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The Irony of the Ideal : Paradoxes of Russian Literature / Mikhail Epstein.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Ars RossicaPublisher: Boston, MA : Academic Studies Press, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: 1 online resource (440 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781618116321
  • 9781618116338
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 891.709 23
LOC classification:
  • PG2986 .E7713 2018
  • PG2986
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Translator's Note -- Introduction -- Part I: The Titanic and the Demonic: Faust's Heirs -- 1. Faust and Peter on the Seashore: From Goethe to Pushkin -- 2. The Bronze Horseman and the Golden Fish: Pushkin's Fairy Tale-Poem -- 3. The Motherland-Witch: The Irony of Style in Nikolai Gogol -- Part II: The Great in the Little: Bashmachkin's Offspring -- 1. The Saintly Scribe: Akaky Bashmachkin and Prince Myshkin -- 2. The Figure of Repetition: The Philosopher Nikolai Fedorov and His Literary Prototypes -- 3. The Little Man in a Case: The Bashmachkin-Belikov Syndrome -- Part III: The Irony of Harmony -- 1. Childhood and the Myth of Harmony -- 2. The Defamiliarization of Lev Tolstoy -- 3. Soviet Heroics and the Oedipus Complex -- Part IV: Being as Nothingness -- 1. A Farewell to Objects, or, the Nabokovian in Nabokov -- 2. The Secret of Being and Nonbeing in Vladimir Nabokov -- 3. Andrei Platonov between Nonbeing and Resurrection -- 4. Dream and Battle: Oblomov, Korchagin, Kopenkin -- Part V: The Silence of the Word -- 1. Language and Silence as Forms of Being -- 2. The Ideology and Magic of the Word: Anton Chekhov, Daniil Kharms, and Vladimir Sorokin -- 3. The Russian Code of Silence: Politics and Mysticism -- Part VI: Madness and Reason -- 1. Methods of Madness and Madness as a Method: Poets and Philosophers -- 2. Poetry as Ecstasy and as Interpretation: Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandel'shtam -- 3. The Lyric of Idiotic Reason: Folkloric Philosophy in Dmitrii Prigov -- The Cyclical Development of Russian Literature -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Index of Subjects -- Index of Names
Summary: This book explores the major paradoxes of Russian literature as a manifestation of both tragic and ironic contradictions of human nature and national character. Russian literature, from Pushkin and Gogol to Chekhov, Nabokov and to postmodernist writers, is studied as a holistic text that plays on the reversal of such opposites as being and nothingness, reality and simulation, and rationality and absurdity. The glorification of Mother Russia exposes her character as a witch; a little man is transformed into a Christ figure; consistent rationality betrays its inherent madness, and extreme verbosity produces the effect of silence. The greatest Russian writers were masters of spiritual self-denial and artistic self-destruction, which explains many paradoxes and unpredictable twists of Russian history up to our time.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781618116338

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Translator's Note -- Introduction -- Part I: The Titanic and the Demonic: Faust's Heirs -- 1. Faust and Peter on the Seashore: From Goethe to Pushkin -- 2. The Bronze Horseman and the Golden Fish: Pushkin's Fairy Tale-Poem -- 3. The Motherland-Witch: The Irony of Style in Nikolai Gogol -- Part II: The Great in the Little: Bashmachkin's Offspring -- 1. The Saintly Scribe: Akaky Bashmachkin and Prince Myshkin -- 2. The Figure of Repetition: The Philosopher Nikolai Fedorov and His Literary Prototypes -- 3. The Little Man in a Case: The Bashmachkin-Belikov Syndrome -- Part III: The Irony of Harmony -- 1. Childhood and the Myth of Harmony -- 2. The Defamiliarization of Lev Tolstoy -- 3. Soviet Heroics and the Oedipus Complex -- Part IV: Being as Nothingness -- 1. A Farewell to Objects, or, the Nabokovian in Nabokov -- 2. The Secret of Being and Nonbeing in Vladimir Nabokov -- 3. Andrei Platonov between Nonbeing and Resurrection -- 4. Dream and Battle: Oblomov, Korchagin, Kopenkin -- Part V: The Silence of the Word -- 1. Language and Silence as Forms of Being -- 2. The Ideology and Magic of the Word: Anton Chekhov, Daniil Kharms, and Vladimir Sorokin -- 3. The Russian Code of Silence: Politics and Mysticism -- Part VI: Madness and Reason -- 1. Methods of Madness and Madness as a Method: Poets and Philosophers -- 2. Poetry as Ecstasy and as Interpretation: Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandel'shtam -- 3. The Lyric of Idiotic Reason: Folkloric Philosophy in Dmitrii Prigov -- The Cyclical Development of Russian Literature -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Index of Subjects -- Index of Names

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

This book explores the major paradoxes of Russian literature as a manifestation of both tragic and ironic contradictions of human nature and national character. Russian literature, from Pushkin and Gogol to Chekhov, Nabokov and to postmodernist writers, is studied as a holistic text that plays on the reversal of such opposites as being and nothingness, reality and simulation, and rationality and absurdity. The glorification of Mother Russia exposes her character as a witch; a little man is transformed into a Christ figure; consistent rationality betrays its inherent madness, and extreme verbosity produces the effect of silence. The greatest Russian writers were masters of spiritual self-denial and artistic self-destruction, which explains many paradoxes and unpredictable twists of Russian history up to our time.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Aug 2021)