Epic and the Russian Novel from Gogol to Pasternak / Frederick T. Griffiths, Stanley J. Rabinowitz.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- PREFACE -- 1. Epic and Novel -- 2. Gogol in Rome -- 3. Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov -- 4. Tolstoy and Homer -- 5. Doctor Zhivago and the Tradition of National Epic -- 6. Stalin and the Death of Epic: Mikhail Bakhtin, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak -- Works Cited -- Index

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Epic and the Russian Novel from Gogol to Pasternak examines the origin of the nineteen- century Russian novel and challenges the Lukács-Bakhtin theory of epic. By removing the Russian novel from its European context, the authors reveal that it developed as a means of reconnecting the narrative form with its origins in classical and Christian epic in a way that expressed the Russian desire to renew and restore ancient spirituality. Through this methodology, Griffiths and Rabinowitz dispute Bakhtin's classification of epic as a monophonic and dead genre whose time has passed. Due to its grand themes and cultural centrality, the epic is the form most suited to newcomers or cultural outsiders seeking legitimacy through appropriation of the past. Through readings of Gogol's Dead Souls-a uniquely problematic work, and one which Bakhtin argued was novelistic rather than epic-Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, and Tolstoy's War and Peace, this book redefines "epic" and how we understand the sweep of Russian literature as a whole.

funded by National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

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In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)