Intro to Russian Lit I

This survey course is dedicated to a chronological examination of some of the central works of nineteenth-century Russian literature. We will read the prose texts of Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Ivan Goncharov, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexander Herzen, and Lev Tolstoy, trying to understand them on three levels simultaneously: as fragments of a literary tradition, as responses to immediate and urgent social and political problems, and as transhistorical messages, still speaking to us across two centuries today. No prior background in literary study, or knowledge of Russian is assumed.

Formerly Russian Literature in Translation I. Offered in the fall. 4 points. A survey of the Russian literature of the first half of the 19th century, from romanticism to the beginning of realism. The reading list includes major works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, and Dostoevsky. All works are read in translation.