VERBAL ACTUALISATION OF HOLOGRAPHIC EFFECTS IN URBAN SPACE DESCRIPTION (A STUDY OF VIRGINIA WOOLF’S "MRS DALLOWAY")

Abstract

This paper highlights the current state of interpreting the concept of space in literary text as a trend in present-day philological studies. This concept reflects the internal structural and compositional features of literary text and its fragments, further determining its genre features and the author’s individual style characteristics. The paper systematizes the theoretical foundations for the study of literary space, while clarifying the phenomenon of urban space, viewed from semantic and structural perspectives. It focuses on the combination and integration of various semiotic codes and modes of perception against the background of the artistic imitation of other arts, including architecture. The effect of portraying the majesty and congestion of the urban life, its noisy and vibrant nature is achieved due to combining a variety of techniques, which provides a three-dimensional description of the cityscape. The research reveals the mechanisms of verbal holography in the system of urban space representational modes in Virginia Woolf ‘s "Mrs Dalloway", reached through implicit and explicit multimodality along with manifestations of intermediality. Describing the life of London with Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster as its symbols, Virginia Woolf skillfully combines their audible and visual facets not only as of artifacts, but also as part of nature, emphasizing its impact on the atmosphere of the city. The research proves that verbal manifestations of multimodality, detected in the course of analysis, reinforce each other, clearly demonstrating the liveliness and fullness of urban London. The paper concludes with outlining vectors of further research addressing holographic effects in spatial descriptions of cities and towns, while systematizing verbal means used to represent urban space in English literary prose of modernism, as well as defining their functions in literary works by British and American modernist writers.