Essai sur le vers libre de Pouchkine

With the help of $\chi^2 $ correlation tests and regressions, the structure of the free verse in Pushkin's “Songs of the Western Slavs” is studied, which is imitative of popular Russian verse of a completely different structure than the usual metric schemes and which comprises mainly anapestic three-foot lines, trochaic five-foot lines and hybrids – anapests and trochees. The concepts of the essential rhythmic unit and of the variable complex, consisting of a variable number of unstressed syllables, which are placed between two stressed ones, are introduced. The complex is formed by a pair of words, the character of which is studied as to the number of syllables and the place on which the stress falls (left sections), while the properties of the pair itself are defined and studied by the break between the words (right sections). It is shown that Pushkin's free verse in “Songs of the Western Slavs” with constant line beginnings and line endings, can be considered as a negative correlation field between two adjacent complexes, constituting a probabilistic and aesthetic equilibrium. In studying the correlations between right sections and line beginnings and line endings one establishes their significance for the three-syllable foot lines, as well as the existence of another more important rhythmic unit – a kolon, uniting not only the complexes but also the words. At the same time using the correlation field one can estimate the secondary phenomena of the verse: stresses which do not fit the rhythmic scheme and anti-anacruses.