Names and counterpoints of M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “The Demon”

The paper deals with poetonymological study of the text of M.Yu. Lermontov’s poem “Demon”. The poem is for the first time investigated in terms of onomastics. The features of the poem and the ways of their interaction with the poetic context are considered. The focus is on the lexical-semantic and phonetic aspects of key myth- and anthropoetonyms. The identified poetonyms go back to proper names of different categories and represent mythopoetonyms, anthropoetonyms, cosmopoetonyms, topopoetonyms (including hydropoetonyms, poetonymschoronyms, poetonyms-oronyms). The counterpoint combination of the main melodic lines produces the effect of simultaneous sounding which is created to a large extent by skillful inserting poetonyms in the composition, system of images and artistic means of the poem as a whole. The determined oppositions form a network of counterpoint relations, important in terms of meaning. As for sound phenomena, the poem reveals an increase in the frequency of the sound letters of the poetonyms in their environment, as well as the phenomenon of irradiation, sound repetitions, assonances and alliterations, rhyme and anaphoric extension of the poetonyms, emphasis.