Language and poetics: analysis of the conceptions of A.A. Potebnja’s followers. Part I: A.A. Potebnja, V. Kharzeev, B.A. Lezin

Abstract

In 1907 – 1923 in Kharkov a non-periodical collection of works of the so-called "Kharkov school" – the followers of A.A. Potebnja and A.N. Veselovskiy – was published. Its title was "Questions of Theory and Psychology of Creativity". This article deals with the works included in this collection and in one way or another connected with the theory of poetic creativity. I show that some ideas of the researchers of the "Kharkov school" are still relevant for the philosophy of poetic creativity and philosophy of education and analyze the relevance of A.A. Potebnja’s, V. Kharzeev’s and B.A. Lezin’s works for the contemporary philosophy.

A famous linguist of the 19th century A.A. Potebnja (now a classic of philology), considered language to be an elementary form of poetry. Language, he believed, is poetic in its essence; a word is the simplest, most elementary form of a poetic work. Word as a poetic work originated in the prehistoric times and continues to re-emerge in everyone who speaks and hears nowadays. According to Potebnja, understanding takes place in such a way: the meaning of a word is not directly transmitted from the speaker to the listener, but the spoken word of the speaker induces the birth of meaning in the mind of the listener from its own semantic stock, semantic reserves. Therefore, both the pronunciation (birth) of a word by a speaker (teacher) and the understanding of it (rebirth) by a listener (student) is a creative act: in verbal communication a movement of thought takes place. In the article, the relevance of some ideas of such of Potebnja’s followers as V. Kharzeev, B.А. Lezin for the leaching process is also studied. Kharzeev in detail considers such tropes as metonymy, synecdoche and metaphor from the point of view of their use in literary poetry. But the main Kharzeev’s achievement is precisely the descriptions and analysis of the elementary forms of poetry, which is the language (word) functioning according to the laws described above by the author. Lezin considers creativity as a kind of economy of thought. His ideas on creativity seem valuable for the philosophy of education.