Memory and Literature: Intertextuality in Russian Modernism

Memory and Literature

Intertextuality in Russian Modernism

Renate Lachmann
Foreword by Wolfgang Iser
Translated by Roy Sellars and Anthony Wall

$42.00 paper
ISBN: 0-8166-2907-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2907-7

$126.00 cloth
ISBN: 0-8166-2906-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2906-0

A textual and theoretical analysis of key texts in Russian literature.

In Memory and Literature, Renate Lachmann combines literary theory with textual analysis in a consideration of some of the major texts of Russian modernism. Reflecting on works by Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bely, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Nabokov, and lesser-known Russian writers, Lachmann goes beyond formalist approaches to literature by developing insights from structuralist and poststructuralist theory.

Lachmann argues that memory is crucial for a full understanding of the way literary writing functions, and explores memory as an essential concern in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian prose and poetry. Lachmann examines the idea of intertextuality in Bakhtin and lesser-known European theorists through considerations of dialogism, mnemotechnics, syncretism, and carnivalization, as well as memory and imitatio.

Throughout, Memory and Literature is rigorously formal, culturally astute, and stylistically brilliant, and is essential reading for those who enjoy Russian literature and literary criticism.

"An elegant consideration of ideas on intertextuality that will be of interest to anyone who cares about the multiplicity of ways in which texts interact with other texts to form the palimpsest of culture." —Modern Philology

Renate Lachmann is professor of Slavic and German literatures at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

Roy Sellars is a Fellow of the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University.

Anthony Wall is professor of French and comparative literature at the University of Calgary.

512 pages | 13 illustrations | 5 7/8 x 9 | 1997
Theory and History of Literature Series, volume 87

Contents

I. Mnemotechnics and Simulacra

II. Intertextuality and Dialogism

1. Defining Intertextuality
2. Literature Made from Literature: Writing as Continuation, Writing as Rejoinder, Rewriting
3. Intertextuality and the Constitution of Meaning: Bely's Petersburg and "Other" Texts
4. Concepts of the Dialogic

III. Syncretism and Carnivalization

1. Boundary Transgression and Mixing: The Stylistic Provocation of Dostoevsky, Bely, and Mayakovsky
2. Bakhtin's Carnivalesque Utopia
3. The Carnivalesque Mode of Writing: Dostoevsky's Counterfestivals

IV. Memory and Imitation

1. The Ambivalence of Classical Literature: Pushkin and the Russian Culture of Memory
2. Intertextuality as an Act of Memory: Pushkin's Transposition of Horace
3. The Past as Deferral: The Culturosophy of the Acmeists
4. An Unfinalizable Dialogue with Culture: Mandelstam and Akhmatova as Memory- Writers

V. Cryptogrammar and Doubling

1. A 'Cryptoprogrammatic "Paper Chase": Dostoevsky's "A Faint Heart"
2. Myth or Parody: The Play of the Letter in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading
3. The Doppelgänger as a Simulacrum: Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov
4. Splitting and Doubling: Anagrammatical Play in Vladimir Kazakov's Mistake of the Living

VI. Decomposition and Recomposition



Memory and Literature Intertextuality in Russian Modernism Renate Lachmann Foreword by Wolfgang Iser Translated by Roy Sellars and Anthony Wall		$42.00 paper ISBN: 0-8166-2907-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2907-7 $126.00 cloth ISBN: 0-8166-2906-4 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2906-0
A textual and theoretical analysis of key texts in Russian literature. In Memory and Literature, Renate Lachmann combines literary theory with textual analysis in a consideration of some of the major texts of Russian modernism. Reflecting on works by Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Bely, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Nabokov, and lesser-known Russian writers, Lachmann goes beyond formalist approaches to literature by developing insights from structuralist and poststructuralist theory. Lachmann argues that memory is crucial for a full understanding of the way literary writing functions, and explores memory as an essential concern in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian prose and poetry. Lachmann examines the idea of intertextuality in Bakhtin and lesser-known European theorists through considerations of dialogism, mnemotechnics, syncretism, and carnivalization, as well as memory and imitatio. Throughout, Memory and Literature is rigorously formal, culturally astute, and stylistically brilliant, and is essential reading for those who enjoy Russian literature and literary criticism. "An elegant consideration of ideas on intertextuality that will be of interest to anyone who cares about the multiplicity of ways in which texts interact with other texts to form the palimpsest of culture." —Modern Philology Renate Lachmann is professor of Slavic and German literatures at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Roy Sellars is a Fellow of the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University. Anthony Wall is professor of French and comparative literature at the University of Calgary. 512 pages \| 13 illustrations \| 5 7/8 x 9 \| 1997 Theory and History of Literature Series, volume 87 Contents I. Mnemotechnics and Simulacra II. Intertextuality and Dialogism 1. Defining Intertextuality 2. Literature Made from Literature: Writing as Continuation, Writing as Rejoinder, Rewriting 3. Intertextuality and the Constitution of Meaning: Bely's Petersburg and "Other" Texts 4. Concepts of the Dialogic III. Syncretism and Carnivalization 1. Boundary Transgression and Mixing: The Stylistic Provocation of Dostoevsky, Bely, and Mayakovsky 2. Bakhtin's Carnivalesque Utopia 3. The Carnivalesque Mode of Writing: Dostoevsky's Counterfestivals IV. Memory and Imitation 1. The Ambivalence of Classical Literature: Pushkin and the Russian Culture of Memory 2. Intertextuality as an Act of Memory: Pushkin's Transposition of Horace 3. The Past as Deferral: The Culturosophy of the Acmeists 4. An Unfinalizable Dialogue with Culture: Mandelstam and Akhmatova as Memory- Writers V. Cryptogrammar and Doubling 1. A 'Cryptoprogrammatic "Paper Chase": Dostoevsky's "A Faint Heart" 2. Myth or Parody: The Play of the Letter in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading 3. The Doppelgänger as a Simulacrum: Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov 4. Splitting and Doubling: Anagrammatical Play in Vladimir Kazakov's Mistake of the Living VI. Decomposition and Recomposition