The Topos of the City in the Poetry of Ivan Franko and Paul Verlaine: The Stylistic Context of the Epoch

Abstract

The aim of the study is a stylistic analysis of urban lyric poetry of the second half of the nineteenth century, focused on highlighting the topos of the city. Research methods and techniques: the method of stylistic analysis of a literary text, thematological, typological and comparative, cultural and historical, narratological, structuralist, and hermeneutic literary approaches, as well as the methodological tools of liminality theory. Results. In the process of a stylistic analysis of the poems “Praise of Drohobych” (“Pokhvala Drohobycha”) by Ivan Franko and “Parisian Sketch” (“Croquis parisien”) by Paul Verlaine was analyzed the works of European realists, symbolists, and expressionists writers; was specified the aesthetics and poetics of Realism and Symbolism; was outlined new aspects of the interrelations between Romanticism and Symbolism. It was demonstrated that artistic imagery within a shared thematic framework constitutes a productive object for investigating stylistic constants and stylistic transformations in the literary process. Conclusions. There are few points of convergence between the urban toposes in Ivan Franko’s “Praise of Drohobych” (“Pokhvala Drohobycha”) and Paul Verlaine’s “Parisian Sketch” (“Croquis parisien”), as these texts represent different aesthetic paradigms – Realist and Symbolist. In Franko’s artistic interpretation, the city is topographically and temporally determined. It functions as a space of social conflicts and public issues characteristic of nineteenth-century Ukrainian reality. “Praise of Drohobych” (“Pokhvala Drohobycha”) synthesizes the author’s evaluative judgments grounded in observation, analysis, and systematization; satire intensifies the text’s critical orientation and performs a denunciatory and didactic function typical of Realism. Drohobych emerges as a social model of reality and an embodiment of a realist- positivist worldview. In Verlaine’s artistic interpretation, the city is devoid of topographical, temporal, social, or cultural determinacy. Nocturnal Paris becomes a space embodying the philosophy of the “two worlds”, it is a liminal dimension of temporal and spatial transitions between them (Earth – Sky, Past – Present). It is a fragment of the Universe. It is full of visual and auditory codes and archetypal images that serve as guides in humanity’s quest to comprehend the mysteries of the Universe and the Self. Verlaine’s Paris is a universal model that reflects a symbolist-intuitive vision of the world.