[RUS][ENG]

Series 9

PHILOLOGY. ASIAN STUDIES. JOURNALISM.

Issue 1, 2014

CONTENTS

Section LITERATURE
Codes UDC 821.111 Page 60-66
Title COLOUR SYMBOLISM IN THE IMAGES OF CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK I OF “THE FAERIE QUEENE” BY ED. SPENSER
Author 1 Nikitenko Yuliya N. St. Petersburg State University
7/9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
post-graduate student
e-mail: yulianikitenko86@gmail.com
Summary The paper explores colour symbolism as an aspect of a character’s image. Besides the colour in a modern sense we paid attention to the symbolism of gold, light and darkness in the text of the poem, being aware of the medieval notion of colours that was still popular among elizabethans. The study has shown that colours were used in the poem for creation of a visual image of reality, as well as for psychological description of the characters. Also it has been established that some of the colours used by Spenser for psychological description of the characters, such as white and black, possess a fixed connotation, while the others, such as red and gold, are ambivalent and were employed for description of both the positive and negative characters.
Keywords Faerie Queene, Ed. Spenser, colour symbolism, light, gold, Bible.