The author's specifics of the interpretation of the concepts «sadness» and «loneliness» in the novel «Loneliness on the Net» by Janusz Leon Wiśniewski

Abstract

The 21st century in Polish literature is associated with the spread of postmodernism. To express their views on the world, to reflect the past and present and to describe the future, writers turn to different genres and synthesize them. Social, psychological, intellectual, melodramatic, female novels are becoming extremely popular. It is this genre that helps the modern writer to touch on both traditional topics (love, confrontation of good and evil) and new ones, which for years have been banned by the authorities, human ethical norms (sex, homosexual relationships). Modern Polish novels are represented by a number of prominent authors, among them is Janusz Leon Wiśniewski and his novel «Loneliness on the Net». Readers are fascinated by the subtle psychology of the work, the author's focus on the study of human mental organization of the person. The aim of the article is to analyze the specifics of Janusz Leon Wiśniewski’s interpretation of the concepts of «sadness» and «loneliness» in his novel «Loneliness on the Net». Achieving this goal involves appealing to the methodology of conceptual analysis. The conceptual levels of the semantic structure of the novel «Loneliness on the Net» have been analyzed in the article. The semantic potential of which is most fully realized by a system of key concepts, signs that form the basic segments of individual-authorial picture of Wiśniewski’s world. It was found that among a large number of concepts, the writer chooses those that, in his opinion, have more value, and as such he considers feelings of love, suffering, envy, sadness, loneliness, etc. The source of the main subject-logical and emotionally expressive information chains are the concepts of «sadness» and «loneliness». In the text of the novel «Loneliness on the Net» a powerful functional load in the expression of the emotional state of the characters performs the concept of «smutek» («sadness»), which in the author's interpretation is associated with both negative and positive emotions. The feeling of sadness in the text is inevitably connected with loneliness, to which the artist attaches great conceptual significance. The lexeme samotność («loneliness») in the title of the work, for Janusz Leon Wiśniewski has a negative connotation, because it is equated with suffering, grief, loss, spiritual emptiness, which appears as «an asthma attack» and causes depression, but also positive – is a resource of harmony. An analysis of the semantic content of these concepts, their functional load, allows us to conclude that the Polish writer combines «sadness» and «loneliness» in emotional integrity with ambivalent character and shows the determining role in modern life in general and his world in particular.