LEADER 04035nam 2200517 450 001 9910815556403321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-61811-633-9 024 7 $a10.1515/9781618116338 035 $a(CKB)3840000000339063 035 $a(DE-B1597)540841 035 $a(OCoLC)1028941744 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781618116338 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL4838528 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr11524435 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC4838528 035 $a(EXLCZ)993840000000339063 100 $a20170327d2018 uy| 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcnu|||||||| 181 $2rdacontent 182 $2rdamedia 183 $2rdacarrier 200 14$aThe irony of the ideal $eparadoxes of Russian literature /$fMikhail Epstein ; translated by A.S. Brown 210 1$aBoston :$cAcademic Studies Press,$d2018. 215 $a1 online resource (456 pages) 225 1 $aArs Rossica 311 $a1-61811-632-0 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tAcknowledgments --$tTranslator's Note --$tIntroduction --$tPart I: The Titanic and the Demonic: Faust's Heirs --$t1. Faust and Peter on the Seashore: From Goethe to Pushkin --$t2. The Bronze Horseman and the Golden Fish: Pushkin's Fairy Tale-Poem --$t3. The Motherland-Witch: The Irony of Style in Nikolai Gogol --$tPart II: The Great in the Little: Bashmachkin's Offspring --$t1. The Saintly Scribe: Akaky Bashmachkin and Prince Myshkin --$t2. The Figure of Repetition: The Philosopher Nikolai Fedorov and His Literary Prototypes --$t3. The Little Man in a Case: The Bashmachkin-Belikov Syndrome --$tPart III: The Irony of Harmony --$t1. Childhood and the Myth of Harmony --$t2. The Defamiliarization of Lev Tolstoy --$t3. Soviet Heroics and the Oedipus Complex --$tPart IV: Being as Nothingness --$t1. A Farewell to Objects, or, the Nabokovian in Nabokov --$t2. The Secret of Being and Nonbeing in Vladimir Nabokov --$t3. Andrei Platonov between Nonbeing and Resurrection --$t4. Dream and Battle: Oblomov, Korchagin, Kopenkin --$tPart V: The Silence of the Word --$t1. Language and Silence as Forms of Being --$t2. The Ideology and Magic of the Word: Anton Chekhov, Daniil Kharms, and Vladimir Sorokin --$t3. The Russian Code of Silence: Politics and Mysticism --$tPart VI: Madness and Reason --$t1. Methods of Madness and Madness as a Method: Poets and Philosophers --$t2. Poetry as Ecstasy and as Interpretation: Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandel'shtam --$t3. The Lyric of Idiotic Reason: Folkloric Philosophy in Dmitrii Prigov --$tThe Cyclical Development of Russian Literature --$tConclusion --$tWorks Cited --$tIndex of Subjects --$tIndex of Names 330 $aThis book explores the major paradoxes of Russian literature as a manifestation of both tragic and ironic contradictions of human nature and national character. Russian literature, from Pushkin and Gogol to Chekhov, Nabokov and to postmodernist writers, is studied as a holistic text that plays on the reversal of such opposites as being and nothingness, reality and simulation, and rationality and absurdity. The glorification of Mother Russia exposes her character as a witch; a little man is transformed into a Christ figure; consistent rationality betrays its inherent madness, and extreme verbosity produces the effect of silence. The greatest Russian writers were masters of spiritual self-denial and artistic self-destruction, which explains many paradoxes and unpredictable twists of Russian history up to our time. 410 0$aArs Rossika. 606 $aRussian literature$xHistory and criticism 606 $aParadox in literature 615 0$aRussian literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aParadox in literature. 676 $a891.709 700 $aEpstein$b Mikhail$0791562 702 $aBrown$b A. S$g(Avram S.), 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910815556403321 996 $aThe irony of the ideal$93972815 997 $aUNINA