The thesis concretizes theoretical and methodological foundations of gender literary studies, which are aimed at studying gender elements in the poetics of artistic works; the expediency of gender and psychological approach to the study of lyrics is substantiated. In addition to a wide range of literary methods, the study has applied psychoanalysis in those aspects that affect the subject's mental state, its relation to the parent figures, their analo-gues, to the world, and aspects that refract in the lyrical text in the masculine / feminine dominants of the artistic worldview. It was formulated the content of masculinity / femininity as anthropological and poetic categories, outlined the masculine / feminine psychogender profiles that differentiate the masculine / feminine lyrical consciousness in the text, as well as defines the narrative and conceptual strategies of its poetic expression.
Gender and psychological aspects of 20th century Ukrainian lyrics (Modernism of 1910 – 1920s, Social-Realism, (Post) Sixties, Hermetic and Carnival Poetry of the last decades, and artistic creativity of the Prague School, New York Group and other Ukrainian poets of foreign counties) were explored through the prism of identification, reference, world-modeling strategies of masculine / feminine artistic mindset and writing technique. The masculine / feminine specificity of a lyrical subject’s conceptualization of One's own body, the Other's body, the natural "body", as well as the translation of sexual experiences, is differentiated from the positions of subjectivity – objectivity, activity – passivity respectively. Feminine strategies for the reflection of physicality which are expressed in the motives of admiring one's own body, its sacrifice to the Other, in the overestimation of appearance, in the problematization of aging as self-deprecation, are presented in a wide body of texts in the main part of the second half of the 20th century. Masculine lyrical consciousness conceptualizes the physicality of the Other as an object of physical and visual activity of the lyric subject. Pre-Soviet and post-Soviet poetry, as well as the texts of the second half of the 20th century which were created outside Ukraine, present masculine / feminine strategies of sexuality segregated as conquest / partnership, capture / surrender, polygamy / monogamy, demarcation / unity of sex and love.
Artistic mindset is differentiated by gender in aspects of lyrical reflection of daughter / son relationships with a mother (mother, nature, the Earth, Ukraine) / father (father, spiritual or political leader, military leader, God) figures, and the attitude of the lyric subject as father / mother to her own child of the same and the opposite sex. Oedipus complex provokes ambivalent relationships between a subject and parent figures; but its masculine variant inspires the artistic expression of the affectionate attitude towards the maternal figure and the rival attitude to the parent figure, which is balanced by identification aspirations. But the feminine variant presents love feelings that are directed mainly at the parental image, whereas a mother figure evokes feelings of anxiety and guilt, but also it becomes a desirable role model.
In the Ukrainian lyric of that period, a masculine / feminine artistic understanding of sense-of-life, creative impetuses and ideas about one's own death is distinguished. Feminine sense-of-life policy is determined by the life-setting of preservation, the multiplication of life in the realm of nature, the care of the subject about one's own generation, home, observance of one's self, the milestone of its formation – childhood – love / marriage – motherhood – old age. The eudemonic potential of the vital setting gives rise to a positive attitude towards death in the feminine lyrical consciousness as a natural link in the life circulation. Masculine sense-of-life policies are guided by an existential and identification setting for the test (“initiation”) of a mortal risk, in which masculine (parental) status may be overcome. This setting is explicated in the lyrics of the apology of war, power confrontation, in the problematization of defeat, the idealization of the warrior-hero image, in the development of motives of sea voyages, rapid movement, force, activity, cognitive and instrumental intervention, crafts and sports with the elements of testing, competition. Masculine sense-of-life policy is set off in the Ukrainian lyrics by the national and political coloniality, which creates an additional threat to national masculinity and significantly influences the artistic reception of the perspective of heroic / tragic / infamous death in meaningful plans of resistance such as escaping.
