Article

Name: Plots of Russian Ballads of the First Third of the 19th Century (Based on the “Dictionary of Plots and Motifs of Russian Literature”)

Authors: Elena V. Kapinos

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section The systematics of ballad plots in literature and folklore

Abstract:

This article is an excerpt from the forthcoming publication of the “Dictionary of Plots and Motifs of Russian Literature” devoted to genre plots. It presents a list of ballad plots and motifs from the First Third of the 19th Century. The selection is drawn from ballads and lyrics by ten poets of the Golden Age (V. A. Zhukovsky, K. N. Batyushkov, P. A. Vyazemsky, P. A. Katenin, K. F. Ryleyev, A. S. Pushkin, E. A. Baratynsky, N. M. Yazykov, K. K. Pavlova, M. Yu. Lermontov). Some texts by other authors are also mentioned; poems and prose by the authors listed above have been apart for now. Ballad plots are divided into groups, the most distinct of which form lists of traditional ballad plots with a folkloric basis and are noted in folklore indexes (such as “dead groom”, “dead bride”, “robber groom”, “dead man’s revenge,” etc.).

In identifying a particular plot, we focused on research into the little plots of specific texts and on the sources of the plots referred in commentaries to academic publications. A single work may contain several plots, or a single plot line may be interpreted differently, so the same text may be classified under several groups of plots and motifs.

Keywords: lyric poetry and lyric-epic poetry of the First Third of the 19th Century, ballad plots, ballad plot description, ballad motifs, sources of ballad plots, “dead groom” plot, “dead bride” plot

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