Abstract: The subject of the study in the article is the concept of meaning presented in one of the main philosophical works of the twentieth century – the book of the German philosopher H.-G. Gadamer "Truth and Method". Gadamer's concept of meaning is considered among those theories of meaning that can be defined as dialogical. In the humanitarian thought of the twentieth century, they oppose both objectivist (first of all, scientific) and subjectivist concepts of meaning. The dialogical concept of the meaning of Gadamer is considered in this work from the perspective of its significance for literary hermeneutics, namely, for comprehending the specifics of the meaning of a literary work. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by the fact that for the first time the author analyzes the characteristics of meaning presented implicitly in Gadamer's "Truth and Method", and also identifies those ideas of Gadamer that are of direct importance for clarifying the specifics of the meaning of a literary work. In the concept of the meaning of Gadamer, we distinguish the following main points: the meaning is intentional; the meaning is always correlated with several intentions; the meaning is eventful; self-identity is inherent in the meaning. For literary hermeneutics, such ideas of Gadamer are of particular importance: 1) the meaning in a work of art is freed from the "obscuring" moments of the semantic future; 2) the "game" is opposed to the "structure"; 3) in a work of art there is an "increase in the visibility" of being.

Abstract: The object of this research is the semantic structure of a literary work. The subject of this research is the nature of interrelation between visual and semantic aspects of the work. The “visual” implies not a characteristic of the text of the novella, but rather one of the “properties of artistic imagery” (S. P. Lavlinsky, N. M. Gurovich). On the one hand, the article interprets the semantics of visual images in A. S. Grin’s novella "Legless"; while on the other hand, reveals and describes the visual aspects of the very meaning of the novella. The author examines the dependence of understanding of the meaning of text on a certain “setting” of readers’ view. The scientific novelty consists in identification of the semantic aspects of visual images along with the visual aspects of unlocking the meaning based on Alexander Grin’s novella “Legless”. The impossibility of actualizing the meaning in the literary work without its visualization is explained the peculiar – incarnated – nature of the artistic meaning. The fact that in the literary work the meaning is translated into the actual existence of the heroes (is being  incarnated) determines the integrity of the process of understanding from scrutinization into objective forms of this existence. Missing one or another feature of the artistic world by the reader would mean shifting away from adequate understanding. If for the hero of the novella “Legless”, the understanding of Self and his true position in the world is generally associated with the rejection of vision, then for the reader of “Legless” (or other literary text) vision (that corresponds to what is depicted in the text) is the key to understanding.