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Introduction. This article aims at analyzing the prose of Jerome D. Salinger ("Nine Stories" and "The Catcher in the Rye"). The main innovative element of this research is to study the prose by Salinger as an example of post-avant-garde American prose with the application of the philosophical concepts introduced by the French post-structuralist Gilles Deleuze. The benefit and importance of such research are determined by the fact that the prose developed by Salinger (especially in "Nine Stories") is characterized by a new type of narrative developed after the Second World War, similar to certain patterns observed not only in literature, but also in music and art. Methodology and sources. The research method used is coined as structural-semantic analysis. Methodology also implies the use of the main principles of the metaphysics developed by Gilles Deleuze, which is reflected in his book "Difference and Repetition", and is analyzed in scientific works on the theory of post-avant-garde art and music. Results and discussion. The fusion of the crystal-like, mirror-isomorphic structure of Salinger's prose ("Nine Stories") and fragments of the real experience rendered in his stories (such as feelings and sensations of the characters) do not even create their own "image", as I. Galinskaya writes, but manifest "a living, echoing shadow of the picture", which allows not only to interpret events, but create a special mood, sensation in the reader. In this sense, the remark of Hassan, a famous theoretician of postmodernism, is very accurate: in postmodern literature the place of "the Father God" (that is the "voice" of the reader) is occupied by the "the Holy Spirit" (that is the "voice" of the narrative beyond the actual wording). The meaning of the story (on a macro-level), as well as the pragmatic meaning of some of the statements and words (on a micro-level) lie somewhere beyond words and concepts, outside the storyline or composition, appears alongside with the pre-determined structure, as if against the will of the author. Deliberate simplicity, minimal lexical workload or density, and the absence of obvious cause-effect relationships create a feeling of "trance", which makes the reader address the story again and again in an attempt to find an accurate interpretation. Conclusion.In one of Salinger's saddest cycle of stories (in this analysis A Perfect Day for Bananafish) about the fate of the post-war generation, the feeling of an otherworldly, different presence arises. A series of repetitions gives a feeling of "difference", allows for understanding how close attention to a situation gives new opportunities for decisions, actions and meanings.

Introduction. The paper aims at describing the philosophy of transcendentalism as viewed by 19th century American philosopher Ralph Emerson, one of its founders and, above all, the direct application of this framework to the contemporary view of network concepts introduced as a state-of the art paradigm of cultural and social development, often viewed as directly applicable to the study of social processes as well as literary texts.Methodology and sources. The chosen methodology includes the structural semantic study of Emerson’s texts and the analysis of the view of contemporary philosophers of the language and literary critics on the network concept as a basis for state of the art social schemes and internet-communication principles, as well as literary texts analysis.Results and discussion. The results of the research allow to hypothesize that the philosophy of transcendentalism which attempted to give a full-fledged representation of a harmonious and dynamic cosmic principle, seeing ways of moral purification and comprehension of the super-soul has similar principles with the works by outstanding poststructuralist or postmodern philosophers (like G. Deleuze) and is directly applicable to the study of contemporary literary texts if not social processes. These concepts allow to see the development of aesthetic paradigm (a vivid example being the development of the transcendental motive in poetry). One of the possible examples could be seen in the development of poetic paradigm with а) early romantic poetry concentrating on the poet’s emotions, thus rendering the transcendental, with b) modernist writing which used language as a medium, when a poem became a means of expressing the transcendental, with c) poetry combining political views and the transcendental experience, with d) post-colonial poetry, with the transcendental being transferred from the sphere of “eternal” to the sphere of “everyday”. Conclusion. American transcendentalism allows to see common patterns of development and innovation of cultural, literary, philosophical scene, characteristic of the contemporary aesthetic paradigm.

The main aim of this article is to outline the state of the art of contemporary post-colonial literature related to the names of Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, Theodore Wilson Harris, Amos Tutuola, Grace Nichols, Amryl Johnson, Fred D’Aguiar, Maryse Conde. The theory of post-colonial studies put forward by Franz Fanon is considered to account for the creation of a new type of a post-colonial writer who maintains his own identity and is not related to any stereotypes, being in a way a Gorgon face that freezes anyone who wants to apply European or North Atlantic views on it. This sort of literature largely breaks the rules of the English language in the case of Anglophone literary sources that are considered in this research. A tendency is to develop a new kind of narrative regarding historical novel as well as classical post-colonial literature in the face of S. Rushdie or Garcia Marquez.

Introduction. The work examines the main vector of development of contemporary literary and hermeneutics studies. The main aim is to show how the view of the text has changed and what are the important tools in the process of its interpretation.Methodology and sources. Firstly, various philosophical and literary approaches to texts are considered. One of the main ideas behind the research method is the comparison of the modernist, post-modernist and meta-modernist paradigm in the process of text interpretation. Another important aspect is the consideration of symptomatic and surface reading, as an important tool in the discussion of whether the text bears any meaning apart from the directly deducable and what is the most contemporary if not the best way of interpreting it. Most texts analyzed are literary examples, mainly taken from Anglophone literature.Results and discussion. The results of the research state a number of tendencies in the view of contemporary hermeneutics. Among the general conclusion of the shift from modernist to post-modern and meta-modern patterns in the narrative. Regarding the process of text interpretation what is stated is a general tendency to see the surface l evel of the text as bearing all the necessary and important meanings. The older and more conservative approach of bringing meaning into the text is also at work, depending on the traditions. Elimination of text interpretation (or denying it its original im portance) is also an important point of view, as it states that a literary text explains more than any supporting attempt of its explanation. Another important feature is a tendency of a modern literary text to adopt characteristics of poetry. The psychoanalytic view is competing with post-modernist or meta-modernist view.Conclusion. Metamodernist tendency, surface reading and attention to the literary text itself, and not its further explanation seems to be the core of a contemporary view of literary texts, their interpretation and, hense, meaning.