Lydia Ginzburg's Prose : : Reality in Search of Literature / / Emily Van Buskirk.

The Russian writer Lydia Ginzburg (1902-90) is best known for her Notes from the Leningrad Blockade and for influential critical studies, such as On Psychological Prose, investigating the problem of literary character in French and Russian novels and memoirs. Yet she viewed her most vital work to be...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2016
VerfasserIn:
Place / Publishing House:Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2016]
©2016
Year of Publication:2016
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (368 p.)
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Other title:Frontmatter --
Contents --
Acknowledgments --
A Note about Spelling, Transliteration, and Archival References --
Introduction --
1. Writing the Self after the Crisis of Individualism: Distancing and Moral Evaluation --
2. The Poetics of Desk-Drawer Notebooks --
3. Marginality in the Mainstream, Lesbian Love in the Third Person --
4. Passing Characters --
5. Transformations of Experience: Around and Behind Notes of a Blockade Person --
Conclusion: Sustaining a Human Image --
Notes --
Bibliography --
Index
Summary:The Russian writer Lydia Ginzburg (1902-90) is best known for her Notes from the Leningrad Blockade and for influential critical studies, such as On Psychological Prose, investigating the problem of literary character in French and Russian novels and memoirs. Yet she viewed her most vital work to be the extensive prose fragments, composed for the desk drawer, in which she analyzed herself and other members of the Russian intelligentsia through seven traumatic decades of Soviet history. In this book, the first full-length English-language study of the writer, Emily Van Buskirk presents Ginzburg as a figure of previously unrecognized innovation and importance in the literary landscape of the twentieth century.Based on a decade's work in Ginzburg's archives, the book discusses previously unknown manuscripts and uncovers a wealth of new information about the author's life, focusing on Ginzburg's quest for a new kind of writing adequate to her times. She writes of universal experiences-frustrated love, professional failures, remorse, aging-and explores the modern fragmentation of identity in the context of war, terror, and an oppressive state. Searching for a new concept of the self, and deeming the psychological novel (a beloved academic specialty) inadequate to express this concept, Ginzburg turned to fragmentary narratives that blur the lines between history, autobiography, and fiction.This full account of Ginzburg's writing career in many genres and emotional registers enables us not only to rethink the experience of Soviet intellectuals, but to arrive at a new understanding of writing and witnessing during a horrific century.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9781400873777
9783110485103
9783110485264
9783110638592
DOI:10.1515/9781400873777?locatt=mode:legacy
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Emily Van Buskirk.