The functioning of a literary epigraph in the detective novel by T. Polyakova “The collector of vices and passions”

Belyaeva Irina Georgievna

The subject of the study in this work is the peculiarities of the literary epigraph functioning in the novel by modern Russian detective writer T. Polyakova “Collector of Vices and Passions”, which is a verbal not creolized text. The text in this article is understood as a written form of speech, fixed on paper or electronic media. The author analyzes the source of the quote, which became a literary epigraph, as well as the connection of the literary epigraph with the exposition, background, outset, action development, culmination, and climax. The psychological method, the method of stylistic analysis, as well as methods of observation, generalization and description are used in the work. The relevance and novelty of the study is determined by the fact that currently there is no analysis of epigraphic detectives of modern Russian writers, despite the fact that many of their works are preceded by a variety of quotations and this article becomes one of the steps towards identifying the patterns of literary epigraphs functioning in detective epigraphic texts and their classification. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite the transformations taking place in the understanding of the literary epigraph by readers throughout the work as a result of semantic ambiguity inherent in the literary epigraph, which directs the reader’s thoughts in several directions, the initial horizon of expectation coincides with the final thought of the studied epigraphic work.

Keywords:epigraphic text, detective, literary epigraph, interpretation