Lozenko V. The concept "island" in the English literary thought of the first half of the XXth century.

The object is the concept "island" in the English literature of the first half of the XXth century. The aim is to find out literary specificity of the concept "island" in the English literature of the first half of the XXth century (based on works by J. Conrad, J. Galsworthy, W. S. Maugham, B. Shaw, H. G. Wells, V. Woolf). The methods are concept, aesthetic and philosophic, mythocritical ones. There have been studied forms of individual interpretation of the concept "island" in poetics of works of the representatives of different literary paradigms - realism, neoromanticism, modernism in which the concept "island" gets new interpretations. There have been found out such components as specific chronotope, a specific type of a hero, the symbol of a boat, the White goddess mythologeme, the motive of travelling, the ritual of initiation in the concept "island". These structural items have positive connotations in realistic and modernistic works even if the idea of a paradisiacal island proves false: idyllic nature, active characters, a boat as a place of acquiring new characteristics, women personifying the White goddess are represented as completely formed personalities. The same components have negative connotations in neoromantistic prose: nature is characterized with negative meaning lexemes, characters are passive; women personifying the White goddess are not able to overcome loneliness of the main character. The thesis studies the genesis and evolution of the concept "island" in the literary works of the English literature beginning with Celtic mythology and to the first half of the XXth century; there have been found out common features of the concept "island" in poetics of the studied works; has been analyzed the specificity of components of the concept "island" in different literary paradigms. The sphere is academic process.