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English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance by Rachel Polonsky (review)

2001; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 96; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mlr.2001.a825501

2222-4319

W. Gareth Jones,

Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies

MLR, 96. I, 200I MLR, 96. I, 200I his is an accomplished and suggestive piece, John Bowen's Derridean delight in identifying 'present absences' and 'scenes of inscription' in Pickwick Papersmight strike some as rather passe. On the other hand, there are some interesting methodological innovations, a rarety for the 'edited volume' genre. Particularly interestingis the exercise in collective analysiscarriedout by Rose France,Michael Kirkwoodand Rachel Needham, who engage in a search for TranslationTheory's 'proto-text', and Robin Millner-Gulland'screative synthesisof readings, past and present,of Kharms'sTheOldWoman. Space does not allowfor discussionof every contributionand severalgood pieces mustforego mention. However, Jane Gary Harris'sfine analysisof the relationship between genre and literary evolution in Lidiia Ginzburg's journal demands attention, as does the healthydisrespectforliterarycanons shownbyJoe Andrewin daring, through an application of the tools of post-Freudianfeminism, to disclose disturbing incestual urges in the early Dostoevskii. Robert Reid's meticulously observed discussion of structuralaffinitiesbetween Lermontov's 'Bela' and 'The Demon' confirms that the Circle has not lost touch with its roots. Valentina Polukhina deploys a judiciously adapted version of the self/other model in a convincing attempt to provide a single theoreticalprismthroughwhich to view the ceuvre of Brodsky. Alexandra Smith's observations on Tynianov's novel Pushkin provide an excellent insight into the tension between theory and practice in the workof one of Formalism'sfigureheads. All in all, the volume is a fitting tribute to the vitality of the Neo-Formalistsand gives everycause to believe thatthe groupwillcontinue to buildbridges,to innovate and to provokein equal measureforthe next twentyfiveyearsand beyond. UNIVERSITY OF SURREY STEPHEN HUTCHINGS English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance. By RACHEL POLONSKY. (Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature) Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne:CambridgeUniversityPress. I998. xii + 249 PP. ?45. The 'barbaricrenaissance',the paradoxical title of the firstpart of thisprovocative and insightfultwo-partstudy,is a key to the author'sunderstandingof the essential impact of English Victorian literature on Russian intellectuals at the turn of the nineteenth century.The Russian'barbarianism'encompassedthe enduringpopulist myth, resurgent Slavophilism, the belief that the primitive culture of the Russian peasants could provide salvation from dehumanizing capitalist industrialization. What Rachel Polonsky eloquently demonstrates is that support for this new barbarianismwas readily identified and sought out in Englishwritersas diverse as Ruskin, Morris, Pater, Shelley, Poe, Yeats, Fraserand Wilde who had all reacted against the crassnessof mechanization and commerce. Furthersupportwas given by the scholarship of the expanding museums where anthropologistsand earnest folkloristshad effected a re-evaluation of primitive cultures. It was by the dust of museum shelves, it is suggested, that the soil of the folk was re-animated in St Petersburg'sliterary salons. The crucial overlapping and interpenetration of the academic and literary worlds in fin desiecleRussia is stressedby Polonsky. In her pioneering trackingof Anglo-Russian contacts, the importanceof the Bodleian and the British Library is established as well as their scholar-poet users such as Viacheslav Ivanov and Bal'mont. The latter, the epitome of the 'museum'poet, is credited with having transformedthe Russian perception of Shelley from that of a progressivepolitician to one of an Eastern divine, and it is argued that Bal'mont's delving into Russia'sfolk culturewas a continuation of his discovery of the Orient his is an accomplished and suggestive piece, John Bowen's Derridean delight in identifying 'present absences' and 'scenes of inscription' in Pickwick Papersmight strike some as rather passe. On the other hand, there are some interesting methodological innovations, a rarety for the 'edited volume' genre. Particularly interestingis the exercise in collective analysiscarriedout by Rose France,Michael Kirkwoodand Rachel Needham, who engage in a search for TranslationTheory's 'proto-text', and Robin Millner-Gulland'screative synthesisof readings, past and present,of Kharms'sTheOldWoman. Space does not allowfor discussionof every contributionand severalgood pieces mustforego mention. However, Jane Gary Harris'sfine analysisof the relationship between genre and literary evolution in Lidiia Ginzburg's journal demands attention, as does the healthydisrespectforliterarycanons shownbyJoe Andrewin daring, through an application of the tools of post-Freudianfeminism, to disclose disturbing incestual urges in the early Dostoevskii. Robert Reid's meticulously observed discussion of structuralaffinitiesbetween Lermontov's 'Bela' and 'The Demon' confirms that the Circle has not lost touch with its roots. Valentina Polukhina deploys a...