The Poetic Language of Personal Letters by Nikoloz Baratashvili – Contaminations and Applications

Abstract

To study the artistic language of Nikoloz Baratashvili’s epistolary legacy shows that one of the prominent areas of his letters, characterised by complex meaningfulness, is the rich poetics and expressive means he utilises. One of the characteristics of the expressive language shown in the poet’s letters is the use of artistic quotes - contaminations and applications which enrich the narrative and make it more enjoyable. For this reason, the poet refers to classical texts, Biblical phrases, Georgian and Russian proverbs as well as widely known phrases from urban folklore. Taking into consideration both, the above and the fact that only a small part of the poet’s letters (18 letters in total) has reached us, although their original numbers must have been much larger, which can be seen from the texts of the surviving letters and other materials, we can only imagine how diverse the whole body of letters would be in terms of quotations.

This, together with the fact that the quotations melt into the main text organically and naturally, based on a certain artistic and functional purpose, demonstrates the high level of learning and erudition of the author as well as his exquisite literary taste and talent. If one of the expressions of literary mastery is inserting the necessary word and phrase into a necessary place, as literary critics rightly point out, this is more likely to be the case with the use of quotation types - contaminations and applications. In this regard, the letters by Nikoloz Baratashvili present chrestomathic samples of the above-mentioned.