DOI 10.52172/2587-6945_2021_17_3_43
Abstract
This article compares correlation of usage of the personal pronouns “I” and “We” in the poems of Russian poets from different epochs: from the 18th century to our time. A new term of “egocentrism coefficient” (CEC) is introduced which is equal to the ratio of the frequency of usage between the personal pronouns “I” and “We” in the poems of a poet.
Six groups of leading poets are chosen: the 18th century (10 poets), the Golden Age of Russian poetry in the 19th century (10 poets from Pushkin’s time), the first half of the 20th century including the Silver Age (15 poets), the second half of the 20th century (15 poets) and the first two decades of the 21st century (14 Russian poets and 10 Russian language poets living outside Russia).
Based on a representative text corpus for each poet the CEC is computed both individually and the average CEC for the group as well It is determined that out of 74 selected poets, the majority have a CEC above one, i.e. the pronoun "I" is more common than the pronoun "we", but there are three poets with a CEC below one. It is found that the CEC increases from the 18th to the 19th century, the most egocentric group are the poets of the Golden Age (with an average CEC of 7). Then the average CEC gradually decreases to 4.5 in the Silver Age, to 3 in the second half of the 20th century and finally reaches its low point at 2 in the group of Russian language poets of the 21st century living abroad. In the Russian poetic language, there is a decrease in the KEC coefficient of egocentrism in time and the alignment of the use of personal pronouns "I" and "we" in poems from the Pushkin era to the present day.
Key words
Egocentrism of poets, coefficient of egocentrism, personal pronouns “I” and “We”, Golden Age, Silver Age, Russian poetry, comparative analysis, frequency of word use of personal pronouns, Russian poets of the 21st century, dictionary, concordance, poetic text corpus of Russian