Authors:
L. R. Velilaeva
Crimean Engineering and Pedagogical University, Simferopol, Russian Federation
Abstract:
Any emigrational discourse can be described dually at different levels: time and place of the poetic work, plot and personages of the poetic work. Poets-emigrants while leaving the country describe Scotland as their old Motherland. At the same time they try to grow roots in the USA – their new Fatherland. This leads to the duality in their texts as the dominant and style-forming feature. Scottish emigrational poetic discourse of the USA of the XIX century – difficult supratext where different levels and cycles function. On of them is the cycle of poems of Scottish-American poets-emigrants about poets: Scottish, British, American. The aim of the paper is to analyze poetical work and determine the presence or absence of the functioning of dual opposition (old/new), which is general for the whole poetical discourse of the USA of the XIX century. The material of the analysis is Scottish emigrational poetry of the XIXth century. The paper involves such methods of investigation and analysis: typological, historic-contrastive method, poetical analysis. Cycle of poetical works “poets about poets” is represented in three groups: 1) about poets-Scottish emigrants, 2) about Scottish / British poets-metropolitans, 3) about poets-Americans, but not of Scottish origin. The most numerous in number is the cycle about Scottish and British poets-metropolitans. Images of Robert Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson became highly emblematized and mythologized. These characteristics determine ethnical specificity of the whole Scottish emigrational discourse. Cycles about poets-Scottish emigrants and about poets-Americans are represented by the images of Duncan MacGregor Crerar (poet-emigrant), Walt Whitman and Longfellow.
This not numerous row of poets (both poets-emigrants and poets-Americans) highlights their Scottish national identity. National identity and regionalism became dominant features of «poets about poets» cycle. Regionalism functions dually: 1) it is concentration on local (both metropolitan and Scottish), 2) preservation of their «Scottishness» in new social-historical context. General for the whole cycle is the accent on the autobiographical and biographical character of lyrical personages, almost absent critical description of social reality of the USA, isolation of the description of Scotland.
Keywords:
Scotland, the USA, poetry, emigration, XIXth century.
Paper submitted:
November 20, 2020.
For citation:
Velilaeva L. R. (2020) Scottish emigrational poetic discourse of the USA of the XIXth century: “poets about poets” cycle. The Science of Person: Humanitarian Researches, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 37–42. DOI: 10.17238/issn1998-5320.2020.14.4.4.
