| Unit name | ‘Hedgehogs and Foxes’: The Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel 2019 |
|---|---|
| Unit code | RUSS20013 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Coates |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Russian |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
In this unit, students will study five of the best-known classic Russian novels, by writers including Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev. They will explore the social, intellectual and artistic contexts that inform the works, while focusing particularly on analysis of the key themes and artistic approaches in each novel. Students will also trace through the works the development in Russian literature of certain key ideas, including the superfluous man, the portrayal of women, ideas of love, freedom, heroism, truth, justice and redemption, the purpose of literature, and the idea of Russia past, present and future.
Successful students will be able to:
1. demonstrate a thorough understanding of the key themes and preoccupations of major works by some of Russia and the world’s most distinctive and influential novelists;
2. demonstrate skills of analysis in respect of the novels studies in the contemporaneous social, intellectual and artistic contexts of Russia and Europe;
3. locate and understand the place of the novels studies in the subsequent development of Russian and world literature;
4. knowledge and understanding of how to define novel form and its development in Russia;
5. oral presentation skills, specifically the ability to present an argument about nineteenth-century Russian literature in an informed way;
6. skills of academic written presentation appropriate to level I.
1 x weekly lecture, 1 x weekly seminar (split group)
Summative:
2000-word essay (50%) (ILOs 1-4, 6)
2-hour exam (50%) (ILOs 1-4, 6)
Formative:
Oral presentation (ILOs 1-5)
Lermontov – A Hero of Our Time Gogol – Dead Souls Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment Tolstoy – Anna Karenina Richard Freeborn, The Rise of the Russian Novel, London, 1973. Malcolm V. Jones et al. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel, Cambridge, 1998.
