This paper is available for the academic year 2025-26.
Russian literature came of age in the nineteenth century.听 Within a few decades (1810s to 1860s), authors went from struggling to develop and refine the literary language, to writing some of the greatest novels of all time.听 Beginning with Pushkin and the Golden Age of Russian poetry, this course traces the evolution of the Russian literary tradition and the rise of the great Russian novel, culminating with its heyday in the 1860s-70s, and then the return to shorter forms at the end of the century.听 Students will learn how Russian authors engaged with formal/aesthetic problems and also made literature the site for rich debates about all the pressing concerns of their day: social, psychological, political, scientific, and philosophical.
In order to achieve a balance of depth and breadth, the paper is organized around the study of two set texts and four topics.听(There are suggested pathways through the texts and topics tailored to Part IB, option A [ex-ab initio] students).
Assessment by Long Essay instead of final examination is available in this paper for students in Part IB (Options A&B).
For full details, see the SL4 Student Handbook
Section A: Set Texts
A1.听 A. S. Pushkin, Evgenii Onegin听 (Michaelmas)
Note: Former ab initio students (i.e. those in Part IB, Option A) are only required to read chapters 1, 2, 7 and 8 in Russian; they must read the entire novel in English in order to follow the plot.听 (Recommended translation: James E. Falen (rhymed); in addition, Vladimir Nabokov for literal translation)
Students in Part IB, Option B and Part II read the entire novel in Russian.
A2: L. N. Tolstoi, Anna Karenina (Lent)
Note: Former ab initio students (i.e. those in Part IB, Option A) read at least the extracts specified below in Russian (roughly one third of the novel); they read the entire novel in English in order to follow the plot:听 Part I: 1-4, 7-11, 13, 16-23, 26-34;听 Part 2: 7-12, 21-29;听听听 Part 3: 1-5, 13-16,听 22-25, 31-32 ;听 Part 4:听1, 3-5,听 9-13, 15-23;听 Part 6: 3, 7-16,听 19-20, 31-33;听 Part 7: 9-16, 23-31;听 Part 8: 8-19.听 Recommended translation: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Students in Part IB, Option B and Part II read the entire novel in Russian.
Section B: Topics
B1. Lyric Poetry (Michaelmas)
Selected poems by Vasilii Zhukovskii, Konstantin Batiushkov, Aleksandr Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, and Evdokiia Rostopchina
B2.听 Exposing the Need for Reform, 1850s (Michaelmas)
Evgeniia Tur, Antonina (1851)
Aleksandr Ostrovskii, Groza (1859)
Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaia, 鈥楤ratets鈥� (1858),听笔补苍蝉颈辞苍别谤办补听(1860)
B3.听The Novel of Ideas, 1860s (Lent)
Ivan Turgenev, Otsy i deti (1862)
Fedor Dostoevskii,听Zapiski iz podpol鈥檌a听(1864) or Prestuplenie i nakazanie听(1866)
B4.听Short Forms, 1880-1910 (Lent)
Selected short stories by Anton Chekhov, Lev Tolstoi, and Nikolai Leskov
Preparatory reading:听
Students are urged to buy and read both Set Texts during the summer (or Year Abroad), as well as, in particular, any optional longer texts they wish to cover (e.g.听Prestuplenie i nakazanie).
Students are urged to buy and read both Set Texts during the summer (or Year Abroad), as well as, in particular, any optional longer texts they wish to cover (e.g.听Prestuplenie i nakazanie).
The following reading list serves as an introduction to the subject.
- Caryl Emerson,听The 海角社区 Introduction to Russian Literature听(esp. chs 1, 4, 5, 6)
- William Mills Todd, III,听Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin: Ideology, Institutions and Narrative听(chs. 1,2,3)
- Malcolm V. Jones and Robin Feuer Miller (eds.), The 海角社区 Companion to the Classic Russian Novel
- Michael Wachtel,听海角社区 Introduction to Russian Poetry听(chs 1,2,3,4)
- a scholarly history of 19th-century Russia such as: Gregory Freeze,听Russia:听 A History听(chs 5, 6, 7, 8) or Nicholas Riasanovsky and Mark Steinberg, A History of Russia (8th edition; Chs 24-30)
Weekly lectures in Michaelmas and Lent;听weekly (2hr) revision seminars in Easter.听Ten fortnightly supervisions听throughout the year.听听
For the SL.4 Moodle site, please see .听
Assessment by Long Essay instead of final examination is available in this paper for students in Part IB (Options A & B).
听
Students for Part IB (Options A & B)
A 5-hour online timed exam. The examination is structured as follows: Section A will consist of a commentary on one of the set texts and essay questions on the other. Section B will offer several questions on each of the prescribed topics, as well as more open questions that might be answered with reference to a wide range of texts and periods. 听All questions in Section B will require candidates to write about at least two texts.
听
Candidates must answer three questions:
鈥⑩�傗�傗�傗�傗��1 question from Section A
鈥⑩�傗�傗�傗�傗�俛ny other 2 questions (which may include 1 further question from Section A)
听
Students for Part II
Students will write a coursework essay or commentary in the break before Easter Term based on prompts about the set texts (the equivalent of Section A of the exam for Part IB students). 听In Easter Term there will be a 3-hour online timed exam. During the exam students will answer two questions on the topics (the equivalent of Section B of the exam for Part IB students). 听
听
Dr Susan Larsen |
