So sincerely, so tenderly. Foregrounding in Pushkin’s “I loved you”
So sincerely, so tenderly. Foregrounding in Pushkin’s “I loved you”

Author(s): Anna Chesnokova
Subject(s): Semiotics / Semiology, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Other Language Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: literary canon; foregrounding; parallelism; deviation; Pushkin; empirical methods
Summary/Abstract: In this article we provide an answer to the question why this particular poem, “Ya vas lyubil” by Pushkin, has become so famous. It doubtlessly belongs to the canon of literary love poems in the Russian language. But why? Its fame seems to be in flagrant contradiction with its simplicity. Indeed, many readers may not perceive anything particularly “literary” in the language of the poem. In what follows, we argue that this is a mistake, and that the greatness of the poem lies exactly in the illusion of simplicity that Pushkin creates, while at the same time expressing the deepest emotions to which lovers are able. Addressing the question of how we can verify our argument, we offer some examples of empirical methods by which one can investigate the reaction of readers to the poem.

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