Linguistic Analysis of the Poem \"Aeneid Upside Down\"

Linguistic Analysis of the Poem “Aeneid Upside Down”

Е. Blinava

The parodic poem “Aeneid Upside Down” – one of the early works of Belarusian literature – was created in the early 19th century (around the 1820s) and for a long time circulated orally before its publication. A large excerpt from the poem was first printed in 1845 in the St. Petersburg magazine “Mayak” under the title “Excerpt from the Aeneid Upside Down in Belarusian Peasant Dialect,” with a more complete version published in 1890 in the newspaper “Smolensky Vestnik” (Nos. 10, 11).

This poem entered Belarusian literature as an anonymous work, although in 1905, Yaukhim Karski expressed the opinion that it was authored by Vicentiy Ravinski, a claim confirmed in his work “Belarusians” [10]. The compilers of the anthology “Belarusian Literature of the 19th Century” (1988) and the authors of its commentary, Aleh Loyka and Vyachaslau Rahoysha, assert that “the current level of Belarusian literary studies allows us to consider V. Ravinski (1786 – 1855) as the author of the anonymous poem ‘Aeneid Upside Down’” [1], and therefore placed the text not in the section “Anonymous Literature,” but in the section “Pioneers.” However, regardless of the authorship of the poem, its significance is extraordinarily important in the process of forming the Belarusian literary language. For more than a century, the written Belarusian literary language did not develop. The emergence of anonymous works in the early 19th century was prompted by the awakening of the public consciousness of the Belarusian people, a desire to have literature in their native language. The anonymous poems “Taras on Parnassus” and “Aeneid Upside Down” became the first examples of the modern literary language.

In this context, the linguistic analysis of one of the earliest Belarusian literary works – the poem “Aeneid Upside Down” – acquires special significance.

A deep understanding of the work, the identification of the facts that determined the choice of linguistic means in the poetic context, is possible through the analysis of its language at all levels – lexical-semantic, grammatical, phonetic. However, the most important and productive is the lexical (lexical-semantic) level, as it is in the word that the informational and evaluative-expressive meaning is contained, through which the aesthetic function of the language of the work is realized.

The word creates the foundation of the work, conveys its content. To comprehend this content, to understand it, an explanation of individual words and expressions that are difficult to understand for various reasons is necessary. There are many so-called linguistic difficulties in the poem: archaic words and expressions, dialectal and colloquial words, proper names, geographical names (the latter require extralinguistic commentary).

The main characters of “Aeneid Upside Down,” a parody of the “Aeneid” by the Roman poet Virgil (1st century BC), are ancient Greek gods and heroes. Hence, the frequent use of mythological names – lexemes of bookish origin, which require special explanation (some of them have phonetic differences in various editions): Zeus (Zevyes, Zvyaves) – the supreme god, king and father of gods and men; Juno – goddess of marital prosperity, protector of women and marriage, wife of Zeus; Venus (Vyanera) – goddess of love and beauty, daughter of Zeus; Aeolus (Yaol) – god of winds; Boreas – god of the north wind; Notus (Nord) – god of the south wind; Eurus (Yavul) – god of the east wind; Zephyr – god of the west wind; Neptune (Nyaptun) – god of the seas; Aeneas, Aeneidka, Yane (Yaneushka) – legendary hero of the Trojan War; Dido (Dzydona) – mythological founder of Carthage (Karpahena).

In the list of the first edition of 1845, the initial “e” is consistently conveyed according to the Belarusian living pronunciation through “ya,” while in the 1890 edition – through “e” (this is how it is presented in the anthology of 1988). In the living language, the cluster of consonants “us” (Zeus) between consonants results in the vowel of full formation [e] Zeves, Zvyaves. In the 1845 publication, there is the representation of “yakanie” and “dzekan’e” (Neptune, Vyanera, Zvyaves, Yane, Dzydona), the inserted [v] before [u] (Yavul), the replacement of the sound [f] with [p] (Karpahen). In our opinion, contemporary editions of the poem should preserve the representation of names according to the pronunciation of that time, which more accurately reflects the original versions of the poem, considering the direct connection of the language of the poem with the folk dialect. The names Baktykha (Bakhtykha), Chyzhauski Khory, Shchuchcha (Shuttsa) require separate explanation. In the literature, they are interpreted ambiguously. Let us consider each name and present them in the context of the publications of 1845 [5] and 1953 [7] – the latter being a compiled edition based on the text of the brochure by Y. Karski “Belarusian Aeneid Upside Down” (Kharkiv, 1908). Let us turn to the poem:

If anyone saw how Baktykha

German beer is served?

It will rise like misfortune,

It will foam, the vats will burst… (1945)

If anyone saw how Baktykha

German beer is served,

How it will raise misfortune,

It will foam and burst… (1953)

According to: Anthology of Belarusian Language. Part 2. Minsk: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR

In the notes to the poem (published in 1953), Baktykha is explained as the surname of the owner of a beer cellar in Beshankovichi. But there is another explanation: Baktykha is not a proper name, but a woman’s occupation – a beer seller [6]. The very name originates from the name of the mythological god of merriment, wine – Bacchus. P. Shauctou expresses another version: beer was sold in large mugs called bakshy, which were made of clay, wood, or glass in many places in Belarus. The craftsmen engaged in the bakshy craft were called bakshy. The toponymic names Bakshy (villages in Iuyevsky and Shchuchynsky districts) have survived from the name of the profession of the residents. The authors of the commentary to the anthology of 1988 link the name with the surname of a well-known Smolensk brewer, Bakha.

Let us note that in Ivan Nasovich’s dictionary, the lexeme Bacchus is recorded as ‘1) drunkard; 2) tall, stout man’ [3]. If the people from the village did not know about the god Bacchus, the word “bachus” (drunkard) was known in the Mogilev region. Let us continue reading the poem:

Yaneushka will reach Rome,

And there he will be a King;

He will improve Chyzhauski Khory

He will build stone palaces… (1845)

The Aeneidka will reach Rome

And there he will be a King;

He will improve Chyzhauski Khory

He will build stone palaces… (1953)

Chyzhauski Khory – the luxurious palace of Prince Potyomin in his homeland, in the village of Chyzha of the Dukhovsky district in Smolensk region. In this case, the author embeds a vertical context: under Chyzhauski Khory is encrypted the name of Prince Potyomin, a favorite of Catherine II, whom the people hated fiercely.

And further:

“Look, what beggars they are! Are you bringing tar from Shchuchcha?” (1845).

“Look, what beggars they are! Are you bringing tar from Shchuchcha?!” (1953). In the comments of 1953, we read: tar – ‘resin,’ in the anthology of 1988, there is no explanation. P. Shauctou notes that tar is raw material (dry resinous wood, stumps, roots of coniferous trees) from which pitch was made [6]. V. Dahl provides the lexeme smolye, one of the meanings of which is ‘stumps, knots, and roots of coniferous trees from which resin is obtained’ [9].

The lexeme Shchuchcha is explained by the authors of the comments to the editions of 1953 and 1988 as a proper name of a locality in Smolensk region – ‘the name of a lake and a village on its shore in the neighboring Dukhovsky Paretsky district’ [1]. Let us also refer to other publications: to the text of the brochure by Y. Karski in “Smolensky Vestnik,” to the list by B. Zaleski [6]. The lexeme Shchuchcha is presented both as a proper name and as a common one; in all early lists, this name is absent.

Let us ponder the content of the work. Why does Dido call the Trojans beggars? They themselves say about themselves:

Look how we are ragged,

Shame shines through us,

All the bast shoes are trampled,

The black shirts are like this.

If we take into account that tar is ‘raw material,’ then during its harvesting from branches, stumps, roots, and coniferous trees, clothing and footwear would be very worn and ragged. That is why Dido concluded that the unfamiliar people to her were raw material gatherers.

The different sounds of the lexeme – Shchuchcha, Shuttsa, Shutcha, oshutcha – suggest that this is a transformed “succha.” Then the lines from the poem should be understood as follows: “Look, what beggars they are! Are you bringing tar from the branches?” This idea is supported by the fact that in the first publication of 1845, there are examples of the replacement of the sound [ch] with [ts], the so-called “tsokanie”: katsatyh – kachatyh (spade, spoke), petske – pechke, na perepetske – na perepechki, vetsno – vechna, za tem – za chim. Elements of “tsokanie” are found in the dialects of the very north of Vitebsk and Mogilev regions. In the lexeme Shuttsa, [ts] is the result of changing [ch] to [ts]. In other publications – Shutcha, oshutcha. The initial [sh] is also a change from s > sh. In post-revolutionary publications, the indistinct lexeme Shuttsa, shutcha was linked to the geographical name Shchuchcha.

The lexical-semantic analysis of the poem shows that there are many words and expressions, grammatical forms in the work that are not used in modern literary language. Many of them are characteristic of folk-dialectal language, and there are historical terms. Such an analysis requires a close connection with the content of the work.

At the very beginning of the poem, words are used that are no longer present in the literary language.

Yane, the lad was handsome,

The young man decorated himself for no reason

And was not cunning:

Accessible, cheerful, not greedy,

And the Greeks caused the war,

As they burned Troy completely… (1845)

There lived Aeneas, a handsome lad,

A lad decorated himself for no reason;

Though a gentleman, he was gracious,

Accessible, cheerful, not greedy.

But the Greeks caused the war:

As they burned Troy completely. (1953)

The word “handsome” means ‘agile,’ “for no reason” means ‘very,’ “decorated” means ‘beautiful,’ “not greedy” means ‘not proud, unpretentious’ and is not recorded in modern regional dictionaries. The lexeme “vuyma” means ‘many, a lot’ is Russian but is transmitted in Belarusian with the prefix [v]. It is quickly recorded in I. Nasovich with the meaning ‘quickly’ [3]. There is a cognate adjective “shvydki” meaning ‘agile, nimble, brisk’ in modern regional dictionaries.

The word “taradzeyka” appears only in the 1845 edition.

Quickly give me a snack, Heba!

Put bread in the bag for me,

Yoke the horse to the taradzeyka

And harness the eggs to the turkey…

The dictionary of I. Nasovich provides another phonetic variant: “taradayka” meaning ‘light summer cart’ [3]. Perhaps the phonetic change in the poem is caused by the rhyme – “taradzeyka / indzeyka.” In the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Language,” the colloquial lexeme “taratayka” meaning ‘light two-wheeled cart’ is recorded.

In the 1845 edition: “Ah! You lyakrutina, scoundrel!” In the 1890 edition: “Ah you, nyakrutina, scoundrel!” It is clear that the words “lyakrutina,” “nyakrutina” were formed from “recruit” meaning ‘soldier-recruit in pre-reform tsarist Russia.’ However, in the poem, the lexeme has a different, negative meaning – ‘rogue, bad person.’ Changes in pronunciation occurred as a result of assimilation, and there is also a connection with folk etymology – one who twists, a scoundrel. Many words in the following lines also require explanation:

Having come to his senses, Aeneas shouted:

“Oh, king-prince, father Neptune!

I will not brag before you,

Have mercy, you calm the sea.”

I will send you a cart of the best tobacco,

Strong state liquor,

And take the money from the bag!”

(In the 1845 edition – “cabashnoy tsartukhi; smashny siviukhi; and take the money from the bag.”)

“Tsartukha” means ‘snuff tobacco,’ “cartuznaya tsartukha” means ‘the best quality tobacco kept in a hat.’ “Sudarskaya” (state) and “cabashnaya” are synonymous concepts meaning ‘state, royal, sold in taverns.’ “Taystra” is a phonetic variant of the lexeme “kaystra” meaning ‘bag,’ “mashna” means ‘money bag.’

The characters of the poem are ancient Greek gods and heroes, and the actions also take place not on Belarusian soil. However, using the parodic form, the author showed the characteristic features of the life of his people at the beginning of the 19th century. Stepan Maykhrovich, a well-known Belarusian literary scholar, wrote in the 1960s that “this is a purely folk poem in spirit and form… a monument of the Belarusian language… The author gave his parody a distinct national color… also reflecting some typical features of peasant life…” [7]. The poem features not only ancient names. The Trojans are depicted as simple peasants, named in Belarusian – Apanas, Pilip, Prakop, Sauka:

We all come from the Trojan parish

The state [government] was before that…

The occupation of the Trojans is peasant, as evidenced by the lexemes that denote various crafts and actions related to them:

We laugh at every corvée:

We know how to watch in the brewery,

Make embers, make chests,

Put hoops on barrels.

Pilip our makes clay pots,

Prakop grinds at the mortar… (1953).

“To watch in the brewery” means ‘to work at the distillery,’ “to make embers” means ‘pits on the hearth where ash is scraped from the stove,’ “garlač” means ‘clay jug,’ “to make a mortar,” “to grind.” Among the listed lexemes, “garlač” and “zagnietka” are territorially limited; they are characteristic of the dialects of the eastern regions of Mogilev region [8].

The poem contains many names of dishes from Belarusian cuisine: “hlazukha” means ‘fried eggs,’ “hushcha” means ‘soup made from barley and beans,’ “zhur” means ‘oat jelly,’ “kamy” means ‘potato porridge,’ “krupenya” means ‘thick grain soup,’ “kulaga” means ‘thickly boiled rye flour,’ “myakotnae” means ‘dish made from grated potatoes and carrots,’ “myalyanik” means ‘pie,’ “perepechki” means ‘baked goods,’ “rudnik” means ‘jelly,’ “saladukha” means ‘food prepared from rye flour, fermented, rarely diluted dough,’ “smazhenya” means ‘jam’ (in I. Nasovich ‘jam, juice’ [3]). “Myazha” means ‘pumpkin seeds,’ “myazyum” means ‘raisins.’

Some researchers believe that “myalyanik” is a prayer book, which was a desk book in every house. Let us read the text carefully:

They entered the bright room,

Aeneas read the “Father.”

Everyone sat down at the table,

The myalyanik lay on the table.

Dido poured the broth,

She put pieces of meat in the dishes

And whitened with milk.

She boiled krupenya,

Fried eggs, rudnik, zhura, smazhenya,

For whom she baked with garlic;

There were also sweet treats:

Vyzemski gingerbread, nuts,

Myazhi and myazyumu rashaty. (1953)

If we trace the sequence of serving dishes, we will see that jellies, jams, pastries, and gingerbread were served second, while the remnants of seeds and raisins were served as appetizers. So why is “myalyanik” not among the dishes? When and how was it eaten? It seems reasonable to consider “myalyanik” not as a dish name but as a prayer book, especially since in “Smolensky Vestnik” (1890) the name “myalenik” is presented, close to “malennie,” to pray.

To create linguistic images, the author used various techniques and means, which allowed him to paint true pictures of the life of the people, their everyday life. He consistently selected from the living language of that time bright, colorful, concise, and emotionally colored words and expressions, colloquial and sometimes even coarse. Thus, characterizing Aeneas, Juno tells Aeolus: Aeneas is a seducer, a ruffian, a thief, a canal worker. The Trojans are also all “latrygi” (lazy, debauchers), all “abiboki” and “yurigi” (debauchers, sly).

The use of colloquial words, vulgarisms is a characteristic feature of the parodic, burlesque genre, which aims to lower, simplify what was spoken in classical poems in a high style. Hence the orientation towards colloquial folk language. Describing the gods and other heroes, the author seeks to bring them down from Olympus to the earth, to show them as simple people with their positive and negative traits, bringing the work closer to a living folk narrative, from whose pages the pictures of folk life would emerge, and the village speech would be heard. The actions of the gods are conveyed through verbs often with a stylistically lowered shade: Aeolus tied his bast shoes… scratched, shook his beard, smoothed his mustache, rubbed his nose, took tobacco in his nostril, sneezed all over, mumbled; and Zeus was then sitting in the barn, – he was drinking mead with honey there, without shame, like little children, picking at the floor with his finger; Aeneas scratched himself, scratched, tied bast shoes on his feet, crawled from the table to the corner…; Aeneas got disheveled, and sparks flew from his bast shoes… (disheveled means ‘came apart’).

The source of the creativity of the author of the poem was the living folk dialects and the language of folklore. From them, he drew numerous comparisons, phraseological units, individual linguistic turns: here I will twist you in tobacco; I will squeeze oil from the Trojans; you will taste the clubs; they will rub their nostrils with rye; let the tail wag; twist the head; it will bubble with bubbles [to drown]; take away from the world; from all wits they will be driven; Boreas with a hangover like a wild boar, lies in the bright room on the couch; with rye in the sea, like a dog; a beautiful girl, sweet as a plum with honey; and, like in a trance, he howled; black shirts, like this; the pipe was howling here like a bear; the whistle [little pipe] hissed like a goose and others.

Some comparisons have a socially pointed content: “And as Juno was angry, like our lady, so wicked” (1845) – in later editions: “But Juno, an evil woman, of noble descent, is wicked!”; [the Trojans] run like laborers from serfdom.

The analysis of the poetic work at the lexical-semantic level showed that the poem contains many regionalisms characteristic of the dialects of northeastern Belarus. The text of the poem also contains phonetic and grammatical regionalisms. They are more widely reflected in pre-revolutionary publications. In publications of the 70s – 90s of the 20th century, local linguistic features, phonetic and grammatical, are “sanitized” according to the rules of modern orthography and grammar and do not provide sufficient material to clarify the features of the formation of the literary language at its early stage.

In pre-revolutionary editions of the poem, dissimilative “yakanye” is recorded (ina, nikhai, dzisyatskaga, scibaŭ, zmikajem, vizitsyo, tsibe, sibe, vosin’, maish, znai’sh), the distinction between hard and soft [r] (tsar’, rozhnom’, krupen’ya, kharty and zaryavela, spryagla, brakhun, horya, vpryagi); preservation of back vowels before front vowels (k zhyonke, na kazyonke, voki, spryagi, vpryagi); the use of the ending –its’ (-ets’, -ets’) in verbs of the 3rd person singular of the present and future tense (budzits’, stiahnić, znaić, adkliakits’, zadzeć, zavyadzeć, plyveć, preć, dapreć); post-fix –s’ in reflexive verbs (vyarnulasy, paklanilasy, paraszarpalis’, rastaptilasy, achuchalis’, priyelasy); full endings of adjectives in the masculine gender (khupavy, nelukavy). All these features are characteristics of the Vitebsk-Mogilev group of dialects, northeastern dialect, which played a major role in the early formation of the modern Belarusian literary language. The linguistic reading of the text of the poem “Aeneid Upside Down” provides grounds for the following conclusions: lacking examples of Belarusian literary language, the author of the poem emerged in the literary field as an innovator, taking as a basis the living colloquial language of folklore works, creating the first major work of Belarusian literature. In selecting linguistic expressive means, the author aimed at maximizing the use of elements of folk colloquial language, creatively processing them. The analysis of the language of the poem provides valuable material for elucidating the features of the formation of the literary language of the Belarusian nation.

LITERATURE

1. Belarusian Literature of the 19th Century: Anthology. – Minsk: Higher School, 1988. – P. 65 – 69, 454 – 455.

2. Byalkevich I. Regional Dictionary of Eastern Mogilev Region. – Minsk: Science and Technology, 1970.

3. Nasovich I. Dictionary of the Belarusian Language. – Minsk: BelSЭ, 1983 (fax. ed.).

4. Dictionary of Belarusian Dialects of Northwestern Belarus and its Borderlands. Vol. 1 – 5. – Minsk: Science and Technology, 1979 – 1986.

5. Anthology of the History of the Belarusian Language. Part 2. – Minsk: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, 1962.

6. Shauctou P. Primordial. – Minsk: Master Literature, 1973. – P. 32 – 33, 78 – 87.

7. Aeneid Upside Down. Taras on Parnassus. – Minsk: State Educational-Pedagogical Publishing House of the BSSR, 1953.

8. Yurchanka H. Dialect Dictionary: From the Dialects of Mogilev Region. – Minsk, Science and Technology, 1966.

9. Dahl V. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. Vol. 1 – 4. – Moscow: State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries, 1955.

10. Karskiy E. Belarusians: Essays on the Literature of the Belarusian Tribe. I. Folk Poetry. Vol. 3. – Moscow, 1916.

(Rodnae Slova. – 2005. — No. 12. – P. 31 — 34)