Levitas S. Mythopoetics of Female Characters in English Gothic stories of the Late 19th-Early 20th Centuries.

This thesis is the first Ukrainian scholarly study dedicated to the female mythopoetics of English Gothic stories authored by the most prominent writers of the second half of the 19th -early 20th centuries. Based on experience accumulated in the field of modern literary Gothic studies and the concept of the Gothic myth, the author develops a strategem for analysing the transformations of female characters in such Gothic stories, as "Eveline's Visitant" by Mary E Braddon, "Carmilla" by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, "The Story of Salome" by Amelia B. Edwards, "Mrs. Amworth" by Edward F. Benson, "Man-Size in Marble" by Edith Nesbit and "The Late Mrs Fowke" by Amyas Northcote, in terms of myth criticism. The thesis focuses upon the diverse effect the Gothic novel has produced on further development of the XIX century English Gothic story. "Gothic," blended with the historical and literary process, is viewed as a live tradition in its making and transformation.