ZOOMORPHIC TROPES AS REFLECTION OF S. YESENIN’S AND N. KLYUEV’S METAPHORIC WORLD IMAGE

The paper discusses comparative tropes in S. Yesenin’s “small” poems of 1917–1919 and in N. Klyuev’s works written before 1919. The material under study includes tropes of three semantic classes — “Animals”, “Birds” and “Insects”. The poetic language analysis’ emphasis is made on the comparison of metaphoric world pictures of two poets, one of which (S. Yesenin) called the other (N. Klyuev) his teacher. The paper comes to the conclusion that the most exploited semantic sphere in S. Yesenin’s works is the class of “Animals”, and in N. Klyuev’s — the class of “Birds”. S. Yesenin mostly uses the images of domestic animals, whereas N. Klyuev — the images of wild birds. Besides, N. Klyuev’s semantic sphere “Birds” includes not only genus’ and species’ nomina, but also the names of mythical birds. The analysis results in the fi nding that usage of zoomorphic tropes in N. Klyuev’s lyrics mostly leads to personifi cation of abstract ideas and artefacts, while in S. Yesenin’s works the units under study partake in creating imaginist imagery, that emerge as a result of entanglement of metaphors and comparisons.