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Social Functions of Literature - Alexander Pushkin and Russian Culture (Hardcover)
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Social Functions of Literature - Alexander Pushkin and Russian Culture (Hardcover)
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This study of the effect of literature on readers, both as
individuals and as members of social groups, focuses on Russia's
national poet, Alexander Pushkin, as a model for investigating the
aesthetic and social functions of literature.
The individual reader's response to the literary text is
demonstrated in Part One through a broad range of memoirs, diaries,
and correspondences in which Russian readers recorded their
reactions to Pushkin. Among the reactions are testimonies that
Pushkin's works helped readers form their personalities, provided
cathartic relief in times of stress, and aided them in releasing
their suppressed emotions. In his analysis, the author draws on
various psychological approaches, from studies of perception
through developmental psychology to psychoanalysis.
Part Two exposes the extent to which individuals' aesthetic
responses are conditioned by their social environment. Against the
backdrop of Russian social history in the early nineteenth century,
the author describes the dissemination of new aesthetic norms,
notably the relations of the Russian literary elite to "lowbrow"
and "middlebrow" groups. In this context, he analyzes a number of
Pushkin imitations (with Pushkin's responses to them) and links
Nikolai Gogol's development as a writer to the social groups
surrounding Pushkin. Among the other topics discussed are the
popularization of Pushkin on the stage and his inclusion in school
textbooks and anthologies.
The aura surrounding the personality of an author is the subject of
Part Three, in which the author shows how Pushkin's death in a duel
with a foreigner contributed to his emergence as a symbol of the
Russian nation, and how deep-seated anxiety about national identity
gave rise to the Pushkin myth and to the canonization of the poet
as martyr. The author also describes how the combined effect of the
widespread reading of Pushkin's work and his legend as martyr
allowed him to remain Russia's main mythic figure despite the
Soviet Union's attempts to supplant him with Lenin. Throughout the
book, theoretical arguments are buttressed by close readings of
Pushkin's works, especially "The Prisoner of the Caucasus," "Eugene
Onegin," "Poltava," "Egyptian Nights," and several lyric poems.
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