STUDYING IMAGES-SYMBOLS AT UKRAINIAN LITERATURE LESSONS

Admitting that literature is an art of the word, we should acknowledge that students’ work at the level of language organization of the text, which includes images-symbols, is of great importance. The paper’s author reveals his own methodological and literature studies propositions concerning an important didactical problem, i.e. the complex study of images-symbols on the basis of chronotopical structure of literature sources, their ideas and themes, word expression of symbolical creations. The main idea of the paper is that comprehension of images-symbols, their contents and artistic value should be based on the complete systematic analysis of a piece of literature, being a part of it. Images-symbols should be treated as specific «debris» (H.-G. Gadamer) of an artistic structure of the text in which they are an organic part and therefore can be explained only as its component. The author illustrates his statements with the help of enormous literature material, included to the school curriculum. This include works by T. Shevchenko («Caucasus»), P. Kulish («The Black Council»), I. Franko («Faded Leaves», «Jay’s Wing», «The Legend about Eternal Life»), M. Kotsiubynskyi («Intermezzo»), V. Stefanyk («The Stone Cross») etc. It is demonstrated on the example of some of these pieces of literature that symbolic images play a unifying and generalizing role in the organization of a literary text, ensuring the expression of author’s main ideas. This is why the scientist suggests studying symbolic images at the final stage of literary work analysis, when students have mastered the entire system of meanings, which are embedded in the text, and the specificity of their figurative expression with the help of many other means used by the writer. As a result, the study of symbols becomes a kind of climax in the comprehension of a literary source by schoolchildren, becoming the quintessence of the artistic picture that students are trying to master. Therefore participants of the educational process should be given the task to comprehend author’s understanding of key worldview phenomena, i.e. the images of cosmos (nature), God, man, society and nation.