Abstract

Freedom, fear, courage, discrete time are the basic terms for to theories ofliterary criticism describing polar phenomena, namely the concept ofcarnivalesque of M. Bakhtin and the theory of heroic art of M. Mamardashvili.The characteristics of a carnival as a specific phenomenon, free from therules of usual live happening in a specific discrete time and born our of acosmic fear as a mean to counter it, corresponds with the terminology used byMamardashvili to describe the heroic art. This gives the basis for acomparison of these theories. Mamardashvili presents a hero free from causalbonds of live and standard language formulas. He stands in the opposition tothe objective reality and overcoming the fear reaches a point where the truthuncovers itself to him. Mamardashvili calls such state a forever continuousact. It takes place in the specific discrete time not coinciding with the empiricaltime of the real life. The terms mentioned above form a common field ofcarnivalesque and heroic art. Comparison of contexts originating from thisterminology allows to elaborate the connotations of the terms and probablyextend the characteristics of the theories themselves. The article presents thepreliminary results of such a comparison.