«Five to one. one in five»: the number images in the language picture of the world of Jim Morrison

In the article the number images are considered, as one of the key fragments of the language picture of the world of American poet and musician Jim Morrison. The symbolism of numbers, which is important for all lingual cultures, in the poetics of Jim Morrison is manifested in a special way, because of his specific perception of the world caused by childhood experiences. In the Jim Morrison's linguistic picture of the world the elements of European (Antic, Germanic, Celtic) culture and culture of North American Indians are invented. Jim Morrison has created also his own cultural code, American one, more exactly, a code of California, and the appropriate poetics of myths, that is reflected in his poetic texts. Therefore, the number images in the lyrics by Jim Morrison reflect all these cultural codes. For example, the using of the numeral four dates back to native American Indian traditions, and the numeral seven - to European one. The symbolism of the number «five» combines several cultural and mythological and poetic traditions all at once. In the article the most interesting cases of inclusion of some of the numerals in the lyrics are presented. English quotations from the songs are accompanied by Russian translations made by the author.

Keywords

Authors

References