Amoeba composition

An amoeba composition , sometimes an amoeba composition (from the Greek ἀμοιβαῖος - alternating, alternating) is a widespread (especially in folk poetry) method of compositional parallelism, which consists in the fact that the poem in which the amoeba composition is applied has a two-part character: it splits into two, parallel developing series, and the periods included in these series are also usually paired, for example:

And we sowed millet , sowed,

Oh, dido okay, sow, sow.

And we trample millet, trample,

Oh, didd okay, trample, trample.

One of the most common types of amoebaic composition is the so-called antiphonic parallelism - the parallelism of questions and answers, for example: “Scottish ballad” - “Quhy dois zour brand sac drop vi, bluid, Edward, Edward!” (Translated by A. Tolstoy : “Whose you soaked your sword with blood, Edward, Edward ”, etc.). According to A. Veselovsky, the amoebae composition occurs in folk poetry under conditions of choral performance: wherever choral singing takes place, it is customary to form two choirs corresponding to each other ( antiphon or amoebae singing ); each choir had a " chorega " - to a chant; with the fall of the choir - the song was performed together; finally, the song was performed by only one singer and parallel stanzas merged into one, preserving their parallelism, repetition, etc.

Such, for example, is the Finnish Kalevala (which is usually performed by two singers), breaking up into symmetrically constructed pairs of lines (the second varies the first):

Golden is my friend and brother,

Dear childhood friend ...

Rarely are we together

We rarely go to each other ...

So give your hands to me

Put our fingers together. "

Old Norse songs entirely give dialogical parallel constructions; the Old French epic , for example, “The Song of Roland, ” etc., is extremely rich in repetitions. Amoebaeic composition also includes psychological parallelism common in folk poetry (an analogy between emotional experiences and natural phenomena), often drawn through the whole poem, for example:

What are you crying about, Masha

What are you shedding tears for?

Oh, how can I not cry

And how not to shed tears?

One was a green garden, -

And he began to dry out;

One was a warm friend

And he began to forget.

A folk song is still a particular (albeit the most common) case of an amoeba composition, which as a compositional technique has wider application and is inherent in varying degrees of poetry and non-folk (for example, in Bryusov - “Mason”, in Lermontov - “Waves” and people, ”with Balmont ,“ She surrendered without reproach, ”etc.). The main sign of an amoeba composition (regardless of its motivation) is “the construction of verbal material in parallel rhythmic-syntactic (and thematic) rows with simultaneous translational movement in both rows” (V. M. Zhirmunsky). Works written with the help of an amoeba composition are especially rich in all kinds of sound, lexical, syntactic, stanza anaphora .