The subject of the study is the lexical means of expressing the emotions of courage and fear in A. S. Pushkin’s cycle "The Tales of Ivan Belkin". The semantics and functioning of these lexical units in the artistic text are analyzed, based on 93 identified contexts. Particular attention is paid to identifying the connection between lexical choice (courage, timidity, fearing) and the social status of characters (nobility and "the little people"), gender characteristics (cheerful courage for men, fainting for women), and situational factors. The role of context in the formation of emotional meanings and their classification into 7 functional-semantic groups according to L. G. Babenko (emotional state, emotional quality, external expression of emotion, etc.) is investigated, encompassing both direct emotion nominations (courage, timidity) and indirect markers manifested through physiological reactions (trembling, turning pale, with bated breath). The methods of contextual and statistical analysis, and functional-semantic classification are used. The methodological basis is the system of L. G. Babenko (7 groups of emotional vocabulary) and the principles of lexicography. The scientific novelty lies in the first systematic analysis of the opposition "courage" – "fear" in A. S. Pushkin through the prism of lexical semantics. It has been established that the dominance of the vocabulary of cowardice (79 cases, e.g., fearing, becoming timid) over that of boldness (14 cases, e.g., bravery, cheerful courage) reflects the author's understanding of human weaknesses as deviations from the norm. Gender asymmetry has been identified: men express their courage through direct nominations (heroic, hero), while women express it contextually through physiological reactions (turning pale, trembling). Social specificity has been discovered: fear of the upper classes is encoded by the verbs to be afraid and not to dare. It has been proven that fear is situational (e.g., timidity acts as a "floating emotion" dependent on context), while courage transforms (physical → moral). These findings are significant for psycholinguistics and the interpretation of Russian classics.