Поэтика цвета в Автоматических стихах Бориса Поплавского: Мифологическая подоплека

The colour code of the archetypical, universal model of the world, which we find in all Indo-European languages, is white, black, red, yellow, green and blue. White and black and their opposition are dominant, white generally having positive connotations (light), black negative ones (darkness). In his recently discovered book Avtomaticheskie stikhi (1999) Boris Poplavskii uses a colour system that to a great extent corresponds with the universal one. Syntagmatically, however, in the opposition white/black, black is usually the stronger one, forcing white to become negative (snow, ice, death). This leads to an oxymoronic world, in which there is a “terrible sun” and in which coldness is victorious over warmth and light.