Vladimir Nabokov described the literature course he taught at Cornell as "a kind of detective investigation of the mystery of literary structures." Leona Toker here pursues a similar investigation of the enigmatic structures of Nabokov's own fiction. According to Toker, most previous critics stressed either Nabokov’s concern with form or the humanistic side of his works, but rarely if ever th…
The renowned Russian writer Leo Tolstoy created a realistic masterpiece in Anna Karenina (1878). In the same work, moreover, he utilized allegory and symbol to an extent and at a level of sophistication unknown in his other works. In Browning’s study, the author identifies and analyzes previously unnoticed or only briefly mentioned “linkages and keystones” found in two highly developed cl…
Broader in scope than any previous literary study of the transcendentalists, this rewarding book analyzes the theories and forms characteristic of a vital group of American writers, as well as the principles and vision underlying transcendentalism. All the movement's major literary figures and forms are considered in detail.Lawrence Buell combines intellectual history and critical explication, …
Jacob’s Ladder discusses the reflection of kabbalistic allegory in Russian literature and provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of the perception of Kabbalah in Russian consciousness. Aptekman investigates the questions of when, how, and why Kabbalah has been used in Russian literary texts from Pre-Romanticism to Modernism and what particular role it played in the larger context of th…
"Friedrich Hölderlin’s only novel, Hyperion (1797–99), is a fictional epistolary autobiography that juxtaposes narration with critical reflection. Returning to Greece after German exile, following his part in the abortive uprising against the occupying Turks (1770), and his failure as both a lover and a revolutionary, Hyperion assumes a hermitic existence, during which he writes his letter…
Close Encounters: Essays on Russian Literature combines discussions of ethical, esthetic, and philosophical interest raised by Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Gorky, with close analyses of their texts. This book focuses on four thematic configurations: first, issues of freedom and responsibility, the necessity of free individual expression and yet the limits of will, or self-…
A world literature class may be the first place that some students have encountered European works, let alone non-Western texts. The emphasis in this anthology, therefore, is on non-Western and European works, with only the British authors who were the most influential to European and non-Western authors (such as Shakespeare, whose works have influenced authors around the world to the present d…
A world literature class may be the first place that some students have encountered European works, let alone non-Western texts. The emphasis in this anthology, therefore, is on non-Western and European works, with only the British authors who were the most influential to European and non-Western authors (such as Shakespeare, whose works have influenced authors around the world to the present d…
"The Goalkeeperis a new scholarly almanac devoted to the art of Vladimir Nabokov. Himself an ardent goalkeeper, the author of Lolita viewed soccer as more than a game: “I was less the keeper of a soccer goal than the keeper of a secret” (Speak, Memory). The inaugural collection features contributions from two dozen leading Nabokov scholars worldwide, including academic articles (Neil Cornwe…
"Six articles in Changing scenes represent the ongoing reassessment of fin de siècle literature in Finnish research. The period was seen in earlier research as something of a national renaissance or golden age and interpreted in the light of its national symbols and meanings. Only recently has more attention been paid to its international dimensions and its role in the modernisation of Finnish…