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Abstract: The object of the research embraces the onomastic space and the imagery system of the science fiction novella “The Ghoul” by A. K. Tolstoy. The aim of the study is to consider the peculiarities of the use of poetonyms, to identify the specificity of functioning of the images that participate in the realization of the themes and motifs of Gothic literature – vampirism, dual conception of reality, doppelganger theme, responsibility for immoral acts, family curse, sale of soul to the devil, mystical house, blood relationship, literary dream, relocation of souls, revived portrait, abandoned bride, and crossing of borders. The main methods include: literary historical method, contextual analysis, ideological-thematic analysis, and descriptive method. As a result, it was found that the specificity of the onomastic space of the novella “The Ghoul” lies in the predominance of three classes of names – anthro-, topo- and mythopoetonyms, which serve as certain linguistic means of creating spatial images and character images. The names in the novella participate in the modeling of the Gothic chronotope: in the creation of the chronological planes of modernity, past and long before past times and artistic spaces: Russian-Italian, ballad-chronical and mythopoetic. Such chronotope model creates a retrospective of the novella, allows the characters to rethink the modern events on the basis of their past experience. The imagery system is considered through the analysis of paired groupings of spatial twin images and character twin images. The latter are grouped on three grounds: being in mystical houses; indicating relationship by full or partial coincidence of first and last name / first name / last name; displaying features of duality and participation in parodying the Gothic tradition. Chains of paired images of characters realize the motifs of blood relationship, generic sin, and collective responsibility for immoral actions. The field of application of the results obtained includes the following: lectures and practical classes in the history of Russian literature of the second third of the 19th century, special seminars and courses devoted to the study of poetics of the names, the system of artistic images, and the individual style of the works of fiction by A. K. Tolstoy. So, the names and images determine the unfolding of the central themes of fall and reward, participate in parodying the Gothic tradition by reducing its plots, motifs, narrative techniques, images and characters, model the chronotope, play the role of a composition link, and mark the individual style of Tolstoy’s debut romantic prose.

About the author(s) :

Sergey M. Pronchenko

Branch of Bryansk State Academician I. G. Petrovsky University in Novozybkov 

(Novozybkov, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0382-3059

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 25.08.2022; date of publication: 31.10.2023.

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