Thin Culture, High Art: Gogol, Hawthorne, and Authorship in Nineteenth-Century Russia and America by Anne Lounsbery
2009; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 104; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mlr.2009.0242
ISSN2222-4319
Autores Tópico(s)Themes in Literature Analysis
ResumoMLR, 104.1, 2009 143 ThinCulture, HighArt:Gogol, Hawthorne, andAuthorship in Nineteenth-Century Russia andAmerica. ByANNELOUNSBERY. Cambridge, MA, andLondon: HarvardUniversity Press. 2007. ?17.95 ISBN978-o-674-02382-6. AnneLounsbery beginsbyasserting that'Nikolai Gogol andNathaniel Hawthorne knewnothing of each other. They were contemporaries, but they probably never heardeachother'snames,and they certainly neverreadeachother's works [. . ] What isverysurprising are thesimilarities betweenthesetwo writers, similarities so strong as to be almost uncanny' (p. 1). Today, however, there are few literary critics whowillgrant'the uncanny' anyexplicatory status, and shequicklysuggests thatthesesimilarities areactually attributable to 'certain parallelsintheir historical conditions'(p. 1).Lounsberyisa highly perceptive literary critic, butthereisnever anysuggestion throughout herbook thateither Gogol orHawthorneshapedthe literature of their respective nationsthrough thepowerof their geniusas authors. Indeed she ends ThinCulture, HighArt by assertingthat'Itwas not primarily Gogol andHawthornethemselves who shapedtheir countries' ideasof theliterary. Rather, bothwere largely shapedby their contemporaries' notionsof literature and authorship' (p.280). Itisnoticeablethatit was not impersonal, historical forces that 'shaped'thetwo writers' work,but instead Lounsbery emphatically insists that their writing was formed overthedecadesbytheir individual humanreaders. Her book isvery much preoccupied with theemergence ofa new,large, hetero geneous,butnot alwaysparticularly sophisticated readership inbothRussia and America intheearly andmiddledecadesof the nineteenth century, andLounsbery argues throughout thatGogol and Hawthorne were acutely aware of this enormous change. Indeed, she suggests that theywere both so aware of their readers that their problematic relationship withthem becamethe verysubject-matter oftheir writing. She observes, forexample, that thevulnerability of both art and the artist before the public'sincomprehension, hostility, and indifference isa recurring themein much ofHawthorne's work,and suggests ofDead Souls that'Thefrustration ofdealing with an audiencethat values little beside conventionally elaborate plotting helps toexplain whyGogol populatesthetownofN with compulsivestorytellers and interpreters, characters who lovenothing more thanan exegetical spree'(p.135). Sensibly, Lounsbery beginsand concludesherbookwith chaptersthat discuss both writers together,but formost of Thin Culture, High Art she allocates separate chapters, alternately, toeachauthor. Although LounsberyisanAssistant Professor ofRussian Literature and her understanding ofGogol's work and its relationship to hisreadership isexemplary, sheisno lessperceptive andpersuasive whendiscussing Hawthorne's writing(shehas commendably little interest ineither author's biogra phicaldetails). Her comparisons, too,arestriking: 'Like Gogol'smostgrossly corpo realcharacters, mired inthedense materiality of their ownexistence, Hawthorne's civil servants seem tobe without any attributes or concerns that are not purely phy sical' (p. 1oo), and 'In TheHouse of theSeven Gables as inDead Souls, gossip, rumour andspeculation makeup theever-present oralunderworld ofprint culture'(p.165). Thereareoccasions whenLounsbery overstates hercase,aswhen she writesthat 144 Reviews 'Dead Souls and The House of theSeven Gables ask to be read as books about the nation'(p.193),and it wasmore thana little surprising thatthroughout a sustained evaluationofGogol's TheNose there was not even a reference toPhilipRoth's ingenious parodyTheBreast (1972).However,inheranalysis ofHawthorne'sThe Marble Faun sheoffers an ingenious parallel with WalterBenjamin'sfamousessay 'The Work ofArt in the Age of MechanicalReproduction', publishedeighty years after Hawthorne'slastnovel.This isaworkofconsiderable scholarship, driven bya veryinteresting andpersuasivethesis. ROEHAMPTON UNIVERSITY KEVIN MCCARRON Richard WagnersShakespeare. ByYVONNE NILGES. (WagnerinderDiskussion,3) Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. 2007. 18o pp. C20. ISBN978-3 8260-3710-8. 'Erist mein einziger Geistesfreund.' Wagner'scomment on theunique importance ofShakespeare (to Cosima,27 May 1882) istakeninallseriousness by Yvonne Nilges inherbook, thefirst tocovertheimmenseinfluence ofShakespeareonWagner, from his earliest compositions (Leubald, Das Liebesverbot) through his theoretical meditationsand up to thegloriesof Meistersinger and beyond.The importance of the Greeksfor Wagnerhasbeenwell documented; hereat last we havea definitive study of thefructifying presence of the Elizabethanplaywright andhis stage. Nilges rightly reminds us ofhowWagner's uncleAdolf encouragedtheyoung boy'swritingand reading, ofShakespeareabove all.The fifteen-year-old's imagi nation was stimulated andLeubaldwas theresult, a diffuse andwild combination ofelements derivedfrom Hamlet, Macbeth,KingLear,Romeoand Juliet, andboth parts ofHenry IV. The work was not conceived as an opera but as a play with music, similartoBeethoven's Egmont(nomusicby Wagner isextant). Nilgesdiscussesthe workwithgusto,leadingus through bombast,tavern scenes,ghosts, witches,and mounds of corpses. We are on more familiar ground with Das Liebesverbot, which Wagner based onMeasure forMeasure. Nilges points out thatWagner, now under thespellofJunges Deutschlandand theemancipation of thesenses,insisted inan autobiographical sketchthat hewas leaving behind thefairy-tale mysteries ofDie Feenand addressingthe materialworld (he isalso rebelling againsttheelevation ofShakespeareto thestatus ofmummified deityincertaincircles). Nilges isvery perceptive in her comments on the Shakespeare translations that Wagner used and convincingly decideson the Wieland text(MaJfi...
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