ON IGOR CHINNOV’S METRICS

The article examines the metrical repertoire of Igor Chinnov (1909–1996), one of the most virtuosic Russian poets of the second half of the 20th century. Author analyzes the general quantitative characteristics of poet’s meters and other formal parameters utilized by Chinnov and their distribution in diff erent periods of his work. In the article, those periods of his poetry is distinguished: the poetics of the “Parisian note,” that of baroque, and of the grotesque, each of which has distinct formal correlates. The ascetic poetics of the “Parisian note” is characterized by the predominance of classical metrics with a high proportion of binary meters (along with the characteristic for Chinnov anapestic dimeter), but at the same time by experiments with strict stress meters, which have few analogues in Russian 20th-century poetry. The baroque poetics brings a noticeable increase in the proportion of ternary meters, strict stress and loose meters; in the same period, experiments with non-rimed strict stress meters and free verse also begin. The latter period, dominated by the poetics of the grotesque, along with the poet’s return to binary meters brings a certain increase in the proportion of free verse, loose meters and loosened strict stress meters; his verse in this period is either deliberately simplified, or deliberately loosened.