Keyword: «onomastic allusion»

The article is devoted to the analysis of functioning of allusive antroponym stylistic device in a literary text based on the novel “My Son’s Story” by Nadine Gordimer. The study is founded on the theoretical theses proposed in the works of V.I. Suprun, A.V. Superanskaya, N.V. Vasylyeva, Yu.A. Karpenko and other scholars. The author of the article analyses and systematizes the classifications of personal names available in philology. It is offered to regard the text-forming and stylistic functions as the leading ones. The text-forming function is manifested in the text unfolding, irradiation of the name in the context, in the deep elaboration of the author’s ideas in the creation of characters’ images. The stylistic function reveals itself in the appeal to emotive, expressive and evaluative shades of meaning of the allusive name by way of activation of eternal senses of such respectful references as Biblical, Greek-Roman and Shakespeare allusions.