Symbolism of the Element of Fire in Andrei Bely’s Lyrics

Abstract

The article is dedicated to linguistic analysis of symbol Fire in Russian poet-symbolist A. Bely’s lyrics. Symbolic meanings of the element Fire is studied from linguistic and linguoculturological points of view. There defined mechanisms which allow to express both traditional symbolism of “Fire” and the individual author’s meanings, they are collaboration of mythologizes and archetypes with the symbol explicated in the text with a proper word, in our case with the word “fire”. The subject of the studying in the article is both traditional and author’s symbolism of the element of Fire. The first is conditioned by German-Scandinavian mythology and archetypes represented with binary oppositions actualizing the semantics of vertical and horizontal directions, ambivalence, animism and anthropomorphism and others. The author’s symbolic meanings are expressed according to the creation of individual figurative meanings and symbolist’s associative layer in the nearest surrounding of the symbol in the texts.

Keywords

• russian symbolism
• symbol fire
• a. bely