CATEGORY OF SPACE REPRESENTATION IN N.V. GOGOL'S EPISTOLARY DISCOURSE.

. In the article the author describes the evolution of space notion in N.V. Gogol's letters written from Naples and Rome in 1837-1847 to different addressees. The letter is considered a special form of communication. One of the basic functions of epistolary communication is phatic, contact-making. The results of the analysis show that in Gogol's letters this function has a specific character, which displays in the absence of the beginning elements of the etiquette frame. This way communication seems never to stop; time and space distances are shorter; and the letter does not function as a separate speech act, but a part of the common discourse.The category of space is realised in the subjective and objective text semantics. Gogol's space perception and interpretation is very individual; it reflects his emotional state of that time. The evolution of the writer's notion of space goes from the outer space description to the inner one.The outer space is described by use of various communicative strategies. The space of Naples opposes the space of Rome. When describing Naples, Gogol uses the strategy of alienation. The space of Rome is described as familiar. It can be classified as one's own-hostile, everyday-eternal, living-non-living. Two metaphors model the space of Rome: "Rome is a book" and "Rome is a living creature".The inner space in Gogol's letters is egocentric, "populated" by emotions and feelings modelled according to the exterior description principles. The space of the soul is represented in much detail both statically and dynamically. The soul is conceptualised both as a material organ with its own shape and location and as a non-material, invisible substance.Gogol describes the space of soul as the vertically stratified one. The soul is something ideal, which connects people and God, heaven. The cosmological model of the world is realised by means of opposition earth-heaven. In Gogol's last letters this opposition bears the world outlook senses characteristic of religious thought. The vertical space model shows the anguish of the lost paradise.The "animation" model of space is realised through the space of the road. The road connects different types of spaces. For a writer, the road is a way to escape anguish, illness; to save and preserve the inner space and its harmonic links with the outer space.Thus, when describing space, Gogol's letters show two types of thought: mythological and religious. The writer's space notions are based on the nationally specific linguistic picture of the world and on the individual interpretation that reflected Gogol's grave state of mind and his writer's block. The dynamics of space description in Gogol's letters consists in switching from outer to inner space representation.

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