On the peculiarities of the individual metaphorical style of F.R. Durrenmatt

This article regards some peculiar features of the literary style of a famous Swiss publicist, novelist and playwright of the second half of the past century F.R. Durenmatt. Based on the material of one of his works "The Judge and his Executioner", the authors study the character of metaphoric means used by the writer to create imagery and emotional-stylistic expression. The results of complex multi-aspect lexical material analysis carried out in the frame of given work prove rather convincingly that the literary language of F.R. Durenmatt is distinguished by the variety and diversity of metaphorical epithets used both to characterize some individual physical, psychological, behavior features of different heroes and to create a common narrative background of the novel. As a fact, when describing the environment, nature, some particular events, situations and impressions the author prefers as a rule the usualized, erased and cognitive metaphors that are frequently used as the elements of a whole multi-part complex of stylistic devices, such as: personification, metonymy, hyperbola, litotes, comparison, grotesque, oxymoron, antithesis and many others, also aimed at realizing cognitive and nominative as well as imagery, figurative-expressive functions.