Game of Names in Baroque Poetry

The article is devoted to the problem of proper names use in baroque poetry.

Using the examples drawn from the poetry written in two Indo-European languages belonging to different groups, we come to conclusions about functioning of names in the poetry of baroque epoch. Proper names, or poetonyms, which is a term designating proper names of a literary text, either form poetonym oppositions being a part of antithesis characteristic to the literature of this literary movement, or they become a means of onymic play, i.e. names are used as an element of decoration, a part of a game with the reader, a stylistic device to make high genres more accessible to a wide public. Proper names in baroque poetry used in the second function make the baroque movement closer to the postmodernism, which is similarly characterized by domination of game.