An Ordinary Marriage: The World of a Gentry Family in Provincial Russia
by Katherine Pickering Antonova
Forthcoming from Oxford University Press, November 2012
An Ordinary Marriage is the story of the Chikhachevs, middling-income gentry landowners in nineteenth-century... more
An Ordinary Marriage is the story of the Chikhachevs, middling-income gentry landowners in nineteenth-century provincial Russia. In a seemingly strange contradiction, the mother of this family, Natalia, oversaw serf labor and managed finances while the father, Andrei, raised the children, at a time when domestic ideology advocating a woman's place in the home was at its height in European advice manuals. But Andrei Chikhachev defined masculinity as a realm of intellectualism existing symbolically "outside the home." The father's place could be in charge of "moral education," defined as an intellectual task. Managing estates that often barely yielded a livable income was a practical task and therefore considered less elevated, though still vitally important to the family's interests. Thus, estate management was available to gentry women like Natalia Chikhacheva, and the fact that it inevitably expanded their realm of influence and opportunity (within the limits of their estates), and that it increased their centrality to the family's material security relative to their social counterparts to the west, was accidental.
An Ordinary Marriage examines the daily activities and ideas of the family based on multiple overlapping diaries and informal correspondence by the husband, wife, and son of the family, as well as the wife's brother. No such cache of intimate Russian family documents has ever previously been studied in such depth. The family's relative obscurity (with no pretensions to fame, wealth, or influence) and the presence of a woman's private documents are especially unusual in any context. The book considers the Chikhachevs' social life, reading habits, attitudes toward illness and death, as well as their gendered marital roles and their reception of major ideas of their time, such as domesticity, Enlightenment, sentimentalism, and Romanticism.
The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe (2007)
Co-edited with Brian Southam
This volume of international research provides a wide-ranging account of Jane Austen's reception across the length and... more This volume of international research provides a wide-ranging account of Jane Austen's reception across the length and breadth of Europe, from Russia and Finland in the North to Italy and Spain in the South. In historical terms, the survey ranges from the near-contemporary - since Austen's novels were available in French very soon after their original publication - to modern times, in those countries which for various reasons, linguistic, historical or ideological, have taken up the novels only in recent years. For many, Austen’s novels are valued for their romantic content, as love stories, but increasingly they are being perceived as sophisticated, ironic narratives. In this, the quality of translation has been a significant factor and the many film and television adaptations have played an important part in establishing Austen's reputation amongst the public at large. It will be seen from this that across Europe Austen's 'reception history' is far from uniform and has been shaped by a complex of extra-literary forces.
Seeking the Face of God: The Reception of Augustine in the Mystical Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux and William of St Thierry
This book examines the way in which two twelfth century authors, the Cistercian monks, Bernard of Clairvaux... more
This book examines the way in which two twelfth century authors, the Cistercian monks, Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) and William of St. Thierry (c. 1080-1148), used the works of the influential Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in the articulation of their mystical thought. The approach to this subject takes into account the fact that in the works of these authors the “mystical” element is inescapably entangled with their theological discourse and that an accurate understanding of their views on the soul’s direct encounter with God cannot be achieved without a discussion of their theology.
This book argues that the cohesion of Bernard’s and William’s mystical thought lies in their appropriation of what has been called the “guiding principle of Augustine’s mystical theology” (Louth, 2006): “You made us towards yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessiones 1.1.1). In Augustine’s thought this principle is reflected in the subtle interplay of three main themes, namely (1) the creation of humanity in the image and likeness of God, which provides the grounds for the understanding of the soul’s search for direct contact with God; (2) love as a longing innate in every human being, which represents the means to attain immediacy with God; and (3) the soul’s direct encounter with God, which explains the nature of the soul’s immediate consciousness of the divine presence that can only be achieved in lasting fullness at the end of time. In order to demonstrate Bernard’s and William’s dependence on Augustine, each part of the present book is structured on the basis of these three core themes which, in my view, form the scaffolding of the mystical thought of the two Cistercian authors.
As close collaborators and intimate friends, Bernard and William constantly inspired and supported each other in their theological activities. Their interests were so similar that for centuries some of William’s works were confused with those of Bernard, circulating and reaching fame under his friend’s name. However, in spite of their treatment of the same themes and in spite of developing their thought along the lines established by Augustine, investigating the specific methods of their reception of Augustine will highlight the originality and uniqueness of each of the two Cistercian authors, who while drawing on the same patristic source use it nevertheless in various ways, by focusing on different aspects of Augustine’s immense oeuvre and by arriving at distinct mystical programmes.
gerrit kouwenaar en de politiek van het lezen [gerrit kouwenaar and the politics of reading]
Voor de Nederlandse poëzielezer is Gerrit Kouwenaar (1923) een begrip. Het werk van deze dichter is veelvuldig... more Voor de Nederlandse poëzielezer is Gerrit Kouwenaar (1923) een begrip. Het werk van deze dichter is veelvuldig bekroond en geen literatuurgeschiedenis laat zijn impact onvermeld. Kouwenaars stijl en poëtica zijn overbekend en hebben latere generaties dichters, critici en letterkundigen diepgaand beïnvloed. Toch blijken de interpretaties van zijn gedichten elkaar voortdurend tegen te spreken. Hoe is het mogelijk dat een oeuvre zoveel strijdige lezingen ontlokt, en toch zo sober, vertrouwd en herkenbaar lijkt te zijn? Die paradox staat centraal in dit boek. Gaston Franssen reconstrueert de interpretatiegeschiedenis van Kouwenaars gedichten en laat zien dat deze aangestuurd wordt door leesconventies. Ook toont hij de mogelijkheden en beperkingen van die conventies aan. Gerrit Kouwenaar en de politiek van het lezen presenteert daarmee niet alleen een scherpe analyse van de mechanismen die werkzaam zijn binnen de professionele poëziebeschouwing, maar biedt ook een uitdagende en creatieve lectuur van Kouwenaars werk. Dat maakt dit boek tot een pleidooi voor een vrolijke wetenschap van de literaire interpretatie, dat geen enkele poëzielezer onberoerd zal laten.
La réception de l’œuvre de Stig Dagerman en France. La Consécration d’un écrivain étranger
by Karin Dahl
Stig Dagerman est l'un des écrivains nordiques les plus lus et les plus commentés en France et en Italie, alors qu'il... more
Stig Dagerman est l'un des écrivains nordiques les plus lus et les plus commentés en France et en Italie, alors qu'il connaît un succès plus mitigé ailleurs. Cet ouvrage a pour but d'analyser la réception de son oeuvre en France, tout en s'intéressant à la question plus large de la lecture et du statut de la littérature étrangère.
L'auteur met en lumière certains mécanismes des échanges littéraires en traçant l'itinéraire d'un écrivain étranger, disparu depuis un demi-siècle avant sa consécration littéraire internationale, celui qu'on appelle parfois le "Rimbaud du Nord".
Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878
Much criticism has been directed at negative stereotypes of Appalachia perpetuated by movies, television shows, and... more
Much criticism has been directed at negative stereotypes of Appalachia perpetuated by movies, television shows, and news media. Books, on the other hand, often draw enthusiastic praise for their celebration of the simplicity and authenticity of the Appalachian region.
Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 employs the innovative new strategy of examining fan mail, reviews, and readers’ geographic affiliations to understand how readers have imagined the region and what purposes these imagined geographies have served for them. As Emily Satterwhite traces the changing visions of Appalachia across the decades, from the Gilded Age (1865–1895) to the present, she finds that every generation has produced an audience hungry for a romantic version of Appalachia.
According to Satterwhite, best-selling fiction has portrayed Appalachia as a distinctive place apart from the mainstream United States, has offered cosmopolitan white readers a sense of identity and community, and has engendered feelings of national and cultural pride. Thanks in part to readers’ faith in authors as authentic representatives of the regions they write about, Satterwhite argues, regional fiction often plays a role in creating and affirming regional identity. By mapping the geographic locations of fans, Dear Appalachia demonstrates that mobile white readers in particular, including regional elites, have idealized Appalachia as rooted, static, and protected from commercial society in order to reassure themselves that there remains an “authentic” America untouched by global currents.
Investigating texts such as John Fox Jr.’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), Harriette Arnow’s The Dollmaker (1954), James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970), and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain (1997), Dear Appalachia moves beyond traditional studies of regional fiction to document the functions of these narratives in the lives of readers, revealing not only what people have thought about Appalachia, but why.
Sparta in Modern Thought
Newly-published!
Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Ian Macgregor Morris (The Classical Press of Wales, Swansea 2012). ISBN 978-1-905125-47-0.
The attached file contains the volume's Prelims (inc. Table of Contents) and Introduction.
Images of ancient Sparta are irrepressible in Western thought. A powerful model of excellence in the middle ages and... more
Images of ancient Sparta are irrepressible in Western thought. A powerful model of excellence in the middle ages and Renaissance, in the Enlightenment and French Revolution Sparta was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of an ideal republic. Since the 19th century Sparta has been viewed as the opposite of liberal and industrial democracies: shunned – or hailed – as the model for 20th century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich. Intelligence analysts in the United States used Sparta as an analogy to predict the performance of the Cold War Soviet Union. But positive views of the Spartans flourish in contemporary democratic culture and digital media, most strikingly in popular fiction, graphic novels and film.
This book is the first to focus exclusively on Sparta’s impact in modern times. Eleven international experts take readers across ten centuries from the 12th century Renaissance to 21st century digital culture. Exploiting hitherto untapped sources, from medieval political tracts to declassified CIA documents and YouTube video clips, they reveal many previously unknown aspects of Sparta’s impact on modern politics and culture.
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Download (.pdf) Turning into Sterne: Viktor Shklovskii and Literary Reception (Legenda Studies in Comparative Literature)
by Emily Finer
Viktor Shklovskii (1893-1984) is best known as an inventor of Russian Formalism, the literary theorist responsible for... more Viktor Shklovskii (1893-1984) is best known as an inventor of Russian Formalism, the literary theorist responsible for ostranenie, defamiliarisation. Just after the 1917 Revolution, Shklovskii claimed "Tristram Shandy" to be 'the most typical novel in world literature'; he then proceeded to theorise Sterne's formal experiments with plot; to chronicle his own wartime exploits in an autobiographical "Sentimental Journey"; and to promote "Tristram Shandy" as a prototype for the new "Soviet" novel. His reading of "Tristram Shandy" and his lifelong relationship with its author, Laurence Sterne (1713-1769), were of enormous importance to Shklovskii, whose theory of prose remains current in Western academia. As Finer shows, they can tell us much not only about Shklovskii but also the extended, tangled ways of literary reception, and translation.
John Victor Luce, Christine Morris, Christina Souyoudzoglou-Haywood, eds. 2007,The Lure of Greece. Irish Involvement in Greek Culture, Literature, History and Politics. Dublin: Hinds
Philhellenism in Ireland had political and military, as well as academic, archaeological and even dilettante... more
Philhellenism in Ireland had political and military, as well as academic, archaeological and even dilettante characteristics from the eighteenth century onwards. For example, Sir Richard Church, from Cork, argued for the independence of Greece at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-5, and was later Commander-in-Chief of the Greek army in the War of Independence in 1827 against the Turks.
Like Irish Philhellenism, the papers in this volume are very wide-ranging, extending from museums to Marxism, and containing well-documented accounts of personalities as diverse as Sir Richard Church, Henry Browne, William Bedell Stanford and Oscar Wilde. The extensive bibliographies appended to each chapter constitute a valuable, and indeed essential, resource for further research into the many and varied facets of Irish Philhellenism.
This book is the first to examine this multifaceted yet intimate and interesting relationship between Greece and Ireland as well as being the first major publication of the Irish Institute for Hellenic Studies at Athens. Its twelve chapters derive from papers delivered by participants in a Conference organised by the Institute, and held in the National University of Ireland, Galway, in September 2003.
Von der Schrift zum Buch - vom Ich zum Autor. Zur Text- und Autorkonstitution in Überlieferung und Rezeption des „Fließenden Lichts der Gottheit“ Mechthilds von Magdeburg (Diss. Freiburg/Br. 2009), Tübingen 2010 (Bibliotheca Germanica, Bd. 55)
Vor dem Hintergrund der altgermanistischen Diskussion um den Umgang mit früh- und vormoderner Textualität und den... more
Vor dem Hintergrund der altgermanistischen Diskussion um den Umgang mit früh- und vormoderner Textualität und den Instanzen der Textautorisation findet im vorliegenden Buch eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit dem ‚Ein Werk/ein Autor‘-Modell der Mechthild-Forschung statt. Diese erfolgt in zwei Schritten. Zunächst gilt es, den textgeschichtlichen Status der beiden Überlieferungszweige des ›Fließenden Lichts‹ neu zu verhandeln und die daraus resultierenden Konsequenzen für die Verfasserschaft zu reflektieren. Erwartungsgemäß ist die Herangehensweise an die Frage nach der Autorschaft des›Fließenden Lichts‹ in diesem Zusammenhang eine primärtextgeschichtliche bzw. produktionstechnische. Diese Sicht wird in einem zweiten Schritt in eine rezeptionsorientierte Perspektive überführt, so dass nach der ‚Buchwerdung der Schrift‘ die Frage nach der ‚Autorwerdung des Ich‘ im Mittelpunkt steht. Die Schlagworte dabei lauten: ‚Autorkonkretisation‘ und ‚Re-Personalisierung der Autorrolle‘.
Rezensionen: Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 131 (2012), S. 121-126 (Gisela Vollmann-Profe)
Les Monuments du passé
Les monuments du passé : Traces et représentations d'une histoire dans la littérature
Edité par Fiona McINTOSH-VARJABÉDIAN et Joëlle PRUNGNAUD
I.S.B.N. 978-2-84467-105-9
Aboutissement d’une suite de colloques centrés sur la relation entre littérature et architecture (La Cathédrale,... more Aboutissement d’une suite de colloques centrés sur la relation entre littérature et architecture (La Cathédrale, Architecture et discours), ainsi que sur les notions de postérité et de mémoire (Postérité de la Renaissance), ces actes sont consacrés à une réflexion sur Les monuments du passé. Ils recueillent les communications de spécialistes de la littérature (du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne) qui analysent l’inscription du monument historique, en tant que trace matérielle du passé, dans les textes fictifs ou non fictifs. Le parcours de lecture conduit du discours historiographique (Gibbon, Michelet) au roman contemporain (W. G. Sebald, Olivier Rolin), il convoque la poésie (Ossip Mandelstam) comme les œuvres didactiques (Chateaubriand) et propose d’interroger, au-delà des confins de l’Europe, jusqu’en Inde et au Japon, la fonction mémorielle du bâti, sa réception dans le vécu individuel et dans la culture collective. Le sujet traité concerne aussi bien l’esthétique, avec la notion de patrimoine architectural, que l’archéologie, liée aux recherches antiquaires, et l’épistémologie de l’Histoire : pourquoi s’intéresser aux traces matérielles ? Quelle place faut-il leur accorder dans les écrits historiques ? À l’origine d’une possible mythification du passé, le monument est en même temps garant de la scientificité dans la mesure où il constitue une preuve tangible. Mais est-il toujours en pierre ? Ces paradoxes et ces questions sont au cœur des contributions réunies dans ce volume.
Louis Xi une figure controversée
Édité par Marie-Madeleine Castellani et Fiona McIntosh
I.S.B.N. : 978-2-90730-112-1
Sommaire
Marie-Madeleine Castellani et Fiona McIntosh : Introduction
Vision des contemporains
Marie-Madeleine Castellani et Fiona McIntosh : Introduction
Vision des contemporains
Jean Dufournet : Louis XI vu par Commynes
Irit Ruth Kleiman : Basin, Commynes, Louis XI. Réflexions sur une nouvelle histoire
Alain Marchandisse : La diplomatie liégeoise de Louis XI au miroir des sources narratives contemporaines
Bertrand Schnerb : Louis XI, roi chasseur
Jonathan Dumont : Du souvenir et de l’image : portraits croisés de Louis XI et Louis XII dans les Louenges du roy Louys XII de Claude de Seyssel
Postérité historiographique
Alexander Roose : « Plus fin et plus rusé que tous ses précurseurs ». Louis XI renaissant et baroque
Fiona McIntosh-Varjabédian : Louis XI, tyran ou prince du peuple
Philippe Marchand : Louis XI au travers des manuels scolaires de l’école primaire 1880-1968
Dans le roman du xixe siècle : héritages et ruptures
Veronica Bonanni : Louis XI le plaisantin dans les Contes drolatiques de Balzac
Bernard Gendrel : 1831, Louis XI au centre d’une rivalité littéraire Poétiques de l’Histoire dans Notre-Dame de Paris et Maître Cornélius
Rachel Killick : Louis XI selon Victor Hugo dans Notre-Dame de Paris 1482
Dans le roman du xxe siècle
Isabelle Guillaume : Louis XI dans Quentin Durward, Notre-Dame de Paris et leurs adaptations pour la jeunesse : grandeur et (relative) décadence d’un mythe romantique (1823-1913)
Christian Leroy : La figure de Louis XI dans Le Roman de Louis XI de Paul Fort (1898) : du roi au poète
Marjan Krafft-Groot : Louis XI, l’antipode de Charles d’Orléans, vu par Hella Haasse
Louis XI au théâtre
Monique Dubar : Louis XI du côté de chez Shakespeare ? Ou du côté de chez Mercier ? La Mort de Louis XI, roi de France, pièce historique de Louis Sébastien Mercier (1783)
Stéphanie Tribouillard : La plaie et le couteau : Louis XI selon Delavigne
Dominique Laporte : « Une métaphore du pouvoir dictatorial sous le Second Empire : la représentation de Louis XI sur la scène (Nerval, Banville) et en feuilleton (Féval)
La figure de Louis XI dans le septième et le neuvième arts
François Amy de la Bretèque : Louis XI personnage de cinéma
Caroline Cazanave : La réception du Louis XI de Notre-Dame de Paris dans le domaine filmique : du rejet pur et simple aux maintiens déformants
Marie-Madeleine Castellani : « I am the king », modernité de l’universelle araigne : Louis XI dans la bande dessinée
Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism. Series Editors: Marilyn Butler and James Chandler. Cambridge University Press: hardcover 2000; paperback 2006.
Reviewed: Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 46 (2005); Gothic Studies 7 (2005): 205-7; Keats-Shelley Journal 53 (2004) 168-72; Studies in the Novel 36 (2004), 120-4; Studies in Romanticism 42 (2003), 587-92; Etudes Anglaises 56:1 (2003); Year's Work in English Studies 81 (2002), 648-9; European Romantic Review 13 (2002), 476-9; Eighteenth-Century Studies 35:4 (2002), 615-22; Romantic Circles: Reviews 5.3 (September 2002), 7 pars.; Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik (2002); Choice Reviews (March 2001) http://www.choiceonsite.org; SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 41.3 (2001) 626-7; Société d'Etudes Anglo-Américaines des XVII et XVIII Siècle 53 (2001), 284-6; Notes and Queries 48 (2001), 452-4; The Wordsworth Circle 32 (2001), 256-8; SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 (2001), 623-65; Nineteenth-Century Literature 56:1 (June 2001), 105-7; Romanticism on the Net 22 (May 2001), 6 pars. URL: http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/2001/v/n22/005975ar.html. Other mentions: Times Literary Supplement 11 February 2011.
Book Jacket blurb, for what it's worth: "A sharply focused analysis of how and why romantic writers drew on... more Book Jacket blurb, for what it's worth: "A sharply focused analysis of how and why romantic writers drew on gothic conventions whilst, at the same time, denying their influence in order to claim critical respectability. He shows how the reception of gothic writing, including its institutional and commercial recognition as a form of literature, played a fundamental role in the development of romanticism as an ideology. In doing so he examines the early history of the romantic movement and its assumptions about literary value, and the politics of reading, writing, and reception at the end of the eighteenth century. As a whole the book makes an original contribution to our understanding of genre, tracing the impact of reception, marketing, and audience on its formation."
Domesticating Ibsen for Italy. Enrico and Icilio Polese's Ibsen Campaign
Ph.D. dissertation in Scandinavian and comparative literature, University of Oslo 2011. 321 pages.
Playing the Canterbury Tales
by Andrew Higl
Publication date: February 2012
Playing the Canterbury Tales addresses the additions, continuations, and reordering of the Canterbury Tales found in... more Playing the Canterbury Tales addresses the additions, continuations, and reordering of the Canterbury Tales found in the manuscripts and early printed editions of the Tales. Many modern editions present a specific set of tales in a specific order, and often leave out an entire corpus of continuations and additions. Andrew Higl makes a case for understanding the additions and changes to Chaucer's original open and fragmented work by thinking of them as distinct interactive moves in a game similar to the storytelling game the pilgrims play. Using examples and theories from new media studies, Higl demonstrates that the Tales are best viewed as an 'interactive fiction,' reshaped by active readers. Readers participated in the ongoing creation and production of the tales by adding new text, rearranging existing text, and through this textual transmission, introduced new social and literary meaning to the work. This theoretical model and the boundaries between the canonical and apocryphal texts are explored in six case studies: the spurious prologues of the Wife of Bath's Tale, John Lydgate's influence on the Tales, the Northumberland manuscript, the ploughman character, and The Cook's Tale. The Canterbury Tales are a more dynamic and unstable literary work than usually encountered in a modern critical edition.
Not Another Teen Movie: Historical Essays on American Cinema and Youth
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By heralding onscreen depictions of young Americans as symptoms of the socio-psychological zeitgeist, scholars have... more By heralding onscreen depictions of young Americans as symptoms of the socio-psychological zeitgeist, scholars have largely cast the multifaceted intersections of American cinema and youth as celluloid “signs of the times”. In response, Not Another Teen Movie deepens understandings of this key media-audience relationship, employing historiographical approaches to shed much-needed new light on industry perceptions of American youth audiences, on the poetics of American youth film, and on American youth cinema’s reception. Boasting fifteen chapters, this groundbreaking collection covers topics such as pre-WWII youth cinema, Hollywood and Sixties youth, Czechoslovak Communists and Hollywood teenpics, 1980s sexploitation, and indie teen films.
Sparta: The Body Politic
Co-edited with A. Powell (2010)
The document uploaded is my chapter in the volume.
This is the 7th volume from the International Sparta Seminar, in the series begun in 1989 by Anton Powell with Stephen... more
This is the 7th volume from the International Sparta Seminar, in the series begun in 1989 by Anton Powell with Stephen Hodkinson. The volume is both thematic and eclectic. Ephraim David and Yoann Le Tallec treat respectively the politics of nudity at Sparta and the role of athletes in forming the Spartan state. Nicolas Richer examines the significance of animals depicted in Lakonian art; Andrew Scott asks what Lakonian figured pottery reveals of local consumerism. Nino Luraghi and Paul Christesen deal respectively with the way in which Sparta was viewed by Messenians and by Ephorus. Jean Ducat treats 'the ghost of the Lakedaimonian state', a major study of formal relations between Spartiate and perioikic communities. Thomas Figueira considers how Spartan women policed masculine behaviour. Anton Powell traces the development of Spartan reactions to political divination in the classical period. Stephen Hodkinson examines analogies drawn between Sparta and Nazi Germany in mid-20th-century British liberal and left-wing thought.
ISBN 978-1-905125-26-5
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Literary Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Club Poetry
This work provides a critical analysis of a neglected yet vital element of Scottish literature in the 18th century,... more This work provides a critical analysis of a neglected yet vital element of Scottish literature in the 18th century, covering the crucial period from the Union of 1707 to the revolutionary turmoil of the 1790s. It examines the literary output of several important clubs in eighteenth-century Scotland in an innovative fashion, offering the first book-length study of the club poetry of Scotland’s most significant eighteenth-century poets, Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns.