The Poetics of Early Russian Literature PDF Download

Author: D.S. Likhachev
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739186434
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
This translation of Likhachev’s Poetika Drevnerusskoy Literatury (The Poetics of Early Russian Literature), provides a description of the basic themes of early (tenth to seventeenth century) Russian literature. Likhachev compares literary narrative with narrative used in the representational arts. Furthermore, Likhachev stresses the genre-based character of medieval Russian literature and shows how choice of style in medieval times depended on a genre with its own specific etiquette and how innovation was discouraged. The text contrasts medieval abstraction and modern realism, as Likhachev shows how realisticness gradually breaks through in specific situations—such as those of princely crimes. Likhachev draws contrasts in three different areas: the basic stock of symbols and comparisons used in early Russian literature with those used in modern literature, artistic time in folklore and early Russian literature, and artistic space in folklore and early Russian literature. Likhachev traces the gradual development into modern artistic time through a comparison of the chronicle, the first Russian play, the seventeenth century writer Avvakum, and three modern authors, Goncharov, Dostoevsky and Saltykov-Shchedrin. Finally, the text gives a justification for studying early literatures. This book will be invaluable for students of Russian, medieval and comparative literature.

Author: Pamela Davidson
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571817587
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
Merezhkovsky's bold claim that "all Russian literature is, to a certain degree, a struggle with the temptation of demonism" is undoubtedly justified. And yet, despite its evident centrality to Russian culture, the unique and fascinating phenomenon of Russian literary demonism has so far received little critical attention. This substantial collection fills the gap. A comprehensive analytical introduction by the editor is follwed by a series of fourteen essays, written by eminent scholars in their fields. The first part explores the main shaping contexts of literary demonism: the Russian Orthodox and folk tradition, the demonization of historical figures, and views of art as intrinsically demonic. The second part traces the development of a literary tradition of demonism in the works of authors ranging from Pushkin and Lermontov, Gogol and Dostoevsky, through to the poets and prose writers of modernism (including Blok, Akhmatova, Bely, Sologub, Rozanov, Zamiatin), and through to the end of the 20th century.

Author: Jonathan Stone
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0810871823
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The Historical Dictionary of Russian Literature contains a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 100 cross-referenced entries on significant people, themes, critical issues, and the most significant genres...

Author: Dmitriĭ Sergeevich Likhachev
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780739186428
Category : Russian literature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This translation of Likhachev's Poetika Drevnerusskoy Literatury (The Poetics of Early Russian Literature), is a study of medieval Russian literature, as contrasted with modern literature in its narrative methods, use of symbols, and depictions of time, space and situation. The gradual emergence of realism and the principle of a single author is outlined with examples from medieval and modern literature.

Author: Ladislav Matejka
Publisher: Russian Literature
ISBN: 9781564783240
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Investigating the conceptualisation of structure and form within literature, the Russian Formalists affected both the creation of art during the 1920s and 1930s and the development of literary theory as a scientific discipline. Crucial to the understanding of this theoretical movement, this collection of essays by and about the Russian Formalists features work by: - Boris M. Eichenbaum ("The Theory of the Formal Method") - Viktor Shklvosky ("The Mystery Novel: Dickens's Little Dorrit") - Roman Jakobson ("On Realism in Art") - Mikhail Bakhtin ("Discourse Typology in Prose") - Osip M. Brik ("Contributions to the Study of Verse Language") A new introduction by Gerald L. Bruns provides a context for understanding why these works remain as important and influential now as when they were first written.

Author: Andrew Kahn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192549537
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1202

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Book Description
Russia possesses one of the richest and most admired literatures of Europe, reaching back to the eleventh century. A History of Russian Literature provides a comprehensive account of Russian writing from its earliest origins in the monastic works of Kiev up to the present day, still rife with the creative experiments of post-Soviet literary life. The volume proceeds chronologically in five parts, extending from Kievan Rus' in the 11th century to the present day. The coverage strikes a balance between extensive overview and in-depth thematic focus. Parts are organized thematically in chapters, which a number of keywords that are important literary concepts that can serve as connecting motifs and 'case studies', in-depth discussions of writers, institutions, and texts that take the reader up close and personal. Visual material also underscores the interrelation of the word and image at a number of points, particularly significant in the medieval period and twentieth century. The History addresses major continuities and discontinuities in the history of Russian literature across all periods, and in particular brings out trans-historical features that contribute to the notion of a national literature. The volume's time range has the merit of identifying from the early modern period a vital set of national stereotypes and popular folklore about boundaries, space, Holy Russia, and the charismatic king that offers culturally relevant material to later writers. This volume delivers a fresh view on a series of key questions about Russia's literary history, by providing new mappings of literary history and a narrative that pursues key concepts (rather more than individual authorial careers). This holistic narrative underscores the ways in which context and text are densely woven in Russian literature, and demonstrates that the most exciting way to understand the canon and the development of tradition is through a discussion of the interrelation of major and minor figures, historical events and literary politics, literary theory and literary innovation.

Author: Neil Cornwell
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571819079
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Russian thinker, pedagogue, musicologist, amateur scientist, and public servant Odoevsky (1804-69) was mentioned in the same breath as Pushkin and Gogol during his day, and is now enjoying (we presume) a revival as a writer of Romantic and Gothic fiction. Cornwell (Russian and comparative literature, U. of Bristol, England) analyzes his contribution to Russian prose fiction, particularly his approach to Romanticism, his Gothic novellas, his proto-science fiction, and his critical reception. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: Robert Chandler
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141972262
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
An enchanting collection of the very best of Russian poetry, edited by acclaimed translator Robert Chandler together with poets Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, poetry's pre-eminence in Russia was unchallenged, with Pushkin and his contemporaries ushering in the 'Golden Age' of Russian literature. Prose briefly gained the high ground in the second half of the nineteenth century, but poetry again became dominant in the 'Silver Age' (the early twentieth century), when belief in reason and progress yielded once more to a more magical view of the world. During the Soviet era, poetry became a dangerous, subversive activity; nevertheless, poets such as Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova continued to defy the censors. This anthology traces Russian poetry from its Golden Age to the modern era, including work by several great poets - Georgy Ivanov and Varlam Shalamov among them - in captivating modern translations by Robert Chandler and others. The volume also includes a general introduction, chronology and individual introductions to each poet. Robert Chandler is an acclaimed poet and translator. His many translations from Russian include works by Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolay Leskov, Vasily Grossman and Andrey Platonov, while his anthologies of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales are both published in Penguin Classics. Irina Mashinski is a bilingual poet and co-founder of the StoSvet literary project. Her most recent collection is 2013's Ophelia i masterok [Ophelia and the Trowel]. Boris Dralyuk is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of St Andrews and translator of many books from Russian, including, most recently, Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry (2014).

Author: Robert Louis Jackson
Publisher: Ars Rossica
ISBN: 9781618118110
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
Drawing on the prose, poetry, and criticism of a broad range of Russian writers and critics, including Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bakhtin, Gorky, Nabokov, and Solzhenitsyn, Close Encounters: Essays on Russian Literature explores themes of chance and fate, freedom and responsibility, beauty and disfiguration, and loss and separation, as well as concepts of criticism and the moral purpose of art. Through close textual analysis, the author offers a view of the unity of form and content in Russian writing and of its unique capacity to disclose the universal in the detail of human experience. With an emphasis on Dostoevsky, Close Encounters foregrounds ethical and spiritual concerns of Russian writers and stimulates the reader to pursue his or her own critical exploration of Russian literature. This work will be of interest to academic libraries, university students, and specialists in literature, criticism, philosophy, and esthetics, as well as enthusiastic general readers of Russian literature.

Author: Joost van Baak
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9042029153
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 525

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Book Description
The domestic theme has a tremendous anthropological, literary and cultural significance. The purpose of this book is to analyse and interpret the most important realisations and tendencies of this thematic complex in the history of Russian literature. It is the first systematic book-length exploration of the meaning and development of the House theme in Russian literature of the past 200 years. It studies the ideological, psychological and moral meanings which Russian cultural and literary tradition have invested in the house or projected on it in literary texts. Central to this study’s approach is the concept of the House Myth, consisting of a set of basic fabular elements and a set of general types of House images. This House Myth provides the general point of reference from which the literary works were analyzed and compared. With the help of this analytical procedure characteristics of individual authors could be described as well as recurrent patterns and features discerned in the way Russian literature dealt with the House and its thematics, thus reflecting characteristics of Russian literary world pictures, Russian mentalities and Russian attitudes towards life. This book is of interest for students of Russian literature as well as for those interested in the House as a cultural and literary topic, in the semiotics of literature, and in relations between culture, anthropology and literature.