RHYTHM OF RUSSIAN IAMBIC PENTAMETER IN THE 20TH CENTURY

An article deals with the rhythm of Russian iambic pentameter of the XX century. The definition of iambic pentameter and an approach to forming the corpus of iam- bic petameter texts for rhythmical analysis is described. Frequency distribution for all rhythmical forms (differentiated by the number and posititon of omitted metrical stresses). Using van der Waerden’s rank criterion it is shown that the stress profile of the corpus does not depend of the type of clausula. The notion of the stress profile type is introduced, 21 type is singled out in the corpus. The distribution of types of stress profile is shown for more than 14 thousands of poems. Caesurae of different type are found in poems in iambic pentameter, examples of poems with feminine and dactylic caesura are given. It is shown, that “verse with free caesura” to which one of the para- graphs of Taranovsky monograph is devoted, is indistinguishable from verse with no caesura and thus this notion is unnecessary. A notion ”index of rhythmical repertoire” is introduced and the proximity of сorpora of 96 authors is calculated. The influence of “average stress level” is studied. It is also shown that the law of “regressive accentual dissimilation” does not account for seven types of profile in 96 authors.