Griffiths F.T., Rabinowitz S.J. Epic and the Russian Novel from Gogol to Pasternak

Academic Studies Press, 2011. — 241 p. — (Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History). — 978-1-936235-53-7.Epic and the Russian Novel from Gogol to Pasternak examines the origin of the nineteen-century Russian novel and challenges the Luk'cs-Bakhtin theory of epic. By removing the Russian novel from its European context, the authors reveal that it developed as a means of reconnecting the narrative form with its origins in classical and Christian epic in a way that expressed the Russian desire to renew and restore ancient spirituality. Through this methodology, Griffiths and Rabinowitz dispute Bakhtin's classification of epic as a monophonic and dead genre whose time has passed. Due to its grand themes and cultural centrality, the epic is the form most suited to newcomers or cultural outsiders seeking legitimacy through appropriation of the past. Through readings of Gogol's Dead Souls a uniquely problematic work, and one which Bakhtin argued was novelistic rather than epic Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, and Tolstoy's War and Peace, this book redefines epic and how we understand the sweep of Russian literature as a whole.Preface
Epic and Novel
The Double Plot of Epic
The Death of Epic
Polyphony and Pentecost
Temporal Closure
Gogol in Rome
“Taras Bulba”
“Rome”
Dead Souls, Part One
Dead Souls, Part Two
Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
Tolstoy and Homer
Doctor Zhivago and the Tradition of National Epic
Stalin and the Death of Epic: Mikhail Bakhtin, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak
Works CitedTrue PDF