Theoretical and methodological basis of the concept “time” in fiction

The article deals with the theoretical and conceptual status of “time” in literature as a literary-aesthetic category, its holistic system of creative classical forms, categories, types and methods. Literary time is being concerned as the literary-aesthetic category in the world literature critical studies, expressing the scope of the universe interpretation, the author’s outlook and imagination regarding the world foundation, defining personages, the composition means of expressing the sequence and duration of the events. A creative comprehension of “time” in fiction as a means arranging the work composition, structure, and constructing an epic field of the text demands a special approach to understanding the aesthetic character of the work. Since “time” in literature includes all the elements of a fictional work, it is impossible to present the plot, composition, conflict, system of characters, feelings and the mood of the characters without the description of the fictional time. In the following development of the scientific–theoretical thought in the world, time in literature is accepted to be one of the poetic means to demonstrate the reality as well as a literary process that is basic for the expression of the reality in the compositional construction and illustration of the plot relying on the writer’s intention and the ideological conception of the literary work. The “fiction time” enables to cognate the literary world picture created by the author in terms of the descriptive subject and object of the work.