Tolstoy question 5

[Hugh McLean]

That is also ingenious and seemingly attractive. However, Dal''s 
alternate definition of  prostynia  had attached the adjective sannaja, 
i.e.,  for a sleigh, designed to keep the snow off. It seems to me 
dubious to move it from there to a linejka, now become not a ruler, but 
one of the innumerable varieties of horse-drawn vehicle with wheels, not 
runners.
I also think it is a mistake to read back the extreme views on sexuality 
voiced in The Kreutzer Sonata back to the 1850s, when Tolstoy was was a 
young blade very fond of encounters with "devki."



Svetlana Grenier wrote:
> I may be naive, but it seems to me that  линейка и простыня make 
> perfect sense together as a description of traveling in a 'lineika' 
> which has a 'prostynia'--they make more sense to me than 'lineika' as 
> a 'ruler' and 'prostynia' as a 'bed sheet,'. because the connection 
> between the two is quite unclear  As Will Ryan wisely suggested, Dal' 
> is always a good place to go to. See quotes from Dal' below:
>
> Простыня санная, покрывало, чтобы не забрасывало снегом, ископытью.
> Линейка ... широкие, многоместные дрожки, *в старину с фартуками, а 
> иногда и с занавесами, как кровать*; | пролетки, пролетные дрожки.
> ФАРТУК м. немецк. *передник, запон*. Бабий фартук. *Линейка с 
> фартуками*. Фартучный холст
> Передник м. часть одежи, разного вида и покроя, для прикрытия и 
> оберегу передней и более нижней части тела; запон, занавеска, фартук.
> Поварской передник, поясной, но обходит почти кругом.
>
> Just a thought...
>
> Svetlana
>
> Judson Rosengrant wrote:
>
>> I have to agree with Prof. Mclean in regard to the erotic dimension.
>> There are certainly many erotic moments in the trilogy (it is a major 
>> theme,
>> just as it must be, given the narrative's broad subject of the 
>> passage from
>> childhood to adulthood), but they are always quite subtle and nuanced
>> (Tolstoy may have been much more sophisticated about sex than we are, 
>> may
>> have had a much more complex understanding of it), and in any case 
>> the point
>> here is indeed that Volodya's association of Katya with his childhood 
>> (they
>> grew up as virtual brother and sister) has prevented him from seeing 
>> her as
>> she now is, as a beautiful young woman of great charm (I omitted
>> some text in my original quote, text that actually reinforces this 
>> point.)
>> The title of the chapter, it shouldn't be overlooked, is Отношения между
>> нами и девочками [NB], between the boys and their sisters, Любочка и
>> Катенька.
>>
>> Оказалось, во всяком случае, что простыня далеко не простая.
>>
>> Jud
>>
>> Judson Rosengrant, PhD
>> PO Box 551 Portland, OR 97207
>>
>> 503.880.9521 mobile
>> jrosengrant at earthlink.net
>>
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>

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