The research is devoted to the study of the actualization of meanings in a literary text. The study is based on the material of a medieval novel. The subject of the study was the corpus of texts of chivalric novels. In the aggregate, the study of (linguistic-rhetorical) works. The analysis was carried out from the position of studying the author's strategy of influencing the reader in order to have a certain attitude to the hero or plot of the work. The author's influencing strategy in novels is conceptually different from the strategies in works of other genres. The fact that in the works of different authors, united by one image of the main character, use similar elements of influence on the reader, which indicates a special perception of the image of the main character in the minds of people of the XII–XV centuries. This perception is formed both from the totality of literary techniques that pass from work to work, and at the level of linguistic means.