1
The Russian and English Novel
Fall 2012
Prof. Priscilla Meyer
Fisk Hall 212
pmeyer@wesleyan.edu; X3127
Office hours: Tu. and Th. 1:10-2:30
and by appointment
Prof. Stephanie Kuduk Weiner
Downey House 300
sweiner@wesleyan.edu; X3634
Office hours: Wed. 2:45-4:00;
Th. 10:45-11:45; Th. 1:15-2:15
Course description:
Like authors today, the great writers of nineteenth and early twentieth-century England and Russia
drew inspiration from books written far away. This team-taught course examines the many modes of
interaction that connect English and Russian novels, from direct inspiration to resonances of theme
and form. We begin with Northanger Abbey and Eugene Onegin, two novels about the nature of
literature, the interplay of art and reality, and the significance of genre. We then turn to two
monumental treatments of the ‘woman question’ and the new identities made possible by modern life,
Middlemarch and Anna Karenina. The final section of the course considers the beginnings of
Modernism and the interplay of consciousness, memory, and artistic creation in Orlando and Pale
Fire. Through close readings of each text, we will travel from English villages to Russian country
estates, from St. Petersburg to London, tracing how an international and comparative conversation
shaped the ever-changing conception of the novel as a genre and of the stories it might tell.
Course requirements:
 Three papers (4-5 p.) (15% each); final paper (9-11 p.) (35%); short assignments (10%); class
participation (10%).
 No extensions on due dates will be granted except in cases of medical emergency. There are
no exceptions to this rule. Late papers will be penalized 1/3 grade per day. Papers receiving a
grade of C- or lower may be rewritten within three weeks of being returned and re-evaluated
for a new grade.
 Participation will be evaluated based on the consistently and quality of student contributions
to class discussion. Consistently arriving late or missing class will result in a failing grade.
Policies:
 No computers are allowed in class.
 Please be on time. Please do not leave in the middle of class to visit the bathroom.
 Please save copies of your graded papers with comments on them. Should you ever ask one
of us to write a letter of recommendation for you, she will need to see them.
 If you require accommodations in this class, please make an appointment with one of us in
the second week of the semester, so that appropriate arrangements can be made. The
procedures for registering with Disabilities Services can be found at www.wesleyan.edu/
deans/disability-students.html.
 If in your written work you consult or employ any materials that do not appear on the
syllabus, you must cite them; even if you do not use them directly you should append a
‘Works Consulted’ page. If you have any questions about academic honesty, please see one
of us and/or consult the discussion in the student handbook.
2
Course outline:
Making—and reading—a new genre
Mon. 9/3
Class introductions: the English tradition, the Russian tradition
Wed. 9/5
Romance and realism: Austen’s criticism and defense of the novel
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 1-15 (Volume One)
Mon. 9/10
The epistemology of the novel: Catherine as reader, observer, and learner
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 16-end (Volume Two)
Wed. 9/12
Pushkin, “Pushkin,” and Onegin: history, fiction, authorial persona
Eugene Onegin, Chapter 1-5
SHORT ASSIGNMENT #1 DUE in class (Make a chart comparing “Pushkin” the
narrator to Onegin the protagonist. How does each react to the ballet, the countryside,
poetry, etc.?)
Mon. 9/17
Lensky as poet; Tatyana as reader; has Onegin changed?
Eugene Onegin, Chapter 6-end
Reinventing the novel
Wed. 9/19
George Eliot and the novel: how does she understand the genre?
Middlemarch, “Prelude” and Book 1
PAPER ONE DUE in class
Mon. 9/23
Place and space I: public and private, urban and rural, bourgeois and elite
Middlemarch, Books 2-3
Wed. 9/25
Feminine plots, masculine plots I: vocation and marriage
Middlemarch, Book 4
Mon. 9/30
Romanticism, idealism, and art
Middlemarch, Books 5-6
SHORT ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE in class (Write a one-page, single-spaced close
reading of a passage about art.)
Wed. 10/2
The labyrinth of linkages I: how books and chapters establish parallels and contrasts
Middlemarch, Book 7
Mon. 10/8
Resolutions, conclusions, and closure
Middlemarch, Book 8 and “Finale”
TOPIC OF PAPER TWO DUE by email to both of us
Wed. 10/10
Stiva Oblonsky, Levin and the oysters
Anna Karenina, Part One
Fri. 10/12
PAPER TWO DUE by 1:10 p.m. Deliver a hard copy to the plastic boxes outside the
Russian Department (212 Fisk)
3
Wed. 10/17
Labyrinth of linkages II: the sequence of chapters
Anna Karenina, Parts Two-Three
SHORT ASSIGNMENT #3 DUE in class (How does Tolstoy use the device of
chapter sequencing? Write a one-page, single-spaced analysis of a pair of chapters.)
Mon. 10/22
Feminine plots, masculine plots II: adultery and “scaffolding”
Anna Karenina, Parts Four-Five
Wed. 10/24
Three marriages and the woman question
Anna Karenina, Part Six
Mon. 10/29
Place and space II: Railroads vs. horses, Moscow vs. Petersburg; city vs. country
Anna Karenina, Part Seven
SHORT ASSIGNMENT #4 DUE in class (Make a chart of parallels between
Vronsky’s and Levin’s estates.)
Wed. 10/31
What does the epigraph mean? Who is to blame?
Anna Karenina, Part Eight
TOPIC OF PAPER THREE DUE by email to both of us
Generic doubt: unmaking and making the novel in the twentieth century
Mon. 11/5
The malleable relations of time and space, and of life and literature
Orlando, Preface and Chapter 1
PAPER THREE DUE
Wed. 11/7
History, literary history, and the novel I
Orlando, Chapters 2-3
Mon. 11/12
The Russian and English novel I: Woolf’s reading of the two national traditions
Woolf, “The Russian Point of View,” “Modern Fiction” (moodle)
Orlando, Chapter 4
Wed. 11/14
Biography and bildungsroman I: how does Woolf relate the two genres to one
another, and to the novel?
Orlando, Chapters 5-6
SHORT ASSIGNMENT #5 DUE (“Nothing is any longer one thing,” the narrator
writes in Chapter 6; “everything was partly something else.” Choose one thing of
whatever sort and analyze a passage from Chapter 6 in which it is no longer
singular—in what ways is it more than one?)
Mon 11/19
Kinbote’s Foreword; Shade’s poem: great art? Parody? Wasteland?
Pale Fire, Foreword and “Pale Fire”
Mon. 11/26
Mirrors and projections: Kinbote, Shade and Gradus
Pale Fire: Kinbote’s commentary, through note to line 275
4
Wed. 11/28
History, literary history, and the novel II:
What actually “happened”? Kinbote’s vs. Shade’s literary traditions
Pale Fire: finish the book, including the Index
SHORT ASSIGNMENT #6 DUE (Come to class with a bullet outline of the novels’
actual—as opposed to Kinbote’s version of—events and how you arrive at them.)
Mon. 12/3
Biography and bildungsroman II: Pale Fire as Nabokov’s parodic autobiography
Pale Fire
Wed. 12/5
The English and Russian Novel II: Nabokov and Woolf : is there a direct
relationship?
Pale Fire
Th. 12/6
TOPIC FOR FINAL PAPER DUE by email to both of us by 1:10 p.m.
Sat. 12/15
FINAL PAPER DUE by email to both of us by 1:10 p.m.