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In-depth critical discussions of Vladimir Nabokov's novel - Plus complimentary, unlimited online access to the full content of this great literary reference. Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel tells the story of Humbert Humbert, a 37-year-old literary scholar passionately in love with his 12-year-old stepdaughter. This compilation of critical essays examines the controversy behind Lolita's reception, Humbert Humbert's role as an unreliable narrator, connections to Nabokov's other works, and...

The Russian Revolution and its grim aftermath transformed the world into which Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) had been born, radically altering the poet's life and art. At the time of the Revolution, Akhmatova's exquisite love lyrics had made her one of Russia's leading poets, but the mass social forces unleashed by the Revolution were inimical to her lyric genius. In the 1920's her work was subjected to vicious ideological attacks in the press and was officially barred from. publication. Akhmatova...

Sienkiewicz's Bodies focuses on the work of the most popular Polish writer from the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. It discusses the surprising success of Sienkiewicz's writing in relation to the dissection of optimistic illusion that takes place during a reading of its cruel prose. Sienkiewicz is seen as something more than a juggler of genius in narrative prose. This conservative writer, like the modernists, knew that there was no longer any way to construct a...

A re-evaluation of the curious resemblance (E. Garnett, 1932) between Tolstoy and D.H. Lawrence, this comprehensive study focuses on questions of religion, identity, partnership, and female liberation as depicted in selected stories and novels by the two authors. It argues that they offered novel solutions to these ultimate questions of human existence, contrary to the often hypocritical concepts of morality and faith prevalent in their respective societies. Though frequently dismissed as formle...

In den fruhen dramatischen Werken Vladimir Majakovskijs und Bertolt Brechts ("Vladimir Majakovskij, Baal, Im Dickicht der Stadte") wird die Abkehr von der normativen Auffassung der Gattung Drama sichtbar. Eine phanomenologisch-strukturelle Analyse ermoglicht es, typologische Konvergenzen und Divergenzen der einzelnen Stucke und ihrer Dramaturgie herauszuarbeiten. Bei der Analyse werden eine sprachfunktionale, eine motivische und eine Schicht des Sujetaufbaus unterschieden. Innerhalb dieser Schic...

This collection of eight essays reassess Russian literature, paying particular attention to writings by women and to popular culture, and challenge conventional readings of the Russian "great tradition". The status of the literary canon is questioned and the position of the critic re-evaluated. The radical standpoint of the eight writers takes its orientation in particular from the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and from western feminism.

At the turn of the century an intimate alliance of philosophers, poets and theologians discovered the incarnation of their aspirations for a spiritually transformed world in the symbol of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom of God. Under her various aliases as the Divine Feminine, the Wisdom Clothed in the Sun and the Beautiful Lady, this feminine archetype usurped the traditional role of Christ as the mediator between heaven and earth. She was, however, primarily the inspiration of the Russian philosophe...

Romanticism was always culturally diverse. Though English-language anthologies have previously tended to see Romanticism as predominantly British, the term itself actually originated in Germany, where it became the banner of a Europe-wide movement involving the profound intellectual and aesthetic changes which we now associate with modernity. This anthology is the first to place British Romanticism within a comprehensive and multi-lingual European context, showing how ideas and writers interconn...

Russian literature begins with the nineteenth century, that is to say with the reign of Alexander I. It was then that the literary fruits on which Russia has since fed were born. The seeds were sown, of course, centuries earlier; but the history of Russian literature up to the nineteenth century is not a history of literature, it is the history of Russia. It may well be objected that it is difficult to separate Russian literature from Russian history; that for the understanding of Russian litera...

In "The Idiot," Prince Myshkin, a saintly man, is thrust into the heart of a society obsessed with wealth, power, and sexual conquest. He soon finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections. Extortion, scandal, and murder follow, as Dostoevsky's "positively good man" clashes with the emptiness of a society that cannot accommodate his moral idealism. This wonderfully fresh and faithful translation--nev...

Daniil Kharms (1905-42), Leningrad absurdist of the 1920s and 30s, was just about the last representative of the Russian literary avant-garde, whose careers and lives were blighted and curtailed amid the cultural and historical excesses of Stalinism. Unpublished and undiscussed for decades, Kharms's works gradually began to emerge from obscurity or from desk drawers in the 1960s, appearing at first mainly abroad, until glasnost brought them to the Soviet reader in the late 1980s. Research on Kha...

Each volume, covering four to six short stories, includes: A User's Guide Editor's Notes and Introduction Biography of the Short Story Writer List of Characters in Each Story Detailed Thematic Analysis of Each Short Story Extracts from Major Critical Essays That Discuss Aspects of Each Work Complete Bibliography of the Writer's Works A List of Critical Works About the Short Stories Covered plus, An Index of Themes and Ideas in the Author's Work

A study of a key modernist form, its theory, practice and legacyWhat do we know today about the theatrical ferment caused by the scandalous group of Russian writers, artists, musicians and theatre makers who called themselves 'Futurists'? What can we learn from their iconoclastic and exciting theatre works?Underpinned by theoretical writings, manifestoes and demonstrations, 'Russian Futurist Theatre' explores one of the most brilliant but least documented theatre explosions of the last 100 years...