RHETORICAL TPOS THE “TALE OF IGOR’S CAMPAIGN”: BEAM OF LIGHT OVER DARK PLACE OF MONUMENT

Abstract

The article proposes to consider rhetorical topos in the text of the memoir “A Tale of Igor’s Regiment”, which provide an opportunity to explore the ideological and value views of the medieval author. Following the literary tradition and canon, the author of “Slova o polku Igorevim” (SPI) could not ignore the rules of composing texts that were formed over many previous centuries, so he naturally used rhetorical topos when writing his own text of the monument. The study of the functioning of rhetorical topos turned out to “shed” light on several “dark” places of the monument, in particular: part of the initial fragment of the SPI, which is considered in the study as a typical example of the author’s use of introductory rhetorical topos; the classical scheme of panegyric superiority is formed by the author through the use of the original formula of using the epithet and comparison together; a fragment of the text, which is considered to be the “cry” of Princess Yaroslavna, is considered by us instead as a typical example of the use of a medieval topos address to the Goddess of Nature; the rhetorical topos of the glorification of Russian princes is formed by combining in the description of two classical medieval qualities of the ideal knight: reason and courage. Rhetorical topos are considered as elements of non-spatial organization of the artistic structure of the text and depend on the stage of development of the worldview of the Middle Ages, the individual creative positions of the author. It is established that the source of most of the rhetorical topos used by the medieval author is ancient times. The artistic expression of rhetorical topos in the text of the SPI monument reveals the complex and important circumstances of socio-political life in Russia during the campaign of Prince Igor in the Polovtsian lands, identifies the problem of fundamental fateful choice that arose before the prince’s wife.