“INTERESTING PALLOR”: On Commenting on Poetic Phraseology

Abstract

The article addresses the challenge of commenting on stable poetic “formulas” featuring the epithet “pale” in the works of Alexander Pushkin. The research was prompted by a methodologically controversial attempt by V. S. Nepomnyashchy to interpret such collocations as a manifestation of an immanent semantic constant. Using the analysis of several “formulaic” representations of paleness in Pushkin’s early lyrics (“pale fear”, “pale envy”, “paling revolt”) as examples, the author demonstrates that the wandering “lexemes” of poetic language, despite their obvious codification, are reconstructed anew in each specific case from the concrete historical-literary context, both textual and visual. In conclusion, it is argued that for the commentator, the key point of interest is not the mere use of a cliché, but the path of its situational actualization within the text, which reveals hidden connections and meanings.