“Wild Laurel, Ivy, and Roses...”: Semantics and Functions of Phytonyms in I. A. Bunin’s Poetry

The article addresses the uniqueness of I. A. Bunin’s poetic lexicon, considering in particular the organization of the phytonymic microsystem and the functional potential of its units. The authors state that Bunin’s phytonymy is distinguished by semantic heterogeneity and includes ten lexico-semantic groups of different volumes. The basis of the writer’s dictionary is formed by the well-known official names of plants, but it also features dialectal and individual authorial units. The names of trees and shrubs, plant communities, herbaceous, climbing, spore-bearing, lower plants or their parts, fungi have are realized with different frequencies in poetic contexts. The analysis of the syntagmatics of phytonyms in poetic speech allows us to conclude that they serve not only as a tool for creating landscapes of the Central Russian sub-steppe or exotic natural landscapes of distant countries, but also as an indicator of the emotional and sensual sphere of a lyrical subject, a means of accumulating philosophical and ideological meanings and a vehicle for cultural and value-laden concepts. The authors conclude that the selection of phytonymic vocabulary for the creation of private floral images and the artistic image of Nature as a whole is predetermined by a special type of I. A. Bunin’s artistic consciousness and style, expressed in the aestheticization of the ordinary, pictorial skill, precision of detail and capacity of the symbol.