Yazykov’s stanzaic forms

Although Lermontov’s use of unusual and long stanzaic forms is well known, fewer are aware that Yazykov also experimented extensively with unusual and even unique stanzaic forms. This article begins by examining Yazykov’s use of stanzas in general. The frequency of 4-, 5-, 6-, and 8-line stanzas in his poetry is similar to that of other poets. However, he has only one poem in couplets and none at all in 3-line stanzas; he also uses very few traditional forms. On the other hand, he has several poems in 9 line stanzas, and of his 79 poems that employ identical, graphically divided stanzas, nine use stanzas with more than ten lines. Among the most striking works in this regard are «K…» («Vami nekogda plenennyi..»), consisting of two 26-line stanzas; «Poet», which employs 18-line stanzas; and «Kubok», with stanzas that contain 17 lines. In general, in works where Yazykov separates each stanza from the stanza that follows with a blank line, his poems tend to be more varied in their formal features; the undivided poems are more conservative in this regard. His poetry also varies diachronically: most of his long stanzas, for example, appear in the poems that he wrote during his Moscow years (1829–1831). During that time he also widened his use of meters, though his metrical repertoire remained fairly narrow. The most notable formal quality of his poetry turns out to be precisely the unusual and highly original stanzas that he cultivated.