«LIGHTED» LONGFELLOW: THE CONCEPT OF LIGHT IN THE CHANGING STYLE

Abstract

The necessity of the study of different author’s conceptual sphere to obtain more profound knowledge of the issue how the mental picture of the world is realized in speech has become a generally accepted fact in linguistics. In this article the attention is focused on the role, its changes and specific features of the concept Light verbalization in metaphoric system of a famous American romantic poet H. Longfellow. Conclusions are made on the basis of the analysis of the database which includes lyrical poems in the collections published during the author’s life with the total of over 2000 verse lines. The research utilizes the method of analysis of metaphor as a two-member structure which realizes the transfer of features from the source domain (right element of metaphoric model) to the target domain (left element). Longfellow’s literary works are divided into three periods on the basis of biographical data. The first period embraces the beginning of the 1820-s when the young and yet unknown to the public poet published his early works. The second period lasts from 1826 till the beginning of the Civil War in the USA which became the crucial moment in the life and literature of the country. The final period encompasses the remaining part of the poet’s works. The carried out analysis has showed that being one of the most frequent and most productive concepts in the creation of metaphoric models, the concept Light is one of major units of Longfellow’s conceptual sphere. Thus, aesthetic evaluation of Longfellow’s verses as light, which is expressed by a number of critics, to a great extent reflects subconscious perception of the role of the concept Light in the poet’s mental model of the world. Besides, the analysis made it possible to establish a number of facts concerning Longfellow’s individual style which have not been known up to this moment. Longfellow began with the evaluation of light as one of the mysteries and then proceeded to the understanding of light as an intuitively clear phenomenon. This alteration did not affect permanently positive perception of light by the poet and the verbalization of the corresponding concept. From the point of view of lexical representation, the light in the texts by Longfellow possesses positive connotation, it is the source of strength, beauty and hope. Longfellow views Light as a primarily natural source of light. Verbalization of Light in metaphor is explicitly differentiates this concept from the concept Sound which is characterized by low frequency and negative connotation.