After reception theory : Fedor Dostoevskii in Britain, 1869-1935 / Lucia Aiello.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aiello, Lucia, 1967- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881--Appreciation--Great Britain.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xii, 135 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Legenda, Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing, 2013.

Summary:

More often than not, monographs on the reception of an author are either detailed, chronologically organized accounts of the reputation of that author, or studies in literary influence. This study adopts neither of those approaches and deals with the reception of Fedor Dostoevskii in Britain from a double perspective. The detailed analysis of primary sources such as reviews, essays and monographs on Dostoevskii is associated here with a critical investigation of the dynamics of the reception process. On the one hand, the available sources are examined with the intention of exposing their underlying ideological tensions and impact on British literary circles. On the other hand, Fedor Dostoevskii's novels are shown to function as a prism, through which significant aspects of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British intellectual life are refracted. In the final analysis, by using Dostoevskii as an exemplary case study, this book develops both a methodology that aims at clarifying what we mean when we refer to 'reception' and a theoretical alternative to prevalent notions of reception. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction - The Inner and the Outer: A Methodological Premise 1

The Process of Reception 1

The Reception of Dostoevskii in Britain as a Case Study 12

1 The Introduction of Fedor Dostoevskii in Britain: A Difficult Start 23

The Early Years: A Deliberate Omission 23

A Novelist 'Worthy of Note' 29

The Professional Man of Letters 32

The Vizetelly Affair 36

2 From 'Morbidity' to 'Sickness': A Portrait of the Artist as a Degenerate Man 45

A 'Continental View of Russia' 45

A British View of Russia 57

3 The Making of a Cult: Facts and Critical Perspectives 67

'A Monster Erupting into the House of Fiction' 67

The 'Disembodied Spirit' of Dostoevskii 73

Mr Bennett, Mrs Woolf, and the Form of Dostoevskii's Novels 76

4 Problems of Dostoevskii Criticism 91

Janko Lavrin's Psychoanalytic Criticism 91

Dostoevskii the Man and Dostoevskii the Myth: The Letters 98

E. H. Carr and Mario Praz: The Romantic Connection 101

Conclusion 109

The Ends of Reader-response Theory 110

'A Stylistic Experiment': Stavrogin's Confession 115.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [123]-131) and index.

ISBN:

9781907975448

1907975446

OCLC:

810950376