Beyond the Flesh: Alexander Blok, Zinaida Gippius, and the Symbolist Sublimation of Sex
Autor Jenifer Prestoen Limba Engleză Hardback – 6 noi 2008
Though the Russian Symbolist movement was dominated by a concern with transcending sex, many of the writers associated with the movement exhibited an intense preoccupation with matters of the flesh. Drawing on poetry, plays, short stories, essays, memoirs, and letters, as well as feminist and psychoanalytic theory, Beyond the Flesh documents the often unexpected form that this obsession with gender and the body took in the life and art of two of the most important Russian Symbolists.
Jenifer Presto argues that the difficulties encountered in reading Alexander Blok and Zinaida Gippius within either a feminist or a traditional, binary gendered framework derive not only from the peculiarities of their creative personalities but also from the specific Russian cultural context. Although these two poets engaged in gendered practices that, at times, appeared to be highly idiosyncratic and even incited gossip among their contemporaries, they were not operating in a vacuum. Instead, they were responding to philosophical concepts that were central to Russian Symbolism and that would continue to shape modernism in Russia.
Preț: 349.42 lei
Nou
Puncte Express: 524
Preț estimativ în valută:
66.87€ • 69.46$ • 55.55£
66.87€ • 69.46$ • 55.55£
Carte disponibilă
Livrare economică 13-27 ianuarie 25
Preluare comenzi: 021 569.72.76
Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780299229504
ISBN-10: 0299229505
Pagini: 352
Ilustrații: 4 b-w illus.
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.57 kg
Ediția:1
Editura: University of Wisconsin Press
Colecția University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN-10: 0299229505
Pagini: 352
Ilustrații: 4 b-w illus.
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.57 kg
Ediția:1
Editura: University of Wisconsin Press
Colecția University of Wisconsin Press
Recenzii
“An entirely new and highly productive approach to the study of Symbolist mythologies.”—Catherine Ciepiela, author of The Same Solitude: Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva
“Jenifer Presto’s imaginative pairing of two major Symbolist poets produces all sorts of scholarly rewards, both in her provocative readings of individual texts and in the far-reaching cultural and theoretical contexts she uses to frame these readings. The poetic landscape of Russia’s Silver Age will never look quite the same again.”—Clare Cavanagh, author of Osip Mandelstam and the Modernist Creation of Tradition
“A sophisticated, elegant, and substantial study of two central figures in the Russian Symbolist movement. The intellectual sparkle of the book is matched by its very thorough scholarly underpinning.”—Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore College
“Presto takes a fresh tack on the poets. . . . With a nuanced eye she explores the complexities and contradictions of these poets’ construction of gendered selves, in life and art. . . . The study is hugely worth reading; may it produce new generations of scholars whose ‘Blok’ and ‘Gippius’ are informed by refreshing twenty-first-century perspectives.”—Julie de Sherbinin, Slavic Review
Notă biografică
Jenifer Presto is associate professor of comparative literature and Russian at the University of Oregon.
Cuprins
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration and Abbreviations
Introduction.
Beyond the Flesh: Russian Symbolism and the Sublimation of Sex
Part I. Poetry Against Progeny: Blok and the Problem of Poetic Reproduction
1. Unbearable Burdens: Blok and the Modernist Resistance to Progeny
2. Recurring Nightmares: Blok, Freud, and the Specter of Die Ahnfrau
3. Reproductive Fantasies: Blok and the Creation of The Italian Verses
4. A Time of Troubles: Blok and the Disruption of Poetic Succession
Part II. Writing Against the Body: Gippius and the Problem of Lyric Embodiment
5. Style "Femme": Gippius and the Resistance to Feminine Writing
6. The Dandy's Gaze: Gippius and Disdainful Desire for the Feminine
7. Eternal Feminine Problems: Gippius, Blok, and the Incarnation of the Ideal
8. Body Trouble: Gippius and the Staging of an Anatomy of Criticism
Afterword.
The Return of the Repressed: Illegitimate Babies and an Unwieldy Body
Notes
Index
Descriere
Though the Russian Symbolist movement was dominated by a concern with transcending sex, many of the writers associated with the movement exhibited an intense preoccupation with matters of the flesh. Drawing on poetry, plays, short stories, essays, memoirs, and letters, as well as feminist and psychoanalytic theory, Beyond the Flesh documents the often unexpected form that this obsession with gender and the body took in the life and art of two of the most important Russian Symbolists.