The bipolarity of the concept “life/death” in the discursive space of early stories by Leonid Andreyev

Abstract

The article considers the phenomen of bipolarity of the concept Life/Death and peculiarities of its verbalisation in the early works of Leonid Andreev. The main puprose of this paper is to acknowledge and describe the way and means of the concept explication of the Life/Death concept and estimate of its bipolar nature. The importance of the paper is defined by the growing interest in to realising the cognitive structure of a certain kind - bipolar fictional concept whose text-creating role in the opposite discourse has not been studied enough. For Leonid Andreev this bipolar fictional concept is Life/ Death. As N.K. Mikhailovsky said “the fear of death, the fear of life... are as such axe-carved parts” which have become dominant for the “Russian Allan Poe”. This paper evaluates how the internal Conflict of the writer is transformed into a major bipolar concept.