Semantic Classification of Vocabulary in Osip Mandelstam’s Stone

A frequency vocabulary helps to understand the artistic world and poetics of the author. This article introduces Osip Mandelstam’s frequency vocabulary compiled from his collection of poetry Stone (1913). The new research methodology made it possible to analyze the semantic classes of vocabulary in the poetic texts based on their volume, i.e., their significance for that period in Mandelstam’s oeuvre. The lemmas and semantic classes were compiled using a system of automatic text processing and categorized based on fundamental motives identified by literary scholars in Mandelstam’s poetry. According to the volumes of semantic classes, subclasses, and their relationships, the SHAPE class proved to be the core semantic class. This class had direct or indirect connections with other classes in the pre-core zone, namely human, existence, nature, movement, and sensory perception. The high occurrence of the SHAPE class and its relationship with other classes illustrated the significance and variability of the idea of form and shape in the verse. It was expressed not only by naming objects but also through natural phenomena, human body, movement, and sound. Stone’s key pathos was to give shape to initially shapeless objects and fill in the void. In this respect, the collection was a manifesto of Acmeism, which opposed the poetic shapelessness of Symbolism.

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