PERSONIFICATION OF FATE IN THE METAPHORICAL WORLD IMAGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE (ACCORDING TO “MATERIALS TO THE DICTIONARY OF METAPHORS AND SIMILES OF THE XIX-XXI CENTURIES RUSSIAN LITERATURE”)

The article describes the methodology for the dictionary description of personification in the sixth issue of “Materials for the Dictionary of metaphors and similes of the 19th–21st centuries Russian literature. Human”. Constructions of personifi cation are defi ned as metaphors and similes the images of comparison of which belong to the semantic category “Human”. This semantic category is characterized by great branching and complexity, the supporting words of the tropes belonging to this category are very numerous, which is explained by anthropocentrism of the metaphorical world image of literature. The technique is based on ideographic and chronological principles, which makes it possible to generalize data on the composition of the system of comparative tropes and on its development over time. The main source of the dictionary is poetry and prose of Russian writers of the 19th–21st centuries (about 500 authors). The dictionary description technique is presented on the example of the dictionary entry FATE. The a uthors have developed the semantic classifi cation of words belonging to the category “Human” acting as personifi ers, this classifi cation is demonstrated by the description of the entry. The article shows how a personifi ed image of fate is created on the basis of this classifi cation. The dictionary allows presenting a wide range of elements of this image, refl ected in the metaphorical world image of literature. The analyzed material has shown that fate is an ambivalent entity. In many cases it is characterized by fi gurative words opposite in meaning, cf. insane — wise, blind — all-seeing, evil — kind, etc., however, quantitatively its negative characteristics prevail over positive ones. The taskof future research may be to compare the image of fate with the image of doom, which is also presented in the form of a dictionary entry.