THE RHETORIC OF FEOFAN PROKOPOVICH AND THE ORIGINS OF POETICS OF A. D. KANTEMIR

Based on the material of the rhetorical works of Feofan Prokopovich and poetic texts of A. D. Kantemir, the article examines the specifi cs of the construction of literary works of the 18th century in the context of rhetoric. The prerequisites associated with the formation of the individual author’s style of A. D. Kantemir are analyzed, the systems of tropes and fi gures of speech in the works of F. Prokopovich and the use of rhetorical devices in the poems of A. D. Kantemir are compared. The specifi city of Feofan Prokopovich’s rhetoric is noted (the identifi cation of groups of verbal and semantic fi gures, the rejection of pretentiousness and “verbal embellishment”; the division of all fi gures of speech into three groups — for teaching, for delight, for excitation of feelings), the features of the use of fi gures of speech in the poetry of A. D. Kantemir are analyzed (inversion, ellipsis, lexical repetition, period, rhetorical question are noted as the dominants of poetry). Examples of combining several fi gures of speech within a poetic context are given (inversion, ellipsis, anaphora, lexical repetition, asyndeton; hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, inversion, etc.). A. D. Kantemir embodies in his work the genre of satire as a syncretic one; in this case, the texts are not only instructive, but also able to aff ect the emotional component. The conclusion is made about the signifi cant role of Antioch Kantemir in the development of the genre of satire, both in terms of stylistic and linguistic eclecticism, and in terms of the use of rhetorical means and techniques.