Reading Backwards : an advance retrospective on Russian literature / edited by Muireann Maguire, Timothy Langen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Langen, Timothy, editor.

Maguire, Muireann, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Russian literature--History and criticism.

Russian literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvi, 270 pages)

Other Title:

Reading Backwards

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK : Open Book Publishers, 2021.

Summary:

"This edited volume employs the paradoxical notion of 'anticipatory plagiarism'--developed in the 1960s by the 'Oulipo' group of French writers and thinkers--as a mode for reading Russian literature. Reversing established critical approaches to the canon and literary influence, its contributors ask us to consider how reading against linear chronologies can elicit fascinating new patterns and perspectives. Reading Backwards: An Advance Retrospective on Russian Literature re-assesses three major nineteenth-century authors--Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy--either in terms of previous writers and artists who plagiarized them (such as Raphael, Homer, or Hall Caine), or of their own depredations against later writers (from J.M. Coetzee to Liudmila Petrushevskaia). Far from suggesting that past authors literally stole from their descendants, these engaging essays, contributed by both early-career and senior scholars of Russian and comparative literature, encourage us to identify the contingent and familiar within classic texts. By moving beyond rigid notions of cultural heritage and literary canons, they demonstrate that inspiration is cyclical, influence can flow in multiple directions, and no idea is ever truly original."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Contributor Biographies

Imagination and Collapse in OBrien Krzhizhanovsky and 1

Raphaels Portrait of Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol 27

Dostoevsky 51

Fyodor Dostoevsky Follows Guzel Yakhina into the Heart of 79

Dostoevsky Anticipating Petrushevskaia 101

Tolstoy 127

Levinas Tolstoy and Responsibility for the Other 159

When Andrei Bolkonskii Voiced Achilles 189

But Seriously Folks Pierre Bayard and the Russians 221

List of Figures 263

Copyright.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (Open Book Publishers, viewed May 13, 2023).