СONCEPTUAL BASIS OF REPRESENTATION OF THE IMAGE OF GOD IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE

The article carries out research into direct and indirect nominations of God in early medieval linguoculture and puts forward an argument that extended network of synonyms denoting God results from peculiarities of ancient poetic style as well as understanding of the concept of God in early Christian culture. The article offers etymological survey and analysis of conceptual meanings which contributed to changeability and an extended amount of nominations of God. It is assumed that this diversity results from different pictures of the world: mythopoetic, tribal, heroic and Christian. The word God as a concept name contains a maximum quantity of mythological meanings and is correlated to a number of pagan concepts and artifacts. The article argues that the nominations of God are etymologically predisposed to a negative coloring: thus, the words God and Gast contain negative semes of ‘chaos' and ‘alien'. Still an overall coloring of the concept of God in culture is defined as positive that is revealed on stylistic and conceptual levels. An analysis of lexicographic sources proved that the most recurrent characteristic features of God are expressed by positively-colored epithets which correspond to core values of Early Medieval culture. Such values are expressed by the concepts of joy, happiness, judgement / fairness, protection, obedience, trust and glory. Such a variety of nominations of God contributes to an extended metaphorical re-interpretation of this concept in Early Medieval poetic practice: development of poetic synonymity is parallel to semantic peculiarities of understanding of God in different periods of culture