Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Russian & Former Soviet Union

When one great author engages another, as Andrei Bely so brilliantly does in "Gogol s Artistry, "the result is inevitably a telling portrait of both writers. So it is in "Gogol s Artistry. "Translated into English for the first time, this idiosyncratic, exhaustive critical study is as interesting for what it tells us about Bely s thought and method as it is for its insights into the oeuvre of his literary predecessor. Bely s argument in this book is that Gogol s earlier writing should be given more consideration than most critics have granted. Employing what might be called a scientific...

The destructive power of obsessive love was a defining subject of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian literature. In Febris Erotica, Sobol argues that Russian writers were deeply preoccupied with the nature of romantic relationships and were persistent in their use of lovesickness not simply as a traditional theme but as a way to address pressing philosophical, ethical, and ideological concerns through a recognizable literary trope. Sobol examines stereotypes about the damaging effects of romantic love and offers a short history of the topos of lovesickness in Western...

The destructive power of obsessive love was a defining subject of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian literature. In Febris Erotica, Sobol argues that Russian writers were deeply preoccupied with the nature of romantic relationships and were persistent in their use of lovesickness not simply as a traditional theme but as a way to address pressing philosophical, ethical, and ideological concerns through a recognizable literary trope. Sobol examines stereotypes about the damaging effects of romantic love and offers a short history of the topos of lovesickness in Western...

Gender-oriented studies of 19th-century Russian literature have struggled with how to determine the feminism or misogyny of particular authors. This book argues that in order to make this determination, we need to engage with the poetics of the text rather than rely on the author's stated views. By focusing on the character type of the ward, or young female dependent, this book examines the narrative strategies used by such writers as Pushkin, Zhukova, Tolstoy, Herzen, and Dostoevsky to represent socially marginal women in their works.

Drawing on the theories of Bakhtin, the volume...

This indispensible text can justly be regarded as the forerunner to the great flowering of Dostoevsky's novels which was to follow. The first part of this unusual work is often treated as a philosophical text in its own right; the second part illustrates the theory of the first by means of its own fictional practice. At the same time, the reader is introduced to the phenomenon of the 'Underground Man', one of the first genuine anti-heroes in European literature.

The defining quality of Russian literature, for most critics, is its ethical seriousness expressed through formal originality. The Trace of Judaism addresses this characteristic through the thought of the Lithuanian-born Franco-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Steeped in the Russian classics from an early age, Levinas drew significantly from Dostoevsky in his ethical thought. One can profitably read Russian literature through Levinas, and vice versa. Vinokur links new readings of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Isaac Babel, and Osip Mandelstam to the work of...