Writings on Literature

Writings on Literature

N. S. Trubetzkoy
Edited, translated, and introduced by Anatoly Liberman

$22.50 paper
ISBN: 0-8166-1793-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-1793-7

An illuminating introduction to the literary writings of one of the most influential scholars in the history of linguistics.

Although Nikolay Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy lived only forty-eight years (1890-1938), he became one of the most influential scholars in the history of linguistics. He is remembered as the author of Principles of Phonology, the foundational text of European linguistic structuralism. Outside a narrow circle of specialists, it is not generally known that, following his emigration from Russia, Trubetzkoy taught Russian literature at the University of Vienna and left a sizable body of work dating from that period. Until now, with a few exception, Trubetzkoy’s studies in literary theory and history have been available only in Russian and German, but not in English. It is this gap that Anatoly Liberman fills with this volume.

The book can be broadly divided into three sections: studies of early Russian literature, in which one of the founders of modern linguistics evidences remarkable skill at more traditional philology; studies of metrics and nineteenth-century Russian poetry, as embodied in the work of Lermontov and Pushkin; and studies of modern Russian literature, primarily Dostoevsky. While each of these areas of study has considerable intrinsic merit, it is the juxtaposition of the three that will prove of special importance to the student of literature.

Anatoly Liberman is professor in the German Department at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Germanic Accentology, editor of Vladimir Propp’s Theory and History of Folklore and Stefan Einarsson’s Studies in Germanic Philology, and translator and editor of Mikhail Lermontov: Major Poetical Works.

174 pages | 1990
Theory and History of Literature Series, volume 72



Writings on Literature N. S. Trubetzkoy Edited, translated, and introduced by Anatoly Liberman		$22.50 paper ISBN: 0-8166-1793-7 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-1793-7
An illuminating introduction to the literary writings of one of the most influential scholars in the history of linguistics. Although Nikolay Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy lived only forty-eight years (1890-1938), he became one of the most influential scholars in the history of linguistics. He is remembered as the author of Principles of Phonology, the foundational text of European linguistic structuralism. Outside a narrow circle of specialists, it is not generally known that, following his emigration from Russia, Trubetzkoy taught Russian literature at the University of Vienna and left a sizable body of work dating from that period. Until now, with a few exception, Trubetzkoy’s studies in literary theory and history have been available only in Russian and German, but not in English. It is this gap that Anatoly Liberman fills with this volume. The book can be broadly divided into three sections: studies of early Russian literature, in which one of the founders of modern linguistics evidences remarkable skill at more traditional philology; studies of metrics and nineteenth-century Russian poetry, as embodied in the work of Lermontov and Pushkin; and studies of modern Russian literature, primarily Dostoevsky. While each of these areas of study has considerable intrinsic merit, it is the juxtaposition of the three that will prove of special importance to the student of literature. Anatoly Liberman is professor in the German Department at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Germanic Accentology, editor of Vladimir Propp’s Theory and History of Folklore and Stefan Einarsson’s Studies in Germanic Philology, and translator and editor of Mikhail Lermontov: Major Poetical Works. 174 pages \| 1990 Theory and History of Literature Series, volume 72