Stichic and Stanzaic Poetic Form in Estonian Tradition and in Europe

Abstract

In the current article I am trying to find out why two layers of Estonian song-tradition – one forming part of common Baltic-Finnic heritage and the other belonging together with European rhymed folk-song and ballad tradition – are so remarkably different in several aspects. I have, therefore, placed them into broader, European context, exploring the decline of non-stanzaic or stichic verse-forms and the expansion of rhymed, stanzaic verse-forms. Both organization principles of texts are or have been known all over Europe, but the earlier stichic forms have for the most part given way to rhymed stanzaic verse-forms, which have – sooner or later – become predominant almost everywhere in Europe. As the differentiation is explicit in the case of Estonian and the parallel traditions have been recorded simultaneously in quite recent times, the analyzing and contextualising of Estonian tradition-layers might shed some light to the developments in European traditional poetics as well.

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V članku želim ugotoviti, zakaj sta dve plasti estonskega pesemskega izročila – ena pripada skupnemu baltskofinskemu izročilu, druga pa evropski ritmizirani pesemski tradiciji in baladam – v mnogočem tako različni. Zato sem jih postavila v širši evropski kontekst in raziskala zamiranje nekitičnih oblik pesmi in naraščanje kitičnih verznih oblik. Obe obliki besedila pesmi sta bili poznani po vsej Evropi, toda nekitična oblika je bila kmalu nadomeščena s kitično in je tako postala najpogostejša verzna oblika povsod po Evropi. Ker je diferenciacija obeh tradicij v estonskem izročilu zelo značilna, obe sta bili v zadnjem času zapisani istočasno, lahko analiza in kontekstualizacija estonskih plasti izročila osvetlita tudi razvoj v evropski pesemski tradiciji.