Gemstones as a Figurative Embodiment of Time in Russian Poetry of the Silver Age

The article examines the language tools and ways of representing such a textual category as artistic time in the Silver Age poets’ works (using the example from the works of A. Bely, A. Blok, K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, V. Ivanov, I. Annensky, M. Voloshin, F. Sologub). The purpose is to analyze the tropes based on the names of gems and their role in reflecting the author's world view. It is revealed that the mineralogical vocabulary involved in the implementation of temporal representations is mainly constitutes of comparative tropes: metaphors (riddle metaphors, genitive-case metaphors, paraphrases), comparisons, as well as metaphorical epithets. Two ways of expressing temporal meanings with the help of “gemstone imagery” have been identified: the explicit one, when a literary text directly contains words with temporal semantics, and the implicit one, when the meaning of time is inferred from the context. Besides the names of precious (semi-precious) stones proper, the article includes a number of items from the semantic class “jewellery made of stones” (pearls, beads, necklaces) as comparative images. The article explores the role of “gemstone imagery” in the implementation of the most important motifs of the Silver Age poetry: fire and light, death and rebirth, memory and oblivion, hope, “eternal recurrence”.