The Poetry of Prose

the poetry of prose Readings in Russian Literature Jostein Børtnes bergen 2007 slavica bergensia 8 General editor: Ingunn Lunde ADVISORY BOARD Jostein Børtnes, University of Bergen Michael S. Gorham, University of Florida Knut Andreas Grimstad, University of Oslo Daniela S. Hristova, University of Chicago Peter Alberg Jensen, Stockholm University Tore Nesset, University of Tromsø Alexander Pereswetoff-Morath, Stockholm University Ursula Phillips, University College London Tine Roesen, University of Bergen Irina Sandomirskaja, Södertörn University College Rasmus T. Slaattelid, University of Bergen Jens Nørgård Sørensen, University of Copenhagen William M. Todd iii, Harvard University Dirk Uffelmann, University of Passau Susanna Witt, Stockholm © 2007 Jostein Børtnes issn: 1501–8954 isbn: 978–82–90249–34–7 Composed in Minion Pro & ScalaSans by Ingunn Lunde Printed by John Grieg as, Bergen, Norway Published and distributed by Dept. of Foreign Languages University of Bergen P.O. Box 7805 n – 5020 Bergen Norway e-mail: [email protected] http://www.hf.uib.no/i/russisk/slavicabergensia/slavberg.html Contents Preface 7 Introduction 9 Chapter One · Medieval East Slavic Literature 988–1730 15 Chapter Two · Religion and Art in the Russian Novel 58 Chapter Three · The Function of Hagiography in 90 Dostoevsky’s Novels Chapter Four · Polyphony in The Brothers Karamazov: 97 Variations on a Theme Chapter Five · Dostoevskian Fools — Holy and Unholy 109 Chapter Six · Dostoevsky’s Idiot or 126 the Poetics of Emptiness Chapter Seven · Male Homosocial Desire in The Idiot 137 Chapter Eight · The Last Delusion in an Infinite Series of 152 Delusions: Stavrogin and the Symbolic Structure of Demons Chapter Nine · The Poetry of Prose: The Art of 166 Parallelism in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons Chapter Ten · Seeing the World Through Genres 192 Index of Names 208 Preface I have taken advantage of this re-edition of my essays to make a few adjustments in the texts. Most importantly, in order to make them more easily accessible to readers without any Russian, I have deleted all quotations in Russian and replaced them with English equivalents. Besides, I have where possible used Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s excellent translations of Dostoevsky’s novels instead of the older ones by David Magarshack. Apart from these adjustments, the essays reflect the Stand der Forschung at the time when they were written. The book uses the Library of Congress transliteration system, with the exception of certain names where other forms are commonly used in English, such as Dostoevsky, Gogol, or Tolstoy. I am indebted to a number of colleagues and students of Russian literature in the Nordic countries and further afield for their responses to my analyses. I would like, in particular, to extend my gratitude to the participants in the workshops and conferences funded by NorFA (Nordic Academy for Advanced Study) in 1995–2000, and to friends and colleagues in England, Russia and the United States with whom I have had the opportunity over the years to discuss my ideas. The publication of this book has been made possible through a grant from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bergen. I am most grateful for this support. Finally, my warmest thanks go to Ingunn Lunde for inviting me to publish my essays in her series, Slavica Bergensia, and for all her profes- sional help and support throughout the preparation of the volume. Jostein Børtnes · Bergen, 2007 Acknowledgements Grateful acknowledgement is given to publishers and journals for per- mission to reproduce the articles in this volume: “Medieval East Slavic literature 988–1730” · first published as “The Lit- erature of Old Russia, 988–1730,” The Cambridge History of Russian Literature, ed. C A. Moser, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 1–44. “Religion and Art in the Russian Novel” · first published as “Religion,” The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel, ed. M. Jones & R. F. Miller, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 104–29. “The Function of Hagiography in Dostoevsky’s Novels” · first published as “The Function of Hagiography in Dostoevskij’s Novels,” Critical Essays on Dostoevsky, ed. by R.F. Miller, Boston, Mass., 1986, pp. 188–93. (Reprint from Scando-Slavica 24, 1978, pp. 27–33.) “Polyphony in The Brothers Karamazov: Variations on a Theme” · first published in Canadian-American Slavic Studies 17 (3), 1983, pp. 402–11. “Dostoevskian fools—Holy and Unholy” · first published in And Meaning for a Life Entire: Festschrift for Charles A. Moser on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. P. Rollberg, Columbus, Ohio, 1997, pp. 165–78. “Dostoevsky’s Idiot or the Poetics of Emptiness” · first published in Scando- Slavica 40, 1994, pp. 5–14. “Male Homosocial Desire in The Idiot” · first published inSevernyi sbornik: Proceedings of the NorFA-network of Russian Literature, eds. P. A. Jensen & I. Lunde, Stockholm, 2000, pp. 103–20. “The Poetry of Prose: The Art of Parallelism in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons” · first published in Scando-Slavica 30, 1984, pp. 31–55. “Seeing the World Through Genres” · first published in Genres and their Problems: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, eds. B Agrell & I. Nilsson, Stockholm, 2003, pp. 7 1–81. Introduction The essays collected in this volume, written at various times and in various places, range from an account of early East Slavic (Old Russian) literature, through a number of readings of the classic nineteenth-century Russian novel, to an exposition of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of genre. Despite the differences, however, they have at least one basic theme in common. This common theme may be described as “prose poetics,” or as “the poetry of prose,” as I call it in my discussion of Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons. The poetry of prose may seem like a contradiction in terms. We are used to thinking of “prose” and “poetry” as opposite concepts, associating poetry with verse composition, in particular with the short lyric poem, and prose with narrative literature. In contrast to the latter, in which the characters’ story develops in a sequence of events, linked together in time and space, by cause and effect, lyrics are composed according to the principle of parallelism. In other words, two or more units are brought together in such a way that they form a series of analogies, in which the units are perceived as similar or equivalent in some respects, retaining their differences in others. Examples of such similarity in difference on the level of sound are: metre, rhyme, alliteration and assonance, and on the level of sense: comparison, allegory, parable and metaphor. Such jux- taposition of different units immediately activates the principle of similarity. Either the units are juxtaposed because they are similar, or they become similar through being juxtaposed. On the level of meaning, the establishment of analogy between different concepts is the source of poetic “imagery,” often considered to be the essence of poetic composition. 10 introduction In the bipolar system of language, equivalence or similarity pertains to the metaphoric pole, whereas combination and contiguity are related to the metonymic pole.1 Because of this, the basic distinction between metaphoric and metonymic predominance is important for the way we read a text. The foregrounding of similarity or equivalence in lyric verse prompts us to look for a meaningful interplay between sound and meaning, as well as between meanings. Narrative prose, on the other hand, stimulates the readers’ curiosity about what happens to the characters in the development of the plot as it unfolds in space and time, and to their interaction with one another and with their social and natural environ- ments. When we read fictional prose, our perception is directed by these two forms of sequencing, the causal and the temporal. It is the principle of contiguity that prevails as we follow the characters in their movements through a fictional time-space that is “natural” enough to allow us to identify our perception of our own life with that of fiction.2 However, in addition to these “prosaic” structures, based on combination and contiguity, the art of fiction also involves a rich variety of parallelistic patterning. And it is this patterning that gives the “life” material a higher symbolic dimension.3 The art of transforming sequential prose narrative into symbolic parallelism is manifest in Russian literature from its very beginning. Already by the eleventh century East Slavic preachers and hagiographers had as- similated the traditional Christian method of juxtaposing their own discourse with biblical quotations in order to bring out the conformity of events and characters from their own recent history with events and characters in the Bible and the Christian tradition. We see it very clearly in Nestor’s Reading on the Life and Slaying of the Blessed Martyrs Boris and Gleb and his Life of Saint Feodosii. In the former, the brothers’ ac- ceptance of a violent death without resistance is represented as an imita- tion of Christ’s sufferings, while in the latter the hagiographer deploys his 1 Roman Jakobson, 1956, “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Distur- b a n c e s ,” Fundamentals of Language, eds. R. Jakobson & M. Halle, The Hague. 2 Krystyna Pomorska, 1985, “Poetics of Prose,” Roman Jakobson, Verbal Art, Verbal Sign, Verbal Time, eds. K. Pomorska & S. Rudy, Oxford, pp. 169–7 7, p. 173. 3 See Pomorska, 1985, p. 173. Compare the illuminating analyses of particular texts in Wolf Schmid, 1991, Puškins Prosa in poetischer Lektüre: Die Erzählungen Belkins, Munich, and Wolf Schmid, 1998, Proza kak poeziia: Pushkin — Dostoevskii — Che khov — avangard, St Petersburg. introduction 11 rhetoric in order to transform the saint into an image of Christ in both his human and in his divine aspects. Today, the method exemplified by Nestor’s hagiographic writings is usually referred to as “figural interpre- tation,” a term introduced into literary studies by Erich Auerbach.

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