English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance [Paperback]

This 1998 book is a study of the Russian reception of English literature from Romanticism to aestheticism.This is the first study of the Russian reception of English literature from Romanticism to Aestheticism, focusing particularly on the reception by Russian poets of Shelley, Ruskin, Pater, Frazer and Wilde, which gave new impetus to the Russian imagination at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth century. Framing this account is a pioneering exploration of the intellectual background to these influences, and a discussion of Russian conceptions of national identity, literary influence and the origins of comparative literary history.This is the first study of the Russian reception of English literature from Romanticism to Aestheticism, focusing particularly on the reception by Russian poets of Shelley, Ruskin, Pater, Frazer and Wilde, which gave new impetus to the Russian imagination at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth century. Framing this account is a pioneering exploration of the intellectual background to these influences, and a discussion of Russian conceptions of national identity, literary influence and the origins of comparative literary history.This is the first study of the Russian reception of English literature from Romanticism to Aestheticism. It focuses particularly on the reception by Russian poets of Shelley, Ruskin, Pater, Frazer and Wilde, which gave new impetus to the Russian imagination at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries. Framing this account is a pioneering exploration of the intellectual background to these influences, and a discussion of Russian conceptions of national identity, literary influence and the origins of comparative literary history.List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Notes on the text; Introduction; 1. Museum people; Part I. The Barbaric Renaissance: 2. Rites of spring; 3. Balmont's Shelley and the sacred books of the East; 4. Edgar Allan Poe and the magic of words; Part II. The Aesthetic Renaissance: 5. Thl£!