Versification question, Tsvetaeva

[Molly Thomasy Blasing]

Dear Francoise,

A wonderful choice!  I own a recording of Tsvetaeva poems (read by an actress--there are no recordings of Tsvetaeva reading her work, as I understand) and the stress is, as you suggested, on the first syllable of PO-ru.  

Best wishes,
Molly

On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:22 PM, Francoise Rosset wrote:

> Dear Colleagues:
> 
> I am stumped by a line in a Tsvetaeva poem.
> (One of our students is preparing to read it for a poetry reading).
> 
> The poem is "U menia v Moskve kupola goriat," which may be found online at:
> http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/....[gibberish]
> for ....[gibberish] you need to type, in Russian:
> _U_menia_v_Moskve_ - _kupola_goriat!_ (Vërsty: Vypusk 1 - Tsvetaeva)
> 
> The issue is scanning the beginning of lines 10 and 15 , which both begin with "O tu poru, kak ..."
> 
> My native-speaker Language assistant suggested at first it was a mistake. It is not. She's not sure where to put the stress. The poem is dol'nik-like: 3-4 clear stresses with a varying number of syllables in between. Therefore we cannot rely on a more traditional meter pattern to determine the stress.
> 
> We think that "o ty POru," stress on _PO_ works best with the rhythm of the poem, but she's not sure that can be done.
> So I'd appreciate your expert opinion.
> We all thank you,
> -FR
> 
> 
> Francoise Rosset, Associate Professor
> Chair, Russian and Russian Studies
> Coordinator, German and Russian
> Wheaton College
> Norton, Massachusetts 02766
> Office: (508) 285-3696
> FAX:   (508) 286-3640
> 
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