TO THE DESCRIPTION OF “SLIDING RHYME” AMONG 20th-CENTURY’S POETS

The paper deals with productivity, context and “semantic halo” of the abc abc (or more complex variants, abcd abcd etc.) rhyme pattern, known in Russian poetics as “sliding rhyme”. The second half of the 20th century is in the focus, however the Modernist (Silver Age) versifi cation is also described statistically, as well as the poetry of 1930s—1950s, when in the age of overall simpifi cation it still passed some formal elements of the previous epoch to the next generation. Lexical markers and semantic features coming together with this pattern are shown. Historical context of the borrowing and spread of the form is highlighted as well (with a specifi c case study on early Brodsky whose experience was crucial for its history).