Humanities & Social Sciences 7 (2015 8) 1315-1324 ~ ~ ~ УДК 80 Literature Abuse, or the Motive of the Guilt and Punishment of the Reader Olga N. Turysheva* Ural Federal University named after the B.N. Yeltsin 19 Mira Str., Ekaterinburg, 620002, Russia Received 17.10.2014, received in revised form 21.05.2015, accepted 14.06.2015 The purpose of the present article is the analysis of a literature abusing reader image. <...> The motive of a reader guilty of literature abuse and the nature of its functioning are studied on the basis of some works of modern literature. <...> The author connects the specifi cs of the motive with the refl exive reaction of literature to “anarchical”, consumerist reading wide-spread in modern culture. <...> The narrative forms dedicated to literature abuse are researched. <...> Among them there is a motive of punishing the reader and expiation of the reader’s guilt. <...> Keywords: pictured reader, the motive of guilt of literature abuse, the motive of literature resentment towards the reader, the motive of reader’s punishment, the theme of reading in the literature. <...> For the fi rst time the reader’s image got in the centre of attention back in Medieval Europe where, by the end of the historic period, a new and seemingly unexpected theme was formulated: the theme of literature’s guilt towards the reader. <...> For the fi rst time this motive was clearly expressed in the stories of Hamlet and Don Quixote. <...> Thus, Cervantes, bringing the story of Don Quixote to its end, speaks through him, articulating the bitter curse of knight novels, blaming them for the utopia of his own worldview. <...> All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: oltur3@yandex.ru # 1315 # in his turn, invests the character with scepticism of the book truths from the very beginning of the tragedy. <...> This scepticism is clearly heard in Hamlet’s reply to Lord Polonius’ question of what he was reading: “Words, words, words…” Thus, the motive of resentment towards literature was formed in the late Renaissance literature. <...> The guilt of literature was formulated (by the character or the author) as creating an illusory consciousness, plunging the reader into the world of dreams, suggesting Olga N. Turysheva. <...> In the latest stories of reading it is not the reader’s resentment towards literature that is emphasized; it is, vice versa <...>