On behalf of a friend in Moscow

Fri Aug 29 12:47:00 UTC 2014

Henry James was a good friend of Turgenev's, and he wrote several essays on him as well as on other Russian writers and 19th-century Russian literature more generally. Matthew Arnold's essay "Count Leo Tolstoi" is also a very well-known piece - it was published in the Fortnightly Review in 1887 and reprinted in 1906 in his Essays in Criticism. Second Series. Virginia Woolf wrote many, many essays on Russian writers (mainly Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov) as well as book reviews of the new translations of their works that were being published. John Middleton Murry (Katherine Mansfield's husband) wrote a book on Dostoevsky (entitled Fyodor Dostoevsky), and D.H. Lawrence has his well-known essay on the Grand Inquisitor. I would also recommend the various books by Maurice Baring, who was a newspaper correspondent in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and wrote several books on Russian literature that were influential among the English reading public, especially Landmarks in Russian Literature. Percy Lubbock also devotes several chapters to War and Peace in his 1921 book The Craft of Fiction.

I would also recommend the following studies as background that will provide your friend with many additional sources and ideas:

Davie, Donald. Russian Literature and Modern English Fiction
May, Rachel. The Translator in the Text: On Reading Russian Literature in English. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1994.

Muchnic, Helen. Dostoevsky's English Reputation (1881-1936)
Orel, Harold. “English Critics and the Russian Novel: 1850–1917.” Slavonic and East European Review 33 (1954-55): 457-69.
---, “The Victorian View of Russian Literature.” Victorian Newsletter Number 51 (Spring 1977): 1-5.
Phelps, Gilbert. “The Early Phases of British Interest in Russian Literature.” Slavonic and East European Review 36 (1957-58): 418-33.
---, “The Early Phases of British Interest in Russian Literature.” Slavonic and East European Review 38 (1959-60): 415-30.

Good luck to your friend!

Best,

sms

Sara Stefani

Assistant Professor

Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Indiana University

1020 E. Kirkwood Avenue

Ballantine Hall 502

Bloomington, IN 47405

samastef at indiana.edu<mailto:samastef at indiana.edu>

________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Simon Beattie [simon at SIMONBEATTIE.CO.UK]
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2014 4:37 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] On behalf of a friend in Moscow

The books which spring to mind which may help are:

Ivan Turgenev and Britain, ed. Waddington
Dostoevksii and Britain, ed. Leatherbarrow
Tolstoi and Britain, ed. Jones

All, I think, published in 1995 by Berg Publishers in Oxford.

Best wishes,

Simon

From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Robert Chandler
Sent: 28 August 2014 06:35
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] On behalf of a friend in Moscow

Dear all,

Does anyone have any advice to give to my friend who has just sent me this:

'And I have been asked to deliver a very challenging course which could be called "History of Russian literature through British and American literary criticism".
My idea is to split it up into two blocks (eighteen 90-minute lessons for the 19-th century, eighteen for the 20-th). I could take 5 - 6 most prominent Russian writers for each block. Then I would take some works on the authors and their legacy and prepare them for the classroom use. Preferrably the works should be written at different times. For example, 5 articles about Dostoevsky, one - written at the end of the 19-th cent., another - at the beginning of the 20-th, the third - after the Revolution, the fourth - in Khrushchev's times... Then the same with Tolstoy.
Another problem  is to make the materials as useful as they can be - in terms of English learning. They should bring more than just bits of information on the subject declared. I will have to devise some tasks and follow-up activities.
If You think anything of all this may work, I would ask You to think of any books or collected works that might help me. Perhaps there are some reliable text-books, monographs...

I shall begin, in a contrary way, by suggesting just one book with an entirely opposite focus: Maurice Friedberg,  "A Decade of Euphoria: Western Literature in Post-Stalin Russia”, which was mentioned in the interesting obituary recently posted by Michael Finke.  Thank you, Michael, for doing this!

All the best,

Robert

Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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