Lietuvių mįslės: funkcionavimas ir poetika

LTVien mįslėms, kaip atskiram folkloro žanrui, skirta monografija yra pirma ir vienintelė Lietuvoje, taip pat viena iš nedaugelio pasaulyje. Monografija aprėpia visuminį vaizdą, parodo šio žanro istoriją, paskirtį, sudėtingumą, išlavintas raiškos priemones, pagrindinius poetikos principus ir už viso to slypinčią varančiąją gyvybingumo teigimo temą. Mįslės, vieni seniausių intelektualinių žaidimų, veikė mąstymo ir kalbos formavimąsi: kaip parodė mįslių poetikos tyrimas, teigdamos pasaulio simetriškumą ir integralumą, jos kartu diegė gebėjimą pažvelgti iš kito požiūrio taško, nebijoti žaismingai elgtis su priimta tvarka, demonstravo galimybę kirsti ribas. Knyga skiriama pirmiausia folkloristams, etnologams, filologams ir visiems, kurie domisi mįslėmis, tautosaka.

ENThe author of the monograph tries to reveal the perception and elucidation of riddles by their creators; this can be discerned primarily in the riddle texts, where they seem to be talking of themselves. Whenever describing the riddles, the riddle texts tend to primarily emphasize their intellectual nature, depicting the riddling as an intense and solemn process intended to demonstrate one's knowledge, brains and creativity while being subsequently rewarded or punished. In the language, particularly in various dialects, the semantic fields of riddles and thoughts, riddling, guessing and thinking are not rigorously delimitated. The riddling situations depicted in folk narratives are ambivalent; however, we can surely assume that this process was perceived as unsafe and dangerous, while the genre as a whole must have been attributed to the chthonic sphere. In the modern times, the traditional riddles, albeit infrequently, can be encountered in textbooks, children books, even in the professional art. Instances of riddling that most closely resemble the traditional usage take place in the social networks like Facebook. […] The second part of the monograph presents a comparative study of certain motives in the Lithuanian riddles, most of which have international parallels. According to Archer Taylor, riddles from the so called series of tortures have been widespread across different countries. In such riddles, a certain object is depicted as a person that has to suffer various tortures and is subsequently murdered. In the corpus of Lithuanian riddles, the following topics can be attributed to the series of tortures - either unanimously or with some reservations: the suffering of flax while turning from plant into cloth, the transformation of corn into bread, the "trials" of quill and the clay pot.The motive of the suffering of flax or its reflections can be found in various genres of Lithuanian folklore, however, the personified image of the flax and the suffering that it endures is most exhaustively and forcibly represented in the folktale variants belonging to the type AT 1199A. Neither in the folksongs describing work nor in the song insertions in other folktales, which should have retained their stable structure longer due to the rhymed form and melody, there is no such elaborate representation of that suffering. It is therefore possible that magical and operational text performed while working with flax could not have been originally called nor perceived as the flax suffering. Most likely, the colorful metaphors of the suffering were primarily devised in the tales about suffering devil, subsequently finding their way into the stories of the personified flax, and finally, all the texts depicting the transformations of flax were dubbed as "flax suffering". Thus, the value of the ancient sacred text could have been renewed. The Lithuanian paremias directly pointing at the flax suffering are rather few, and they primarily declare the value of the clothes and that of being dressed instead of being naked. […] Yet another subject of research in this monograph is an international riddle type about the quill pen, which could be provisionally entitled the tortures of the quill. […] The third part of the book deals with the system of the poetic imagery of the riddles, consisting of the following parameters: space and movement, time, personage, action, and corporeality. […].The fourth part of the monograph presents the research results related to the means of linguistic expressions used by the riddles and the transformations of meaning, carried on mainly using the method of general rhetoric suggested by the group μ. The discussed means of expressions and samples are presented according to the following operations: reduction, addition, reduction with addition, and transposition. […] [p. 541-542, 544, 547, 550-551].