Before they were Titans : essays on the early works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy / edited with an introduction by Elizabeth Cheresh Allen ; cover design by Ivan Grave.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Allen, Elizabeth Cheresh, 1951- editor, author of introduction, etc.

Grave, Ivan Platonovich, 1874-1960, cover designer.

National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program, Funder.

Series:

Ars Rossika.

Ars Rossica

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor.

Russian literature--19th century--Criticism and interpretation.

Russian literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (350 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boston, [Massachusetts] : Academic Studies Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are the titans of Russian literature. As mature artists, they led very different lives and wrote vastly different works, but their early lives and writings display provocative kinships, while also indicating the divergent paths the two authors would take en route to literary greatness. The ten new critical essays here, written by leading specialists in nineteenth-century, Russian literature, give fresh, sophisticated readings to works from the first decade of the literary life of each Russian author-for Dostoevsky, the 1840's; for Tolstoy, the 1850's. Collectively, these essays yield composite portraits of these two artists as young men finding their literary way. At the same time, they show how the early works merit appreciation for themselves, before their authors were Titans.

Contents:

Front matter

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Note on the Text

List of Contributors

Introduction: Before They Were Titans / Allen, Elizabeth Cheresh

Part I. Dostoevsky: Works of the 1840's

I. Agency, Desire, and Fate in Poor Folk / Bagby, Lewis

II. Me and My Double: Selfhood, Consciousness, and Empathy in The Double / Morson, Gary Saul

III. Husbands and Lovers: Vaudeville Conventions in "Another Man's Wife," "The Jealous Husband," and The Eternal Husband / Fusso, Susanne

IV. Dostoevsky's White Nights: Memoir of a Petersburg Pathology / Peterson, Dale E.

V. Dostoevsky's Orphan Text: Netochka Nezvanova / Allen, Elizabeth Cheresh

Part II. Tolstoy: Works of the 1850's

VI. The Creative Impulse in Childhood: The Dangerous Beauty of Games, Lies, Betrayal, and Art / Miller, Robin Feuer

VII. Fear and Loathing in the Caucasus: Tolstoy's "The Raid" and Russian Journalism / Todd, William Mills / Weir, Justin

VIII. Tolstoy's Sevastopol Tales: Pathos, Sermon, Protest, and Stowe / Knapp, Liza

IX. On Cultivating One's Own Garden with Other People's Labor: Serfdom in "A Landowner's Morning" / Lounsbery, Anne

X. Tolstoy's Lessons: Pedagogy as Salvation / Vinitsky, Ilya

An Afterword on the Wondrous Thickness of First Things / Emerson, Caryl

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed May 15, 2015).

ISBN:

9781618118158

1618118153

9781618116833

1618116835

OCLC:

1135580842

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access