ИСТИНА

Fantasy fiction is a type of literature defined as modern mythology. One of the characteristic elements of typical fantasy fiction is a quest – a plot based on hero’s travel through space. Quest differs from trips depicted in other kinds of literature works: quest is bound with hero’s spiritual and mental change and growth. The travel itself is the reason of this change, while it is the goal and the journey that affect the soul of the main character. The most well-known quest is Frodo Baggins’ journey from Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” epic. Therefore quest may be seen as interiorization of the changes affecting human’s soul, and the space presented in fantasy is the “inner landscape” of consciousness. Cognitive linguistics confirms that describing abstract, unknown spheres of experience through spatial notions is one of the basic cognitive patterns (it is a cognitive metaphor). So landscapes depicted in fantasy fiction are the perceiving the paths of thinking and spiritual changing as active process. In my report I plan to analyze which spatial notions are relevant to the fantasy works. Their structure, combinatorics and interaction in kind of literature, freed from the demand of probability, will show the unconscious model of the world and of human’s mentality as it is understood by the contemporary myth.