The Problem of Creating a Cognitive Model of the Act of a Literary Hero (Based on A. F. Pisemsky’s Novel «men of the Forties»)

Abstract

Studying the work of Russian writers from the perspective of modern literary approaches is one of the leading problems of the theory and history of literature. Many research works are written within that framework. Designed on the basis of such an approach, this article is devoted to the analysis of one of the aspects of A. F. Pisemsky’s novel «Men of the Forties». We examined the image of the novel’s protagonist, Pavel Vikhrov, from the point of view of his committing an actively responsible act marking his place in the world. The central problem of the article is the cognitive modeling of the act of a literary hero. The article studies the nature of the act of a literary hero in the artistic space of a Russian novel; the capacity of the cognitive approach to studying the behavior of a literary hero is analyzed. The performer of the act is a hero introduced into a number of literary universals, i.e. «a man of the forties». The novelty of the research work is largely determined by the combination of literary research methods and the technologies of categorical-system and cognitive analysis of texts. The result of the analysis is an algorithm for creating a model of the act of a literary hero and applying it to a specific work. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the description of the act of a literary hero using cognitive models allows: firstly, to understand the motives of the act of A. F. Pisemsky’s hero; secondly, to discover the essence of this act; thirdly, to study the features of A. F. Pisemsky’s artistic picture of the world through the act of a literary hero.