“Conservative” verse by V.V. Nabokov: quantitative research methods and the problem of interpreting the results (article one)

The article is devoted to the problem of applying quantitative methods to describe the verse of Russian poets of different literary eras. The main research material is the poetry of V.V. Nabokov - the complete corpus of all available poetic texts of the writer. To identify the specific features of Nabokov’s verse system, the traditional “level-by-level” analysis, which implies a consistent description of the metric, stanza, clause and other levels of verse, was supplemented with a complex correlation analysis, which is based on the study of the correlation of these levels with each other. It is shown that Nabokov’s metric-strophic repertoire - even against the background of the verse of recognized experimenters of the 20th century - characterized by great variety. In total, the poet tested 47 meters, 11 of which form the basis of his metric system. The repertoire of verse models (combinations of meter, type of stanza, method of rhyming and alternation of clauses) is marked by an exceptional variety. The indicator of the diversity of models of Nabokov’s verse (that is, the ratio of the number of works to the number of models) is 1,5, with an average for the era of 1,4. The models that are formed on the basis of the 4-foot iambic are also characterized by a high degree of variability - 2,7: Nabokov develops the traditional meter in combination with numerous stanza forms, including those that were not widespread in Russian poetry. Results of the study make it possible to revise the thesis about the traditionality of Nabokov’s metric-strophic repertoire and allow us to assume that the poet is characterized by a set of experiments in the field of poetic form.