Metapoesis - C
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Finke, Michael / Michael C. Finke / C. H. Van Schooneveld, PUBLISHER: Duke University Press, Readers have been schooled to see nineteenth-century Russian literature as the summit ong>ofong> social and psychological realism. But in the work ong>ofong> writers from Pushkin to Chekhov, Michael C. Finke discloses a pervasive self-referentiality, a running ong>commentaryong> on the literary conventions these texts seem so wholly to embody. "Metapoesis" examines how--and more importantly, "why"--a series ong>ofong> major Russian authors spanning the nineteenth century inscribed ong>commentaryong> on their own poetics into their works ong>ofong> drama, narrative poetry, and fiction. As he explores the process ong>ofong> metapoesis in these works, Finke reveals its communicative function in its time and its interpretive value in our own. Jakobsonian poetics provides the framework for this approach, though Finke also draws freely upon a number ong>ofong> contemporary literary theorists. After elucidating the meaning ong>ofong> metapoesis in works by Pushkin, Gogol, and Chernyshevsky, he reveals its covert functioning in such masterpieces ong>ofong> realism as Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," and Chekhov's "The Steppe." The result is a new interpretation and deeper understanding ong>ofong> these particular works, which in turn reorient our understanding ong>ofong> linguistic and literary "codes" and ong>ofong> the Russian literary tradition itself. ong>Ofong> special interest to scholars ong>ofong> Russian literature, "Metapoesis" will also appeal to a broad range ong>ofong> readers and students ong>ofong> comparative literature, literary theory, and poetics.