Budilova O. The Peculiarities of Reception of the Medieval "Exemplum" in English and Russian Baroque Literatures.

The object of the research is the prominent works of the English and the Russian literature of the late XVI - XVII cent. that disclose the ways the baroque perceives the medieval "exemplum". The aim of the research is to determine the typological similarity and national diversity of the ways of rethinking the medieval "exemplum" poetics in the English and the Russian baroque literature. The methods of the research are cultural-historical, literary-historical, comparative, typological and hermeneutic. A comparative analysis of both literatures has shown that the baroque perceives the medieval didacticism, on one hand, in terms of the Renaissance anthropocentricity and secularity (England) and folklore dominance (Russia), on the other. It is stated that the mediated kinship between the two literatures lies in their tendency to employ various elements of the Catholic, the Protestant, the Orthodox and the Jewish religious tradition. It is highlighted that the focus of "exempla" in the English and Russian baroque didactic literatures depends on the views at different points of time promoted by both religious and folklore traditions of the Middle Ages. These traditions specified different approaches to edification related to cultural needs of the society as well as organized a multidirectionality of "exemplum" in terms of comprehending the truth, the way to which is baroquely heterogeneous. Implementation field: curriculum.