Memoirs and madness : Leonid Andreev through the prism of the literary portrait / Frederick H. White.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• White, Frederick H., 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Biography as a literary form.
• Authors, Russian--20th century--Biography.
• Andreyev, Leonid, 1871-1919.
• Andreyev, Leonid, 1871-1919--Mental health.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 339 pages) : illustrations, portraits

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Ithaca : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Memoirs and Madness examines memoir as a literary genre, investigates the creation of Leonid Andreev's posthumous legacy by his contemporaries, and explores the possibility that Andreev, Russia's leading literary figure at the beginning of the twentieth century, suffered from mental illness. Frederick White's primary focus is A Book About Leonid Andreev (1922), the most important collection of memoirs dedicated to the Russian author, presented here in the first English translation. The agendas of the memoirists resulted in portraits that have influenced how Andreev is read and spoken about to the present day. White pays special attention to Andreev's history of mental illness, which the memoirists described with vague terms such as "creative energy" or "inner turmoil." Past scholarship has focused on philosophical and sociological factors in the author's life but this concentration on his mental health provides a fruitful approach to deciphering the literary portraits.

Contents:

• Front Matter
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Leonid Andreev through the Prism of the Literary Portrait
• Introduction
• Maksim Gor’kii
• Kornei Chukovskii
• Aleksandr Blok
• Georgii Chulkov
• Boris Zaitsev
• Nikolai Teleshov
• Evgenii Zamiatin
• Andrei Belyi
• The Literary Portrait
• Projecting Personal Isolation
• “He is not with them, he is with us, he is ours”: Belyi
• The Importance of Friendship and Sreda: Teleshov
• Creative Energy and Manic Episodes: Chukovskii
• Inner Turmoil and the Dark Side of Depression: Chulkov
• A Shared Sense of Chaos: Blok
• The Dreamer and the Mathematician: Gor’kii
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Notes:

• "Includes an annotated translation of A book about Leonid Andreev."
• Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

• 9786612850059
• 9780773577947
• 0773577947
• 9781282850057
• 1282850059
• 9780773560086
• 0773560084

OCLC:

311308012