Description
Book SynopsisAims to probe beyond the perception of 'love and death' as a constant theme of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russian literature, examining what underlies the stereotype about the destructive power of romantic love and why Russian writers so willingly employ this cliche.
Trade Review"One of the great contributions Sobol makes is her attention to the mutual influence of the languages of science and literature."
-- Lonny Harrison * Canadian Slavonic Papers *
"One of the book's key strengths, its full-blooded engagement with the scientific contexts that inform the (mostly) novels at hand, shows Sobol to be of the best sort of humanities scholar, not fighting shy of the 'extraneous' intellectual matter that underpins creative praxis."
-- B.D. Morgan * Slavonic and East European Review *
"In this excellent study, Valeria Sobol explains its [lovesickness] central importance first in the west (starting with ancient Greek culture), and then in different Russian literary movements from its entrance into Russia in the Petrine period….The book alternates between close textual analysis and literary history so as to situate each text and author within a mostly vanished past."
* Slavic Review *
"In this book, Valeria Sobol takes a well known fact—that 'lovesickness' plays a significant role in the Russian literary imagination— and makes it the nexus of a fertile study with stunning depth and breadth. . . . The book is so rich and full of information, and written in such clear and masterful prose. . . come away with understanding Russian literary culture in new and profound ways."
* The Russian Review *
"Throughout the book is well grounded in both Greek and early modern philosophy and in relevant psychological and medical theories of the 19th century."
* Choice *
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation, Transliteration, and Abbreviations
Introduction: Cases in History
PART I / ANATOMY
1. The Anatomy of Feeling and the Mind-Body Problem in Russian Sentimentalism
PART II / DIAGNOSTICS
2. Diagnosing Love: Tradition
3. "Febris Erotica" in Herzen's Who Is to Blame?
4. An Ordinary Story: Goncharov's Romantic Patients
PART III / THERAPY
5. The "Question of the Soul" in the Age of Positivism
6. What Is to Be Done about a Lovesick Woman? Chernyshevsky's Treatment
7. From Lovesickness to Shamesickness: Tolstoy's Solution
Afterword
Notes
Works Cited
Index
