EXISTENTIAL DISCOURSE OF BOHDAN BOYCHUK'S LYRICS

Abstract

Summary. The article reveals the artistic originality of the poetic work of one of the recognized leaders of the New York group ‒ B. Boychuk ‒ in the context of existentialism. His modernist poetry encourages philosophical and psychological reflections, as it is characterized by high emotional intensity and symbolism of images, with the help of which the author skillfully modeled the changing world of a lonely person filled with passions, searches, and losses. The philosophy of being in B. Boychuk's poetic texts has always unfolded in national and universal dimensions. Despite the long spatial and temporal distance, the homeland was one of the most important existential categories for the poet and his lyrical subject. Therefore, the author emphasizes the distinct existential aspect of the poetry of the “New Yorker”: it is metaphorically complicated, intellectual, and philosophical. B. Boichuk experimentally realized his emigrant experience, overcoming the traditional stereotypes of Ukrainian emigrant poets of previous generations, namely, he consciously abandoned patriotic poetry in favor of personal and philosophical lyrics; sought inspiration in “Western rather than native sources” (M. Revakovych); rejected emigrant nostalgia, affirming universal problems and personal experience in his poetry; combined “elements of European high modernism” (primarily an elitist approach to creativity) and avant-garde (surrealist poetics) through a spectacular and emotionally charged metaphor. We believe that it is B. Boychuk's life experience, his painful feelings, which are reflected in each poetry collection, that help us to comprehend the author's existential philosophy. In this context, we can trace the artist's attraction to the symbolic sign (“Graves,” “Stone Women,” poems from the collection “Kyiv Bookplates”); a radical renewal of the content and form of the artistic word (verbatim, prayer, triptych, poetic cycle, etc.); generalization of cultural and historical experience – from the traditions of Ukrainian folklore, ancient Ukrainian poetry to the poetics of modernism and postmodernism (“Ukraine”, “Blind Bandura Players”, “Yaroslavna”) and, as a result, the existential system of coordinates (motifs of loneliness, alienation, death, internal states and transformations) of B. Boychuk's poetic work is outlined.