| Abstract [eng] |
This master’s thesis aims to analyze the expression of synesthesia in the poetry of contemporary Lithuanian poets Marius Burokas and Vytautas Stankus. The research material consists of the authors’ most recent works – M. Burokas’s poetry collection Seismografas (2025) and V. Stankus’s poetry collection Renkant kaulus (2024). A phenomenological approach was chosen to reveal the phenomenon of synesthesia in poetic texts, opening up a new perspective for understanding this phenomenon, which has been scarcely explored in literature. The theoretical foundation consists of M. Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on sensory perception and G. Bachelard’s theory of the phenomenology of imagination. Given that synesthetic images are often associated with the four fundamental elements – fire, earth, water, and air – G. Bachelard’s phenomenology of the elements is employed as an additional analytical approach. The analytical section aims to identify both smaller examples of synesthesia (stylistic tropes) and broader synesthetic structures in which sensory experience is encoded. The results of the study showed that in the works of both poets, synesthesia manifests itself through the interaction of different senses. M. Burokas’s poetry more frequently employs explicit synesthetic comparisons and metaphors, while in V. Stankus’s work, synesthesia constitutes a broader structure of perception. In M. Burokas’s poetry, all four elements are expressed synesthetically, drawing upon different senses. In V. Stankus’s poems, the auditory dimension and color synesthesia occupy a more prominent place. In summary, it can be stated that synesthesia functions as a principle for organizing shared sensory experience, allowing both direct experience and the possibilities of the imagination to unfold. This study reveals the phenomenon of synesthesia not only as an ornamental and aesthetic trope, but also as a phenomenological instrument for encoding experience. |
