Semiotics of mediation is based on comparative analysis of mediation processes, on typology of forms of mediation and on the subsequent complementary analysis of culture. Not only does cultural analysis that is based on semiotics of mediation proceed from communication processes, it also searches for possibilities of correlation between concepts of describability, analysability, translatability. Depending on the strategy of mediation semiotics it is possible to create an overview of the main parameters of cultural analysis and to specify the boundaries of semiotic analysis of culture. The main types of mediation are simultaneously parameters of cultural analysis. The main types include autocommunicative mediation, metalingual mediation, intertextual mediation, interdiscursive mediation, and inter- or transmedial mediation. Typology of mediation types facilitates the understanding of the autocommunicative aspect of culture and creates the basis for analysing communication processes not on the level of the immediate sender and receiver but as part of the culture’s communication with itself. Semiotics of mediation starts from semiotic mediation and ends with a culture of mediation in which one and the same cultural language or text operates as a means of dialogue with itself, as a means of communication with others, as part of some textual system or discourse, or as a transmedial phenomenon. Semiotics of mediation is a means of studying the correlation between implicit semiotic mediation and forms of explicit semiotic mediation, thus complementing cultural semiotic study of culture.

Poetry is an important challenge for semiotics, and a special area of study for the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school, since the first volume of Sign Systems Studies was Juri Lotman’s monograph Lectures on Structural Poetics (1964). From then on the concept of poetry as one of the secondary modelling systems has evolved, since in relation to poetry, the primary modelling system is natural language. In this paper, the concept of semiotic system has been re-examined and the treatment of primary and secondary semiotic systems has been significantly revised. A semiotic system can be characterized not only by its internal structure and other systems to which it is related, but also by the field upon what it is realized. The latter aspect has gained almost no attention in any treatment of semiotics; the execution of a sign is understood in the spirit of Saussure and Hjelmslev as a material realization of an abstract element (for instance, a chess piece knight can be realized with wood or plastic, but it can also remain purely virtual). At first, distinction is made between language and sign system. Every sign system consists of language and field. There are three different kinds of fields: 1) just a background – footprints on sand are a sign on the background of sand; 2) a material structured field (a football ground or a chess board in the game called Chapayev) and 3) an abstract structured field, which in its turn consists of other fields (for instance, the chess board which consists of 64 fields). Differently from a football ground, a chess board can be a purely virtual one on which virtual pieces are moved (for instance, in case of blindfold or correspondence chess). The field in its turn can be language and one language can use another language as its field. In this case we speak of primary and secondary sign systems. For instance, the prosodic system of language is a field for a verse metre, while the semantic system of language is a field for a narrative.

Rhythm should be regarded as a perceptional category rather than as a property of the work of art. Rhythm might be classified according to three principles, serial rhythm, sequential rhythm and dynamic rhythm, three basic sets of gestalt qualities that lay the foundation for versification systems.Two schemas decide the rhythm of a poem: direction and balance. ‘Direction’ refers to rising and falling movements in the line. ‘Balance’ refers to repetitions in a play between symmetry and asymmetry as well as a moment of rest.Rhythms produce meaning, probably due to the fact that rhythms activate internalized bodily experiences as well as conventional meaning patterns. This is demonstrated on the basis of a poem by Sylvia Plath.

English iambic pentameter allows rhythmical deviations that occupy three (seldom four, more often two) adjacent metrical positions. These deviations, thoughmetrical, are noticed by the listener or reader. Starting from the first quarter of the 16th century, poets (Surrey) have used rhythmical deviations to emphasize (“italicize”) semantically important segments in the line. Such rhythmical deviations have become part of the English poetic traditions. It has turned out that rhythmical deviations used to italicize meaning are filled with recurring rhythmical and grammatical structures and repeated lexicon. M. L. Gasparov used a special term to denote the recurring rhythmical-grammatical structures: “cliches”; while calling cliches incorporating recurrent lexicon “formulas”. I have discovered that formulas are part of the English poetic tradition: the same formulas recur in poetic texts of the 16th–20th cc. They are not plagiarisms, allusionsor reminiscences; they are a common basket of goods that belong to all English poets, used by all and owned by none. The recurrent deviations usually occur on metrical positions “weak-strong-weak-strong” and as a rule contain a monosyllabic (rarely – disyllabic) verb-predicate followed by a monosyllabic grammatical word (e.g. an article), an adjective-attribute and a noun – a direct object to the verb. The recurring lexicon includes verbs of motion, particularly verbs of fast, aggressive motion, an action directed downwards or causing an injury or death, and recurring nouns referring to moving objects or agents (hands, arms, wings; spear, sword). I term such recurring formulas “rhythmical italics”.

This paper addresses the high sonic demands of alliterative metres, and the consequences of these demands for sense: the semantic stretching of common words and the deployment of uncommon (archaic, ‘poetic’) words. The notion of alliterative rank is discussed as an indicator of such consequences (examples are given from English and Estonian verse) and the range of onsets found for synonyms of key notions in verse traditions is remarked upon.

The sources of the theory of the Estonian hexameter can be traced back to 17th-century Germany, where the long syllables of ancient hexameter were replaced with stressed ones, and short syllables with unstressed ones. Although such understanding is clearly inadequate, to a great extent it still holds ground in contemporary approaches. Hexameter, like any other verse metre, can be treated from two angles. First, as an abstract scheme which is realized in different texts, while the degree of realization can vary. Second, hexameter can be viewed as a prototype and actual texts create a certain space further from or closer to the prototype. In both cases questions arise, first, about the limits of hexameter, and second, whether a given text has features of a random hexameter or reflects theauthor’s conscious intent.