«THE LANGUAGE OF CLOTHES» IN THE ARTISTIC WORLD OF SEMUEL RICHARDSON’S NOVEL «PAMELA»

Abstract

The article contains the review of researchers’ opinions about the poetological function of a suit detail in Semuel Richardson’s «Pamela». The theme of clothes in the text attracts the researchers of academic tradition, which estimate a suit detail as a resource of deepening of characters, complication of a plot line of the novel. Feminist literary criticism turns to the wide sociocultural understanding of the problem. Leaning on the category of gender, femininity, masculinity, attracts attention of readers and critics to the new substantive aspects: complications of existence of a woman in the masculine world, where power belongs to the men, as well as the description of a model of conduct in a family, the meaning of Christian values that form the ideal of “the Angel in the House”. Its origin is connected with the emergence of “domesticity” concept in the English culture of the XVIII – XIXth centuries.