The Russian romantics and English literature with a bibliography of printed Russian translations of English literature 1731-1841

Abstract

The thesis deals with the influence of English literature on the Russian during the Romantic period, as typified in the work of the three major writers of that period. It was at this time that Russian secular literature reached complete maturity, under predominantly English literary influence. After a short general survey of the political and social conditions in England and Russia during the years covered by the thesis, there follow detailed accounts of the effect of English literature on the development of Zhukovsky, Pushkin and LermontovZhukovsky's work served as a link between the preromantic and romantic schools of literature. Important primarily as a translator, he made many English poets, including Gray, Southey and Scott, familiar to a wide circle of Russian readers. The friend and master of almost all the writers of the time, he yielded his place as the leader of Russian literature to Pushkin.The influence which Byron, Shakespeare and Scott successively had on Pushkin inspired some of the masterpieces of Russian literature- English writers helped Pushkin to break away from the existing canons of literary practice, and to use forms better suited to his own genius.Lermontov wrote both his poetry and his one novel under strong Byronic influence. His early death in 1841, four years after Pushkin's, marks the end of the 'Golden Age of Poetry'. The dominant form in Russian literature was now to be the novel, and the Russians from being the pupils were to become the masters of Europe. Though English literature continued to be widely read and criticised, it no longer affected the course of Russian writing.There is appended a bibliography of printed Russian translations of English literature up to 1841, arranged both under authors and chronologically. In order to reveal the gradual changes in literary taste, the bibliography is not restricted to the Romantic period.