In 1833 Alexander Pushkin began to consider the topic of madness, a subject little explored in Russian literature before his time. He brilliantly plumbed both the destructive and creative sides of madness, a strange fusion of violence and insight. Gary Rosenshield illustrates the surprising valorization of madness in the prose novella The Queen of Spades and the lyric ""God Grant That I Not Lose My Mind"" and analyzes the poem The Bronze Horseman for its confrontation with the legacy of Peter the Great. He situates Pushkin in a greater framework with such luminaries as Shakespeare, Sophocles, Cervantes, and Dostoevsky, providing an absorbing study of one of Russia's greatest writers.
| ISBN: | 9780299182045 |
| Publication date: | 30th November 2003 |
| Author: | Gary Rosenshield |
| Publisher: | The University of Wisconsin Press an imprint of University of Wisconsin Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 256 pages |
| Series: | Publications of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 |