The Poetry of Prose: Readings in Russian Literature

In prose, and especially in narrative prose, the poetic system of repetitive parallel elements is less conspicuous than in verse composition. And yet the poetry of narrative prose is likewise brought about by elaborate systems of parallels and equivalences that prompt the reader to transform the true-to-life representation of events and characters into higher, symbolic levels of meaning. The readings in this book explore the functions of parallelistic patterning in narrative Russian literature: from the figural interpretation of early East Slavic hagiography — the juxtaposition of saints’ lives with the gospel narratives about the life of Christ — to the deployment of related forms of parabolic projection in the works the great nineteenth-century Russian novelists. It is the uncovering of such patterns that provides access to the symbolic dimension of the Russian novel.

Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter One · Medieval East Slavic Literature 988–1730
Chapter Two · Religion and Art in the Russian Novel
Chapter Three · The Function of Hagiography in Dostoevsky’s Novels
Chapter Four · Polyphony in The Brothers Karamazov: Variations on a Theme
Chapter Five · Dostoevskian Fools—Holy and Unholy  
Chapter Six · Dostoevsky’s Idiot or the Poetics of Emptiness
Chapter Seven · Male Homosocial Desire in The Idiot
Chapter Eight · The Last Delusion in an Infinite Series of Delusions: Stavrogin and the Symbolic Structure of Demons
Chapter Nine · The Poetry of Prose: The Art of Parallelism in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons
Chapter Ten · Seeing the World Through Genres
Index of Names