Russian 371
Russian Literature from its Beginnings through Gogol
Full course for one semester. Intended to introduce the Russian
modes of prose writing in relation to their Western European
models, this course seeks to map the specificities of Russian
pre-modern literary culture. The nature of narrative is studied
with respect to medieval literary conventions versus modern
literary conventions. The eighteenthcentury is examined in terms of
the imitative nature of the narrative that perpetually looks back
to the Western European world on the material of the epistolary
text, travelers’ tales, adventure tales, and the sentimental novel.
The nineteenth-century readings of novellas by Pushkin, Lermontov,
and Gogol emphasize narrative techniques as they are rooted in the
conventions of "someone else’s voice" and in the narrator’s
world-view conveyed from an estranged position. Prerequisite:
students who wish to take the course for Russian credit must have
completed Russian 220 or obtain the consent of the instructor.
Lecture-discussion. Cross-listed as Literature 371.
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