Essay in English. St. Petersburg in the Russian Literature

April 22, 2018

Essay in English. St. Petersburg in the Russian Literature

The Petersburg Text Essay Topics Length: 4,000 words (including notes and excluding bibliography). Formatting requirements: font Times New Roman; 12 p.; single spaced; number all pages; indicate word count. Secondary sources: You need to use between 10 and 15 secondary sources. Due date: the first Monday of Term Choose one of the following topics: 1) In the “Bronze Horseman,” Pushkin provides a dichotomist (utopian vs. apocalyptic) reading of the Petersburg myth. Examine the evolution of both approaches throughout the 19th – early 20th cc. Focus on the texts of THREE other authors in more detail. 2) Discuss Bely’s novel as a modernist text that sums up, concludes and transforms the Petersburg mythos of the classical period, as articulated in Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. 3) “Partially to imitate that which is perfect is to spoil it. We should either strictly copy the model, or invent altogether”. Custine suggests that Petersburg is to a large extent a poor imitation of the West with no invention of its own. Discuss Custine’s statement with reference to at least THREE other texts. 4) Compare and contrast the depictions of Moscow and St Petersburg (focus on Tolstoy and Custine). 5) Discuss the ways in which writers engage with the concepts of centrality and periphery in their depiction of St Petersburg. Refer to at least THREE works studied, including at least one work from Term 2. 6) “There aren’t many places where there are as many gloomy, harsh and strange influences on the soul of man as there are in St Petersburg. Think what the climatic influences alone are worth!” (Svidrigailov) Analyse the impact of the city on the psyche of the characters in at least THREE works in more detail, one work has to be from Term 2. 7) With reference to “Diary of a Madman,” “The Double” and Crime and Punishment, discuss Gogol’s and Dostoevsky’s adaptation of the Doppelgänger motif to the Petersburg topos. 8) In Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, the narrator describes Petersburg as “the most abstract and intentional city in the whole wide world.” Discuss in what ways Crime and Punishment reflects this (or another) view of the city, as well as the effect of the shift away from the city in the epilogue. 9) We have studied different types of texts – short story, poetry, novel, and travelogue. Discuss how the myth of St Petersburg is depicted and explored through any THREE genres. 10) With reference to Sokurov’s film “Russian Ark,” discuss how the cinematographic medium develops and transforms the Petersburg text.

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