The existential semantics of the somatic metaphor in the poetic picture of the world in the early 20th century

The article is devoted to the analysis of the specifics of constructing a bodily metaphor as one of the key features of the poetic model of the world in the early 20th century and the ways to endow it with an ontological status. Therefore, the research aims to analyze the structure of the bodily metaphor, shedding light on its existential semantics in the poetic context. The object of scientific reflection is two leading trends in the poetic culture of the Silver Age – acmeism and the avant-garde. The choice of literary schools is determined by the commonality of the cultural field and aesthetic attitudes. The article identifies the key principles of constructing a bodily metaphor. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the first attempt to analyze the structure of bodily metaphor by identifying the fundamental artistic principles and techniques of its modeling in the poetic works of the early 20th century. As a result of the study, it was found that the body and physicality in the lyrics of the studied poets is the main image-affirming and world-modeling metaphor and the “measure” of the entire poetic space. The bodily metaphor is realized in end-to-end metaphorical lines, in which the body correlates with nature (living and inanimate), space, food, the material and objective world. The key principle of the representation of the bodily metaphor is realized through total analogy, according to which everything has a bodily analogy. This phenomenon found its embodiment in metamorphism as the leading principle of constructing a poetic picture of the world, which, in turn, determined the specifics of the verbalization of the somatosphere. With the help of these processes, the bodily metaphor produces ontological semantics and becomes a key component in the poetic universe.