Russian Literature of the 19th Century

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Russian Literature of the 19th Century
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Fifth Week

• Date for First Exam 9/30
• Study guide on website now

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Last Tuesday

• Lermontov Hero of Our Times
• Martha Fienes Onegin (1999)
• Bernard Roses Anna Karenina (1997)

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Romanticism

• feelings, emotions, individualism
• exotic, supernatural, dreams
• mixed genres, irony, narrative devices
• mystery, intrigue, complex emotions
• poetry, later prose (novels and short stories)

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First part of the film

• Onegins life in Petersburg
• Onegin traveling to country estate of uncle
• Onegin taking over
• Onegin meeting Lensky
• Onegin meeting Larin family
• Onegin talking about books with Tatyana/Tanya

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Second part

• Tatyana borrows a book
• Onegin stays in the country
• Onegin and Lensky quarrel over Olga
• Tatyana overhears them
• Tatyana writes letter to Onegin

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Third Part

• Name day party
• Tanya and Eugene talk
• Disappointing conclusion
• Onegin dances with Olga
• Lensky furious prepares challenge
• Lensky and Olga make up
• Neighbor delivers challenge pushes the duel

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Fourth Part

• Duel Lensky killed
• Onegin leaves the country
• Tanya visits his library
• Tanya taken to Petersburg for season
• Tanya marries cousin of Onegin
• Onegin travels
• Onegin meets Tanya again

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Anna Karenina

• Associate with 1870s
• Music Tchaikovsky
• Plot issues
• Levin and Kitty rejection
• Levin and brother quest, death
• Kitty and Vronsky rejection
• Stiva and Dolly reconciliation
• Vronsky and Anna meeting, dancing, loving
• Problems

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Realism

• Attention to everyday details (more than
  necessary for story line)
• Hero not so unlike others
• Topical events
• Setting not central
• Social criticism
• Real world grounding (supernatural out)
• Emphasis on verisimilitude

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Criticism

• Social and artistic commentary
• Vissarion Belinsky (1811-48) Letter to Gogol
  1847
• Strong, influential voice for liberal causes
• Strong preference for European approaches

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Mikhail Lermontov 1814-41

• Lyric Poetry, narrative poetry
• Drama
• Hero of Our Times (Novel)

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Biography

• Aristocratic background father in military
• death of mother raised by grandmother
• Education boarding school, Moscow U, military
  school
• Military service

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Caucasus

• trouble because of political verse
  (anti-aristocracy)
• obsession with ranks, social snobbery
• role of poet (Death of a Poet blames Nicholas and
  court)
• love of Caucasus (as child in resorts in Georgia
  as soldier)
• 26 when he was killed in duel.

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Hero of Our Times

• Publication history
• Textual issues
• Translations
• Vladimir Nabokov

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Setting for the novel
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More detail
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Context
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Russia and the Caucasus

• Long tradition of resistance to Russian authority
• Mountain tribes complex ethnicity
• Questionable borders
• Different languages, different religions,
  different customs
• Caucasians Russians Cossacks

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Authors Introduction

• What is the purpose of it?
• What relation does it have to the stories?
• Dissociate narrator(s) from Lermontov himself?
• Pechorin as type (composite)

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Introduction to Pechorins Journal

• Why is it placed after Bela and Maksim
  Maksimich?
• How does it affect the way we read the stories
  from the journal?
• Are we convinced of Pechorins sincerity?
• Is the author publishing the stories only
  because of a desire to be useful?
• Does he like Pechorin? (wicked irony?)?
• Tantalizing full bio of Pechorin some day

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Irony

• Simple saying one thing, meaning another
• Complex (romantic) saying one thing, perhaps
  meaning many other things as well
• Hero is complex because of ironic possibilities

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Bela

• Characters
• Bela
• Pechorin
• Maksim Maksimich
• Narrator-traveler
• Plot (Romantic vs Realistic)

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Point?

• Narrative intrigue
• Character, psychology
• Passions? (lovefor women and horses, obsession,
  jealousy, revenge)

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Kazbich and Azamat
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Maksim Maksimich

• Narrator meets Pechorin
• What do we learn about Pechorin?
• Physical description 56-57
• Character?
• How do the first two stories fit chronologically?
• Motivation explanation for how narrator has
  Pechorins writings

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Taman

• Plot?
• What do we learn about Pechorin this time?
• Prejudices?
• Irony here?
• What are the passions here?

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Taman Pictures
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Taman 2
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Taman 3
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Princess Mary

• How would you describe Pechorin?
• What happens in the story?
• How would you describe Pechorins relationship
  with Mary? Grushnitsky? Vera?
• Whats the point of this story? Does it try to
  tell you something about love?

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Pechorin
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Mary and Grushnitsky
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Duel
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Fatalist
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Summing Up

• Formal approach
• Excellent stories passion, suspense, sex and
  violence
• Descriptions of nature provide exotic backdrop
• Effective use of difficult literary devices
  (forms of coincidence narrative removes)
• Diminishing narrative distance
• Excellent language

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More Formalist Features

• Irony (unreliable narrators)
• Parody of popular genres
• Society tale, adventure story, Byronic tale

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Affinities with epic Homers Odyssey

• Structure
• Divergence of fabula and sjuzhet
• Picaresque and episodic
• Intertextuality

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Romanticism to Realism

• Byronic hero moodiness sense of mystery
  alienation from society and rebellion against
  social convention strong desire for personal
  freedom
• Ironic treatment of Byronic hero?

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Philosophical Approach

• Study of fate, chance
• Meaning of life issues

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Sociological

• Critique of status seeking
• Critique of high society
• Picture of customs of mountain people
• Study of social type superfluous man

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Superfluous Man

• Onegin is example Pechorin too?
• a representative type embodying the sense of
  alienation and futility felt by many intelligent
  young aristocrats, unable to find an outlet for
  their talents in contemporary society

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Psychological

• Study of particular character compulsive
  interference in lives of others
• Motivation for behavior?
• Pure ego?
• Attention seeking?
• Assertion of specialness (inferiority complex)

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Psychological realism? Early example?

• Self-delusion
• Contradictory behavior