HISTORICAL ALLUSIONS IN ENGLISH LITERARY TEXTS

The purpose of the article is to identify and describe the samples of historical allusions referring to important historical events and precedent names, the knowledge of which should be part of the background knowledge and so-called “cultural literacy” of an educated person, and to present adequate linguistic, socio-cultural and cultural information for the analysed allusions. The research methods employed are determined by the purpose and objectives of the study. The main method is descriptive, implemented in the techniques of systematisation, generalisation and interpretation of linguistic material. Linguistic methods include contextual analysis, definitional analysis and the method of semantic interpretation. The article comments on historical allusions from a number of novels by the writers of the past and present, based on the precedent name of the Roman general and statesman Gaius Julius Caesar and on the historical events associated with his name. Historical allusions referring to Julius Caesar were selected from 7 works by modern authors of the 20 - 21 centuries: Agatha Christie, Mary Stewart, John Wayne, Joan Collins, Nestor de Mill, and Kate Morton. The authors focused on a special layer of stylistic vocabulary reflecting cultural, socio-cultural and cultural-historical items in the context of “cultural literacy” and possessing linguacultural value. The results of the study may be useful and interesting to specialists developing the topics of Russian and foreign literature, text interpretation, lingual stylistics, intercultural communication, lingual-and-cultural studies, contrastive linguistics of the English and Russian languages.