Comparative Study of Pushkin's the Bronze Horseman, Nekrasov's Red-Nosed Frost, and Blok's the Twelvethe Wild World

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Year:
Pages:288
ISBN:0-88946-082-5
978-0-88946-082-9
Price:$199.95 + shipping
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Brings together for comparison three Russian narrative poems by authors who lived in different periods of modern Russian history, covering among their lifespans the whole of the nineteenth century and two decades of the twentieth. Numerous points of contact are seen to emerge, ranging from historical matters to a concurrence of ideas iterating the tragic nature of human life and destiny.

Reviews

"In view of the paucity of studies of the long poem in Russian poetry, A.D.P. Briggs' new book is surely to be welcomed for its comparative approach to three of the acknowledged masterpieces in this genre. . . . Briggs' arguments are most compelling in his clear elucidation of the links between prosody and meaning. His treatment of The Twelve, for example, focuses on the way in which rhyme functions as a linking element between seemingly unrelated lines, thereby making the case that the work is indeed a poema and not a cycle of smaller units as other critics have argued. . . . Throughout the book excerpts from the poems appear both in Russian and accurate translations which, along with the straightforward and engaging style of this work, will make it particularly appealing for those studying the works in translation." - The Russian Review

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. A Basis for Comparison

Common Purpose and Collective Significance
Individual Reputations
Intimations of Similiarity
The Question of Inheritance
The Poems and Their Stories
The Bronze Horseman
Red-Nosed Frost
The Twelve
The Argument in Outline

Chapter 2. A Sense of Musical Delight

Introduction
The Bronze Horseman
Red-Nosed Frost
The Twelve
Conclusion

Chapter 3. Politics and Poetry

Introduction
The Bronze Horseman
Red-Nosed Frost
The Twelve
Conclusion

Chapter 4. Man Against God

Introduction
The Bronze Horseman
Red-Nosed Frost
The Twelve
Conclusion

Chapter 5. Man Against Nature

Introduction
The Bronze Horseman
Red-Nosed Frost
The Twelve
Conclusion

Chapter 6. Man Against the Dark: A Symbolic Structure

Introduction
The Major Symbols
The Bronze Horseman
Red-Nosed Frost
The Twelve
Conclusion

Chapter 7. A Terrible Beauty

General Conclusion

Index

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