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Abstract: The article interprets the synergy of figurative description and ideological perception of reality in the work of fiction under study as a process of mutual integration, which facilitates the creation of a realistic worldview due to the convergence of aesthetic and philosophical modes of its cognition. In this respect, the epic series Spider World by C. Wilson makes a relevant subject for consideration, being an original work of philosophical prose and formulaic sample of science fiction of the postmodern period. The preliminary review of the four novels of the series suggests an axiomatic presumption that their common imagery setting reflects the current state of modern society from the postmodern point of view of predicting possible future changes. The further exploration of author’s futurological project uncovers the principal importance of the first three novels, since their common epic perspective creates a total epistemological horizon for the motivated development of existential ideas along with the progressing narrative story of human destiny in the world. A systemic approach to the architectonics of the novels in question makes it possible to reconstruct their consolidated model and trace the synergic connections between the literary text and the philosophical metatext across the entire structure of the genre form. These connections come out in the semiotic space of the intertext, where figurative representations of real objects function as ambivalent correlatives of phenomenal perceptions and rational concepts of things. The discursive analysis of the discovered synergic correlations leads to the conclusion, that the philosophical conceptualization of their results is effected in the epic within the boundaries of the author’s intention to develop the methodological foundation and the lit-erary devices of creative writing in the postmodern period of literary history.

About the author(s) :

Alla K. Islamova

Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9981-0980

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 07.10.2024; date of publication: 28.12.2024

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