ქართული პოეზიის `მთვარე' და `მთვარეულები'
The “Moon” and “Somnambulists” of Georgian Poetry

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the genesis and transformation of the moon metaphor in Georgian poetry. Popularity of unconventional verse, ignoring of basic poetic parameters (meter, rhyme, stanza) enhanced the depth and meaning of figurative speech in poetry. The moon metaphor took shape especially in Georgian modernist literature of the early twentieth century and modern metapoetry. J. Huizinga considers poetry within a game framework. The mystery of the poetry, the function of a riddle, game unites modern reader and the poet best of all. Every image contains the answer to an enigma through the game. In poetry this game is especially tense and excitable. The mystery of the origin of the Georgian alphabet is connected with the metaphor-symbol of the moon, and in one of the oldest Georgian folk mythological verse, the moon is presented as a writer (“the bright moon ...” “wrote letters with the sun”). In Georgian folk poetry, a poet is on a par with the moon. In the same way, a female protagonist of the Vephistkaosani, Nestan-Darejan whose constant metaphor in the poem is the moon, is also connected with writing. She writes a letter to Tariel (the sun) from the fort of Kajeti. Similar to the ancient Georgian mythological verse, in Vephistkaosani the moon also represents a poet who writes poems to the sun.

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