English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance

by Rachel Polonsky

Overview

This is the first study of the Russian reception of English literature from Romanticism to Aestheticism. It focuses particularly on the reception by Russian poets of Shelley, Ruskin, Pater, Frazer and Wilde, which gave new impetus to the Russian imagination at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries. Framing this account is a pioneering exploration of the intellectual background to these influences, and a discussion of Russian conceptions of national identity, literary influence and the origins of comparative literary history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521027472
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/02/2006
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Notes on the text; Introduction; 1. Museum people; Part I. The Barbaric Renaissance: 2. Rites of spring; 3. Balmont's Shelley and the sacred books of the East; 4. Edgar Allan Poe and the magic of words; Part II. The Aesthetic Renaissance: 5. The renaissance of the renaissance; 6. English Aestheticism and Blok's apocalypse; 7. How important it is to be serious: Oscar Wilde's popularity; 8. Kuzmin's English style; Afterword; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Polonsky clearly and skillfully explicates the complex process through which the Russian aesthetic renaissance passed to produce its Silver Age.... This thoughtful book provides much new information and will be useful to anyone interested in the phenomenon of cross-cultural literary influences." Choice

"Rachel Polonsky's English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance fills a place long unclaimed in the history of Russian symbolism and fills it superbly. ..a highly readable, persuasive, and exceptionally rich contribution to existing work on Russian symbolism." Slavic Review

"...lively and very suggestive introduction...careful and insightful analysis of individual works...an extreemely valuable contribution to comparative studies." Yearbook of Comparative anad General Literature

"...stimulating book...Polonsky has provided one of the most stimulating surveys of the 'aesthetic renaissance' overall." Canadian Slavonic Papers

Editorial Reviews

"Polonsky clearly and skillfully explicates the complex process through which the Russian aesthetic renaissance passed to produce its Silver Age.... This thoughtful book provides much new information and will be useful to anyone interested in the phenomenon of cross-cultural literary influences." Choice

"Rachel Polonsky's English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance fills a place long unclaimed in the history of Russian symbolism and fills it superbly. ..a highly readable, persuasive, and exceptionally rich contribution to existing work on Russian symbolism." Slavic Review

"...lively and very suggestive introduction...careful and insightful analysis of individual works...an extreemely valuable contribution to comparative studies." Yearbook of Comparative anad General Literature

"...stimulating book...Polonsky has provided one of the most stimulating surveys of the 'aesthetic renaissance' overall." Canadian Slavonic Papers

From the Publisher