The thesis (monograph) focuses on the research of the national (English, Russian, Ukrainian in full and French, German, Polish in part) variants of Romantic Orientalism as the typological-homothetic and also original literary phenomena, formed in accordance with the imagological paradigm’s similar component parts. The conceptual units of that Romantic Orientalism’s paradigm are imagological position (imagoposition), imagopoetics (geocultural imago and décor imago), imagological perception (imagoperception), imagemasemantics (ethnic imagemas as the components of ethnic character).
The term «imagoposition», which has been never used in literary criticism before, is the author’s view on the Other and Own through his or her certain special markers (a social status, a psychologic state, a knowledge about describing the object). Four patterns of the imagological position concerning the Eastern («of a pilgrim», «of a traveler», «of a scientist», «of an exile person») and their corresponding models of orientalization were described.
The immanent features of Travelling Romanticized Eastern are: 1) a strong presence of the author’s biographical moments (the travel-writer describes the East in the context of his real or fantasized actions, feelings, emotions); 2) a multicolour palette of the emotional coloration of Eastern (the travel-writer’s admiration, surprise, regret, sorrow and so on, which confirms, discrowns, forms positive and negative, attractive and unattractive images of the East); 3) a combination of the oriental information, which was seen, heard, read, imagined by the travel-writer; 4) subjective geographical, natural, ethnographical, anthropological, historical and other characteristics of Asian territories, connected with the comparison between Eastern and European (for the sake of better reader’s reception and understanding) and with the constant representations of the oriental characters.
The result of imagoposition «of an exile person» is Exiled Romanticized Eastern. It has the following peculiarities: Eastern is presented in the images of «Prison» and «Captivity»; the depressed perception of the Asiatic territories through the toposes of «Grave» and «Death»; the influence of the exiled-writer’s unhappy experience on the topographic expressions of the East; the pictures of the East as the region of unfavorable climate and disease breeder; constructed on the nostalgic motives the opposition «Own (European) – Other (Eastern)», it is always attractive only European not Eastern; the exiled-writer associate himself with Asiatic geographical objects; the personified oriental images are specific messages of the author’s inconsolable emotion.
Imagoperception is the Own’s selective perception of the Other which is always based on greater or less, equivalent or not equivalent interaction between the Subject (Own) and the Object (Other). The special features of romantization of the typical and oriental perceptions («East is Exotics», «East is One’s Own», «East is an Ancient Own», «East is a Danger») were described.
The paper also presents the specifics of: two ethnotypes («Cleopatra», «Khan Girej»); ethnographic-anthropological imagemas of «Egyptian character» and «Crimean Tatar character»; the feminine imagemas of a topos of harem («a favourite», «a prisoner»); the main religious imagemas of Muslim («Allah», «Mahomet»).
