The article offers an analysis of the rap battle phenomenon in its poetological manifestations. Statements about the author / poet / rapper and his ideas about creation / poetry / rap, made in an aggressive, polemical environment, expose the aesthetic and ideological differences in the rap community and make it possible to problematize the understanding of rap as (not) poetry. As a result of the study of poetological statements, the most important quality of the rap battle was revealed — dualism, reflected in the name of the phenomenon, and in the methods of conceptual and communicative functioning. This dualism and constitutive contradiction are based on several lines of tension — between battle and rap itself; between personal and poetological argumentation; it is due to the socio-historical and cultural origins of rap. Battle inherits these traits, so the personal in insults can have both a direct meaning and a poetological meta-meaning. In the study, ambivalence, communicative tricks, reversal of meaning, irony and Aesopian language are combined through the theoretical concept of signifyin (g). In addition, the article highlights the main directions of poetological argumentation: “Subject of utterance”, “Rap and direct poetology”, “Audience”, “Subjects”, “Rap and poetry”, “Language and technique”.
Reference to article:
Gorelov O. S. Poetological argumentation in rap battles // Ivanovo State University Bulletin. Series «The Humanities». 2021. No.4. P. 5–19.