LITERARY LEGEND: A COGNITIVE MODEL OF THE GENRE

Perceived as one of the major taxonomic devices, the genre also serves a means to process and reflect the world. Thus, the genre has cognitive grounds. The paper endeavours to analyse the cognitive model of the literary legend. The objective of the present paper is to ascertain the typical features of the pattern that numerous literary legends of the nineteenth century follow. The cognitive model of the genre consists of formal features, namely compulsory, default and optional ones, and idealized cognitive model, which corresponds to the author’s message. The material for analysis is the corpus of the nineteenth century literary legends written in different languages. The texts were selected by the presence of the genre signal ‘legend’ in the title or subtitle of the text or the cycle containing the text. The core formal features of the literary legend are related to its conflict, plot and setting. The idealized cognitive model may be expresses as the higher value of the world over a personage. Whatever the national variant of the legend may be, the legend mostly touches upon the relations between a person and an established set of values (law, superstition) and is embodied in the following sequence: proclaiming the rule, its break (accidental or intentional) and atonement (punishment, revenge, repentance). The collision between man and the world mainly results in the personage and reader’s evaluating some old truth (moral, Biblical law) which the personage attempted to refute. Contrary to the novel, where the personage understands and professes a new truth about the world, the legend is highly traditional. Establishing formal properties and idealized cognitive model contributes to a more precise genre attribution of literary texts, particularly the ones devoid of the author’s genre definition