The monograph is related to the field of the general theory of verbal art and is devoted to topical methodological issues - the substantiation and development of the principles of analysis of the epic text, methods of its professional reading and professional interpretation. Based on the centuries-old experience of traditional literary science, but explaining even familiar concepts in a peculiar way, the author proposes an original concept for studying a work of art, which is considered as an ordered system of relations between individual motives and their thematic complexes. Classical Russian literature serves as material for analysis and theoretical generalizations. For philologists, art historians and a wide range of readers interested in the problems of aesthetics and theory of literature, analysis and interpretation of artistic texts.