Epithetation of concept "life" in M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts

The significance of the research is related to the development and application of the cognitive-semantic approach to epithetation. The novelty of the research consists of the fact that epithetation is considered as one of the leading mechanisms of metaphor formation in the Tsvetaeva’s idiolect. In this article our purpose is to describe the directions of epithetation of the concept "life" in the M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts. For this purpose, it is necessary to explain the following main tasks: to characterize epithetation as a cognitive process, to identify the main directions of epithetation of the concept "life" based on the M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts, to determine the specifics of the epithetation of life in her works. This research is based on the combination of cognitive methods of analyzing linguistic facts – cognitivesemantic, blending and lexical-semantic – component, lexicographic; the method of quantitative analysis of linguistic data is also used. The involvement of lexicographic sources, including data from The Russian National Corpus, makes it possible to compare the speech and author's use of attributive words with the concept under consideration, as well as to determine the interrelations of the concept of "life" with semantically close concepts and the antonym "death". The comprehension of concept "life" in the M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts is an existential, creative problem; earthly life is understood as imperfect and is contrasted with death, the future life. To fully describe the concept, attributes with the root alive-/life-, which are endowed with objects of the external world, were used. The transience and sinfulness of life provoke the poet to think about suicide, life after death. It is proved that that the specificity of the epithetation of concept "life" is based on the associative similarity of this abstract concept and the human body, natural objects, artifacts. The leading direction of the epithetation of concept "life" is anthropomorphic: life appears in the form of an actor, a subject. 

1. Gorbachevich KS, Hablo EP. Dictionary of epithets of the Russian literary language. Leningrad: Publishing House “Nauka”, 1979:567 (in Russian).

2. The Russian National Corpus. Available from: :https://ruscorpora.ru/ [Accessed 10 September 2025] (in Russian).

3. Dictionary of the Russian language, in 4 vols., Moscow, 1999;(1): 702. Available from: https://feb-web.ru/feb/mas/mas-abc/default.asp [Accessed 10 September 2025] (in Russian).

4. Philosophical Dictionary / Edited by L.F. Ilychev, P.N. Fedoseyev. Moscow: Publishing House “Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya”, 1983:840 (in Russian).

5. Dictionary of the poetic language of Marina Tsvetaeva : in 4 vol., 1996-2004. Moscow: Publishing House “House-Museum of Marina Tsvetaeva”, 1998;(2):552 (in Russian).

6. Tsvetaeva MI. Collected works. Moscow: Publishing House “Ellis-Lak”; 1994: 1-3 (in Russian).

7. Bulakhova NP, Skovorodnikov AP. Concerning the definition of epithet (preparation to the functional characteristic). Ecology of Language and Communicative Practice, 2017; 2(9):122‒143 (in Russian).

8. Arnold IV. Stylistics. Modern English language. Moscow: Publishing House “Flinta”; “Nauka”; 2002:384 (in Russian).

9. Grashchenkov PV, Lyutikova EA. Adjectives in typology and theory of language: semantics, distribution, derivation. Rhema, 2018;(4):9‒33 (in Russian). DOI:10.31862/2500-2953-2018-4-933.

10. Vinogradova SA. Plasticity of semantics of predicate words. Vestnik of Tver State University Series: Philology. 2021;4(71):30-38 (in Russian). DOI:10.26456/vtfilol/2021.4.030

11. Gubanov SA. The epithet complex in the prose of Marina Tsvetaeva: linguistic mechanisms of formation. IKBFU's Vestnik Series: Philology, Pedagogy, Psychology. 2025;(1):56-65 (in Russian). DOI:10.5922/vestnikpsy-2025-1-5

12. Zubova LV. Poetic language of Marina Tsvetaeva. St. Petersburg: Publishing House “Gelikon Plus”; 2017:544 (in Russian).

13. Revzina OG. Metaphor in the poetic idiolect of Marina Tsvetaeva. Dictionary of the poetic language of Marina Tsvetaeva, in 4 vol, 1999;3(1):5-30. (in Russian).

14. Lyapon MV. Prose of Tsvetaeva. Experience of reconstruction of the author’s speech portrait. Moscow: Publishing House “Languages of Slavic cultures”, 2010:528. (in Russian).

15. Krylov VN, Kuchumova MO. Metonymy in the structure of Marina Tsvetaeva’s prose. Vestnik of Tomsk State University. Philology. 2020;68:267–279. (in Russian). DOI:10.17223/19986645/68/13.

16. Dzyuba EV. Concepts “life” and “death” in the M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts: Summary of Candidate’s dissertation (Philology). Ekaterinburg: 2001:21 (in Russian).

17. Dzyuba EV. Concepts “life” and “death” in the M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts. Vestnik of Ural State Pedagogical University. Linguistics. 2005;(15):181–189 (in Russian).

18. Chetverikova OV. Figurative and metaphorical structures of the concept “life” in the poetry M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic texts. Izvestia: Herzen University Journal of Humanities & Sciences. 2009;(110):156–162 (in Russian).

19. Tsvetaeva MI. Unpublished. Summary notebooks. Moscow: Publishing House “Ellis-Lak”; 1997:640 (in Russian).