GENDER PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EXPRESSING INTIMATE EXPERIENCES IN NATALIIA LIVYTSKA-KHOLODNA’S POETRY (BASED ON THE COLLECTION “FIRE AND ASHES”)

The paper deals with gender strategies and poetic techniques used to convey the lyrical heroine’s intimate experiences in Nataliia Livytska-Kholodna’s collection “Fire and Ashes” (specifically the cycles “Barvin-Zillya,” “Red and Black,” and “Ashes”). The feminine dominants and their variations in the psychological plot of the lyrical collection illuminate the features of Nataliia Livytska-Kholodna’s individual style and deepen our understanding of the feminine figurative thinking vividly reflected in her poetry. The purpose of the paper is to determine Livytska-Kholodna’s gender strategies and writing techniques and to explore correlation between feminine and masculine elements in her texts, particularly in her debut collection “Fire and Ashes”. A gender-based psychological approach is used to identify literary means representing lyrical consciousness with its mental states and emotional processes. The lyrical heroine’s feminine strategies include her essential engagement in love, a passive stance in waiting for happiness perceived as a union with her lover, and readiness to entrust him with her heart. In the dramatic middle cycle of the collection, these strategies shift under the influence of frustration to masculine ones, characterized by competition, active assertion of her interests, and threats of revenge and punishment toward her lover for his lack of love. The feminine strategies of objective self-perception, self-admiration, and unity of physical and spiritual attraction permeate all cycles of the collection. These strategies are accentuated by such feminine writing techniques as metaphorical codes of nature (flora) and dance to express intimate experiences, a broad spectrum of emotional expression — including states that reveal the heroine’s weak and dependent position — and the use of a chronotope encompassing imagination, memories, and dreams.