Luminous words : prerevolutionary Russian writers on foreign language and the art of translation
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines the link between language learning and the study of literature in prerevolutionary Russia and illuminates the role of foreign language and translation in the lives of prerevolutionary Russian writers including Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936), Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942), and Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). I contend that a primary motivation for foreign language study in the prerevolutionary Russian context is an urge to access what is otherwise inaccessible: texts, experiences, cultures. This is in keeping not only with the search for innovation from outside the national tradition that broadly characterizes the history of Russian literature before 1917, but also with the individual cases of the writers I examine, for whom language study and translation become a basis for the development of personal identity through contact with the unknown. The multilingual writers in this study approach foreign languages from experiential perspectives that shed light on the role of subjective factors in language learning and translation that reflect the concerns of their inner lives. The chapters of this dissertation thus approach the urge to access the inaccessible from different angles that span the binary of public and private and speak to concerns of aesthetics, sexual identity, geopolitical power, and the thrill of discovery. Furthermore, my focus on writers' intensely personal experiences with language facilitates an analysis that goes beyond the sociohistorical level to discuss subjective aspects of language learning, translation, and education that cannot be quantified by other parameters. I thereby provide a fuller picture of the encounters between cultures that accounts for the effect of the "luminous words" of others on individuals who engage with the foreign from a position of interest and openness.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Kim, Dongwan |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. |
| Primary advisor | Greenleaf, Monika, 1952- |
| Primary advisor | Safran, Gabriella, 1967- |
| Thesis advisor | Greenleaf, Monika, 1952- |
| Thesis advisor | Safran, Gabriella, 1967- |
| Thesis advisor | Levy, Indra A |
| Advisor | Levy, Indra A |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Dongwan Kim. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Dongwan Kim
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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