The graphic composition of Russian poetry of the XVIII century

The analysis research on the visual components of artistic texts shows about the important role of graphic techniques and the graphic composition of works on the page, especially in poetry. This article studies the types of graphic composition in Russian syllabic-tonic poetry of the 18th century (in comparison with syllabic poetry of the 17th century). The poetic works of 23 Russian authors of this period were used as source material. Nine types of graphic composition are identified: traditional, contrasting, offset, unifying, dissected, figured, fractional, chess, and combined. An analysis of their functioning showed the dominance of traditional graphics, which correlates with the general idea of Russian classical poetry, and contrasting graphics, which formally indicate the desire of poets to graphically mark free verse and emerging spoken verse. The remaining types of graphic composition of verse are designed either to overcome the visual monotony of the lines, to highlight the verse form, or to emphasize the relationship between the idea and the form. The article also identifies poets who were inclined to experiment with graphic arrangement: Mikhail Lomonosov, Vasily Trediakovsky, Alexander Sumarokov, Gavrila Derzhavin, Alexander Radishchev, Alexei Rzhevsky.