A COMMA OR SYNTAX? ANTS ORAS AND THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL OF VERSE STUDIES

The essay compares two approaches to analyzing breaks between adjacent words in verse lines. The approach first used by Ants Oras defines “pauses” as the function of punctuation. This approach has become popular with English-language scholars (Mac-Donald P. Jackson, Duglas Bruster). The second approach developed by the Russian scholar M. L. Gasparov relies on syntax. In Tarlinskaja’s analysis of English iambic pentameter, the syntactic relations between adjacent words vary from strong links-to medium links/medium breaks-to full breaks. Reliance on syntax does not depend on the erratic punctuation of early scribes and later editors of Renaissance dramas, the main object of present-day scholarly attention. The reliance on syntactic links between adjacent words has turned out to be one of the best tests of chronology and authorship, particularly of Shakespeare’s apocrypha. The study of the morphological, syntactic and rhythmical patterns of verse lines has helped to unearth rhythmical grammatical clichés and rhythmicalgrammatical- lexical formulas in English literary poetry.