Context:
· Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
o
1818-1883
o
Born in Orel/Oryol, capital of a province of
that same name in Central Russia
o
Mother was a rich landowner
o
Objected to his mother’s treatment of household
serfs
o
Studied the faculty of History and Philology at
the University of St. Petersburg
o
Admired Alexander Pushkin
o
Studied for a time in Germany (1838), from then
on he spent very little time Russia
o
Sympathized with the lower class
o
Met and had a somewhat tempestuous relationship
with Tolstoy
o
Was an advocate of Westernization
o
Fathers and Sons
§
1862, his masterpiece
§
deals with nihilist philosophy and issues of
both personal and social rebellion
o
“Was a critic of his own generation’s Hamletism
and of the fundamental injustice of serfdom on which Russian society was
based.”
· Sketches from a Hunter’s Album/A Sportsman’s
Sketches
o
Originally published in the Russian journal The
Contemporary between 1847 and 1851
o
After they were published in a separate edition
Turgenev was arrested and exiled to his estate of Spasskoye
o
About the rural world of Russia before the
emancipation of the serfs in 1861
· Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District
o
A study in the “Hamletism” of Turgenev’s
generation
o
Turgenev refers to the Hamlet character as being
at the “extreme limit of unhappiness.”
o
His self-indulgence is the tragedy
§
“…reflects the tragic loss of illusions and fond
hopes experienced by Turgenev’s generation as a whole” (Penguin 11)
§
“His [the Hamlet’s] final reconciliation is in
its own way as bitter an acceptance of social inequality and complete
obliteration of individuality as is the peasant’s subservience to his master.”
(Penguin 11)
· Shchigrovsky District
o
In the Kursk Oblast (federal subject) of Russia
o
Western Russia
o
Part of the steppes
Intertext
· La Coupe et les Lèvres (The Cup and the Lips) –
Aflred de Musset
o
“Mon verre n’est pas grand, mais je bois dans
mon verre”
§
My cup is not large but I drink from it
· Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
o
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
o
Purpose of the encyclopedia is to describe how
spirit or mind develops itself
· Das Lied von der Glocke
o
Johann Christoph von Schiller
§
Friends with Goethe
Subtext
· “In the first place, I speak French as well as
you, and German even better; secondly, I have spent three years abroad…”
o
-Boastful (not afraid praise himself as
intellectual, even smarter than other people)
· “…and was married at home to a consumptive lady,
who was bald but a remarkable personality”
·
“And, too, strange to say, I liked Sofya best of
all when I was sitting with my back to her, or still more, perhaps, when I was
thinking or dreaming about her in the evening on the terrace.”
o
-X’s love is never obvious, similar to Hamlet’s
love of Ophelia, especially when he knows that Claudius and Polonius are
watching
· “I remember how they buried her. It was in the
spring. Our parish church was small and old…”
o
-Sofya’s funeral is not a big ordeal, similar to
Ophelia’s. The only people who truly attend it are those of the lower class
(clowns/grave-diggers)
· “It is only [after her death] that I do her
complete justice. It’s only now, for instance, that memories of some evenings I
spent with her before marriage no longer awaken the slightest bitterness, but
move me almost to tears”
o
-Like Hamlet, is somewhat blind to the present
and is only truly remorseful after the fact.
· X’s mother, like Gertrude, does all that she can
for him but it isn’t quite enough
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