Mediated transcendence : realism and revelation in Russian Fiction, 1863-1898
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- "Mediated Transcendence: Realism and Revelation in Russian Fiction, 1863-1898" investigates the relationship between literary form and transcendence in representative texts of the Russian Realist tradition. The author identifies scenes of literary transcendence, spanning transformative religious and psychological experiences, as epiphanies, which display a unique confluence of content and form -- at once a narrative event, in the life of the character, and a locus of literary devices. The project proceeds from the premise that the ineffable content of epiphany exceeds the verisimilar parameters of literary realism, and even the semiotic capacity of prose language. In response to this representational problem, the authors analyzed elaborate narrative and poetic strategies for the purposes of framing transcendence, augmenting discursive representation with performative presentation. Beginning with Tolstoy's model of the literary epiphany in War and Peace in the introduction, the dissertation subsequently explores the theme and forms of transcendence in Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Idiot, " Nikolai Leskov's "The Sealed Angel, " and selected stories of Anton Chekhov. Incorporating elements of theology, phenomenology, and critical theory, these individual readings reveal the aesthetic nature of visionary experience, and the way such experience is conveyed by the appropriately aesthetic means and potential of the literary text. In challenging notions of the empirical and positivist biases of Realism, the dissertation reevaluates the historical position of the movement, indicating its formal and theoretical debt to Romanticism, as well as its subsequent influence on Modernism.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Roberts, Thomas Lee |
|---|---|
| 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 | Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich |
| Advisor | Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Thomas Lee Roberts. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2010. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2010 by Thomas Lee Roberts
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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