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Abstract

This article is the third in a series of works by the author on the methodology of teaching literary (poetic) creativity at university and school. The article examines the practical question of how to quickly and easily learn to determine the poetic meter and the size of «classical» (syllabotonic) Russian poems. According to the author's observations, it takes an average of 60 minutes, regardless of the student contingent. The system of relevant knowledge at all levels of their assimilation and training in their use (student, reproductive, reconstructive, creative) consists of the following stages, procedures and specific actions: 1) preliminary (optional) stage: checking students' knowledge of the theory of poetry: their identification of poetic meters and sizes by examples; 2) mastering and assimilation of the «poetry thesaurus»; at this stage, such terms and concepts as: rhythm, syllabotonics, syllable, meter, foot, size, as well as five main syllables (trochee, yamb, dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest) and four additional ones (pyrrhic, spondee, amphimacre, tribrachium) are studied inductively using specific examples; 3) central stage – learning to determine the poetic meter and size by correlating the real rhythm of the line and the «ideal» metric scheme; 4) working out the knowledge gained by the students: from the analysis of examples by the teacher to independent actions; the answers are analyzed collectively, the teacher gives the necessary comments.

Keywords

Methods of teaching literature at school and university, teaching technologies, poetic meter, size and rhythm, syllabotonic system, popular versification, literary (poetic) creativity.