SYMBOLISM OF (POST)LIMINAL CORPORALITY IN ENGLISH POSTMODERNIST LITERARY TEXTS (in J. Winterson’s novel “Written on the Body”)

Abstract

Introduction. The article focuses on one of the aspects of corporality interpretation in a literary text – on the specific features of imagery and symbolic representation of (post)liminal corporality in oneiric images of novel’s characters.The purpose. The research aims at specifying the symbolism of liminal and postliminal bodies, which textual representation in its verbal dimension becomes the object of this study.On the material of Janette Winterson’s novel “Written on the Body” by means of a complex of interpretative methods with the application of the method of conceptual tropes (metaphors, metonymies, etc.) reconstruction the analysis demonstrated complicated correlation of symbolic meaning of the imagery with their role in the text plot structure.The results obtained sustained the idea of the predominant destructive nature of the images of human body incorporated into the imagery system of the literary text under analysis and specified the symbols applied for the liminal states literary interpretation. Its results are the fragment of a full-scale cognitive-semiotic analysis of corporality as a linguopoetic category in the literary texts of English postmodernism.Conclusion. Literary corporeal symbols of (post)liminal body are marked by ambivalent nature as while implying positive events they rely on destructed body images. It contributes to generating new meaning of corporeal symbols concerned with the idea of overcoming the limits of the body in its liminal state through destruction and loss that allows renewal and passingto the next stage of life. The conclusions correlate with the tendencies of literary interpretation of traumatic and posttraumatic bodies of up-to-date society, focusing on nuances of psychological and emotional states of characters of the literary text.