STANZAIC STRUCTURE OF TARAS SHEVCHENKO’S POETRY

The article considers an underexplored versification aspect of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko’s work — the peculiarity of the stanza organization of his verse as an element of romantic poetics. Already in his early poetry inspired by folklore, especially by such epic genres as duma and ballad, there is a tendency to diversity and dynamism, in particular, the rejection of symmetrical equi-strophic forms and the widespread use of non-identical astrophic and mixed structures (in the ballad “Prychyna” 1837, the heroics “Gaidamaky” 1841 and “Gamaliia” 1842, etc.), the fluidity of the stanza forms is inherent also in lyrical genres (“Dumka” (I–IV) 1838, etc.). In the years of exile (1847–1850, 1850–1857) and liberation from captivity (1857–1861) the creative search of the poet resulted in a more structure and symmetry of his strophic compositions.