost paradise. Elements of the idyll are also present in the prose of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko and in the landscape lyric of Maksym Rylsky and Volodymyr Sosiura.
Image of the Author
The image of the author is the concentrated embodiment of a work's essence, the organizing center that unites the whole system of linguistic and compositional means into an artistic whole; the writer's 'second self,' present in the text. The concept of the image of the author was developed by the linguist Viktor Vinogradov in his works on the language of imaginative literature, emphasizing that the image of the author is not the writer as a biographical person but the bearer, created within the work, of a single creative consciousness, attitude, and evaluation. The image of the author manifests in the selection of linguistic means, in the tone of narration, in the attitude toward what is depicted, and in the composition. A kindred concept, the 'implied author,' was introduced by Wayne Booth ('The Rhetoric of Fiction') — the image of the author reconstructed by the reader from the text itself, distinct from both the real author and the narrator. Distinguishing the real author, the implied author, and the narrator is an important analytical tool.
Imagology
Imagology is a branch of comparative literature that studies the images of 'other' peoples and countries (hetero-images) and of one's own people (auto-images) in literature and culture, as well as the mechanisms by which national stereotypes are formed. Imagology examines how notions of the 'self' and the 'foreign' are formed, function, and become fixed, analyzing ethnic images, clichés, and 'sites of memory.' The movement took shape within French comparative literature (Jean-Marie Carré, Marius-François Guyard) and was theoretically developed by Hugo Dyserinck and Joep Leerssen (co-editor, with Manfred Beller, of the foundational 'Imagology,' 2007). Imagology is closely linked to postcolonial criticism and studies of national identity. In Ukrainian literary studies, imagological research on the image of Ukraine and 'others' in world literature was carried out by Dmytro Nalyvaiko, author of 'Through the Eyes of the West: The Reception of Ukraine in Western Europe, 11th–18th Centuries.'
Impressionism (in literature)
Impressionism in literature is a Modernist stylistic current of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that, by analogy with the painting of the same name, sought to convey the immediate, changeable impression of reality, the subtle shades of mood, the play of light and color, and the fleeting movements of the soul. Impressionist prose renounces an extended plot in favor of the fragment, the étude, the 'mood' sketch; it is marked by an open-air quality, lyricism, and attention to sensory detail. In Ukrainian literature Impressionism reached a world level in the work of Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky — the novellas Intermezzo and Apple Blossom and the tale Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors astonish with the fine nuancing of impressions and psychological states. The Impressionist manner also marks the novellas of Marko Cheremshyna, the early prose of Hryhorii Kosynka, and the 'blue' lyric writing of Mykola Khvylovy.
Incantation (Zamovliannia)
Zamovliannia are magical verbal formulas by which, in folk belief, one influenced nature, health, fate, or an enemy. It is one of the oldest folklore genres, reaching back to pre-Christian times; it unites the ritual word with action (gesture, water, fire, herbs). There are healing incantations (against fright, fever, toothache), household, love ('charms'), and protective ones. Compositionally, a zamovliannia is often built on parallelism and the formula 'as… so also…,' on enumeration and the 'diminishing' of an illness. A classic corpus of Ukrainian incantations was collected and published by Petro Yefymenko and, later, by Mykola Moskalenko in the collection 'Ukrainian Incantations' (1993). The magical word of the incantation echoes in the imagery of the Modernists, notably Lesia Ukrainka's 'The Forest Song.'
Incipit
An incipit (from the Latin incipit — 'it begins') is the opening words of a work's text, which in the early manuscript and old-print tradition served as its conventional title and a means of identification. Since early texts often had no separate headings in the modern sense, they were recognized and catalogued precisely by their first words (for example, prayers, psalms, and hymns have long been designated by their incipits: 'Our Father,' 'I Believe'). The incipit plays an important role in medieval studies and codicology: by it, works are identified in manuscript miscellanies, and incipitaria — special indexes of texts by their opening words — are compiled, helping to locate and identify a monument among numerous copies. 'The Tale of Ihor's Campaign' also opens with an incipit. The opposite concept is the explicit (from the Latin 'it ends') — the concluding words of a text. Incipitaria of early Ukrainian and Church Slavonic monuments are an important tool of archaeography.
