Axiological highlights of female images in Anglo-Saxon poetic linguoculture

The article deals with research into an artistic image as a linguocultural phenomenon. A category binding the image and a sphere of culture is a notion of value embedded in a linguocultural concept. The latter acts out as a means of representing national values. Studying conceptual space of female images of queen, saint and the beloved contributes to reconstructing axiological highlights of the Anglo-Saxon period. Considerable attention is paid to studying anti-values of the given period. Prevalent values associated with the image of queen are represented by the concepts of kinship, God, king, warrior, inner state and riches. War-related values in the conceptual space of queen are caused by a military type of culture: empress Elena is also introduced as a heroic queen. Queen is associated with the following anti-values: death, devil, feud, darkness and hunger. An interaction of heroic and religious pictures of the world account for a specific character of an image of the saint in Old English literature, namely the co-existence of concepts typical of these conceptual outlooks. On the one hand, God-related concepts: God, love, glory, on the other - such heroic concepts as strength, bravery, dignity. Image of the beloved is conceptualized by the notions related to a person's inner state. The prevalent concept is grief, it is bound to the concepts of exile and separation. The conceptual space of the image is constituted by the following anti-values: murder, feud, cruelty and hatred.

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