Volkovinskyі O. Epithet as an element of architectonics and the inner form of a literary work.

The thesis investigates issues in the theory of epithet, its aesthetic nature and functions in literary texts, general questions and further development of the poetics of epithet from the theoretical and applied standpoints. A suggestion is put forward to the effect that the notion of "epithet structure", denoting the verbal and the imagistic unity of the signifier and the signified, should be used during the analysis of the specific illustrative speech material. The dual nature of the structure of epithet, which combines on an equal footing the signifier and the signified, is emphasized from the point of view of the receptive and anthropological poetics, philological teleology. An attempt is made to single out epithet studies as an independent branch of modern philology and culture studies, to systematize methodological principles, terminology as well as methods of analysis aimed at determining features of functions that epithet structures assume in literary texts. From the point of view of the interaction between the architectonics and the inner form of a literary work, it is proposed to use such notions as the "epithet system", the "poetics of epithets" and the "emphatic nature of epithets". The analysis is based on a wide range of samples from Ukrainian and world literature.