The work is devoted to the problem of the functioning of the lexical figurative means of artistic expression – periphrase as an integral component of the semantic structure of the literary text created in the line of sentimentalism aesthetics in the genre of historical story against the background of the ongoing process of the formation of the norms of the Russian literary language in the context of linguistic polemics of the turn of the XVIII–XIX centuries. The study of the semantic structure of a literary text involves the analysis of the types of nomination techniques and their aesthetic content. However, the use of peripheral expressions has a certain specificity, which is associated with their heterogeneity in thematic marking, structure and object of nomination. The subject of the study is periphrases, the paper presents the classification of periphrases of N.M. Karamzin's story "Natalia, the boyar's Daughter" as works of the genre of sentimental historical story. Using the example of the analysis of the text of the story, the peripheral combinations in the thematic groups love and time (time/period: life, year) are considered, the models of periphrases, metonymic nomination are described, the functions of periphrases are considered. The study of the functioning of periphrases is focused on determining the place and role occupied by this technique in the semantic structure of the text. The relevance of the research is connected with the choice of the research material – N.M. Karamzin's novella "Natalia, the boyar's daughter", its consideration in order to identify the features of the semantic structure and is due to the general interest of modern linguistics in the interpretation of a literary text based on a system-functional approach to the study of the object.