Please answer TWO
questions from among the following.
Please DO NOT write about the same ideas or works in BOTH
essays. If you choose, you may pose your own question and
proceed to answer it. (If you decide upon this option, be sure
you actually write out the question and clear it with me before you
proceed. Failure to run through this simple process might
result in my refusal to accept your question and answer.) Be sure that
your essays are analytical.
There should be NO narration of plots. Please be sure
to indicate which questions you are
answering..
All exams must be typed,
double-spaced and must be
turned in on time. If an extension is not sought in advance, late exams
may be reduced one letter grade for each class meeting that the exam is
delayed. The exam is due at the beginning of class.
1. Pushkin's Eugene
Onegin contains a superfluous man archetype. Identify the
individual and define the archetype as we see him in this work.
2. Lermontov's Hero of Our
Time contains a superfluous man
archetype. Identify the individual and define the archetype as seen
in this work.
3. Compare the superfluous man
archetypes in Pushkin's Eugene
Onegin and Lermontov's Hero of Our Time.
4. Pushkin's Tales of the
Late Ivan Belkin are devoid of
all ornamentation and detail. The tales were designed to serve as
outlines for the development of more complete works such as novels.
Discuss this premise and talk about the lack of ornamentation.
5. The actual chronology of
Lermontov's Hero of Our Time
differs considerably from the order of the chapters in the book.
Discuss the actual chronology and indicate why the author has chosen
the
story order that appears in this opus.
6. There are two fascinating
pairs of hero types in Onegin and
Него - Onegin/Lensky and Pechorin/Grushnitsky. Discuss the similarities
and differences between these pairs.
7. Lermontov's novel is considered the "first realistic psychological
novel in Russian literature" (Antonia Glasse). Discuss this premise and
indicate which chapter of Hero of Our Time serves as the focal
starting point to psychologically analyze this work.
8. Discuss the role of naming in Gogol's Dead Souls.
9. Discuss the role of symbolism in any of Gogol's St. Petersburg
Stories -The Portrait, Nevsky Prospect, The Nose, The Overcoat.
10. In Gogol's St.
Petersburg Stories, the city
appears absurd, fantastic, dehumanized. St. "Petersburg appears a
fateful
and fated place which represents the intrusion into Russia of modem
life and Europeanization" (Fanger). Discuss the statements using one
or more stories.
11. There is a major
change in the topic of writings as we
move from Pushkin and Lermontov to Gogol. Discuss the whys and
wherefores for the change of focus and address the phenomenon itself.
12. Define and discuss
the role of women in the works we
have read thus far. (Should you wish to limit this discussion to
several
specific works, please feel free to do so but indicate which works
you are discussing and why you have chosen them).
13. According to Donald Fanger, "Gogol's novel is organized and
dominated by the road. It begins with an arrival and ends with a
departure; its concluding lines are a panegyric to the road." Discuss Dead
Souls from the point of view of this premise.
14. "Dead Souls was not an ordinary,
run-of-the-mill work
for Gogol. It was conceived as a work of exceptional significance: for
the scope of life depicted in it and for its place among Gogol's works"
(V. V. Gippius). Discuss the book from the perspective of this
quotation.
Second
Take-Home Exam
Please answer TWO
questions from among the following.
Please DO NOT write about the same ideas or works in BOTH
essays. If you choose, you may pose your own question and
proceed to answer it. (If you decide upon this option, be sure
you actually write out the question and clear it with me before you
proceed. Failure to run through this simple process
might result in my refusal to accept your question and answer.)
Be sure that your essays are analytical.
There should be NO narration of plots. Please be sure
to indicate which questions you are
answering..
All exams must be typed,
double-spaced and must be
turned in on time. If an extension is not sought in advance, late exams
mayl be reduced one letter grade for each class meeting that the exam
is delayed. The exam is due at the beginning of class.
1. In his
Hunting Sketches Ivan Turgenev "...remains a dispassionate and
penetrating observer; his genius lay in his rendering of character—not
developing but rather revealing itself in the
humdrum interactions of everyday life" (Donald Fanger). Discuss.
2. Choose 3 selections from the Hunting Sketches and evaluate
what is insightful and unusual about them. Attempt too select items
that can be compared
3. Discuss the role of Odintsova in Fathers and Sons. How does
she differ from Bazarov?
4. Discuss: "Turgenev’s plot submits Bazarov to the forms of culture he
has spurned. " (Jane Costlow).
5. What is Nihilism and how are Bazarov's actions typical of the new
intellectual rebels of his time?
6. Each of the three main protagonists in Fathers and Sons "...Pavel
Petrovch, Anna Sergeevna and Bazarov ...makes an effort to avoid
acknowledging the chronological progression of time, and each finds a
moral justification for doing so" (Elizabeth Cheresh Alien). Discuss
this premise.
7. What does the graveyard scene in the last pages of Turgenev's Fathers
and Sons symbolize?
8. According to Edward Wasioiek (Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction),
Dostoevsky's Underground Man is a "...vain, nasty, tyrannical, vicious,
cowardly, morbidly sensitive, self-contradictory..." individual. On the
basis of these adjectives discuss the underground man archetype as we
see
him in Notes from Underground.
9. Duality of character is found in most of Dostoevsky's works. Think
about and describe the duality, which characterizes the underground
man's
personality.
10. The title of one of Dostoevsky's lesser-known works is The
Humiliated and the Wronged. Use this title as a springboard to
discuss the underground man both as a character in Notes from
Underground and as a literary archetype.
11. Discuss the alter egos or doubles in Crime and Punishment.
12. Discuss the quotation from A. Bern's The Problem of Guilt in
Dostoevsky's Fiction (Das Schuldproblem bei Dostojevsky). "Most
important to Dostoevsky is not the crime itself, but the guilt
connected with it...Raskolnikov killed the old pawnbroker under the
spell of an idea."
13. Discuss Dostoevsky's metaphysical dialectic in view of the
following quotation. "The good that can be derived from evil is
attained only by the way of suffering and repudiation of evil.
Dostoevsky believed firmly in the redemptive and regenerative power of
suffering; life is the expiation of sin by suffering. Freedom has
opened the path of evil for man; it is a proof of freedom and man must
pay the price. The price is suffering, and by it the freedom that has
been spoiled and turned into its contrary is reborn and given back to
man. Nicholas Berdaev, Dostoevsky, the Nature of Man, and Evil.
14. "Crime and Punishment was Dostoevsky's first great
revelation to the world, and the main pillar of his subsequent
philosophy of life. It was a revelation of the mystic guilt incurred by
the personality that shuts itself up in solitude, and for this reason
drops out of the comprehensive unity of mankind, and thus also out of
the sphere of influence of moral law" (Vsevelod Ivanov The Revolt
Against Mother Earth). Discuss.
15. How do you feel about the epilogue to Crime and Punishment?
16. Discuss the following comments by Nicholas Berdaev in connection
with Crime and Punishment. "One does not understand good until
one has experienced evil. The true measure of humankind is the measure
of the depth of its suffering."
Final Take-Home Exam
Answer ONE question from each
of the TWO question categories.
Please DO NOT write about the same ideas or works
in BOTH essays. If you
choose, you may pose your
own
question and proceed to answer it. (If you decide
upon this option, be sure you
actually write out the
question and clear it with me
before you proceed.
Failure to run through this simple process might result in my refusal
to accept your question
and answer.)
Be sure
that your essays are analytical. There should be NO narration of
plots. Please be sure to indicate which questions you
are answering..
All exams must be
typed, double-spaced and must be turned in on time. Because the
due date of this exam is the day
before the end of finals,
extension for this exam are reually
impossible.
Part 1 - General
questions concerning the entire course:
1. Trace the
development of the
superfluous man archetype in the literature we have read this semester.
2. Trace the
development of
archetypes, {i.e. superfluous man, underground man) in the literature
we have read this term.
3. Throughout the
19th century,
there is a change in the setting of the literature, which coincides
with a change for whom the literature was written. Discuss this
phenomenon.
4. "The universality
of Russian
literature derives NOT from that which is truly universal in it but
rather from that which is truly Russian" (Nalibow). Discuss this
premise.
5. Determine which of
the
literature is didactic. Enumerate the works and discuss the
didacticism.
Part 2 -
Questions on literature covered after the last exam:
6. Chekhov's Ward
#6 is
one
of his most famous stories. The Ward 6 Syndrome - "is it right
(or
even possible) to opt out of life and contemplate the world from a safe
distance" (Hugh McLean) is so applicable to our own time. Discuss
McLean's comment.
7. In The Death
of Ivan Ilych,
Tolstoy discusses the "encounter between a solid, respectable citizen
and his death, an encounter which reveals that the very solidity and
respectability of the lives of the protagonists was what was most wrong
with them" (Gary Jahn). Discuss Jahn's point.
8. The Death of
Ivan Ilych
is a profoundly symbolic work. Discuss its symbolism.
9. “The Death of
Ivan Ilych
is a counterpart to Notes from Underground. Instead of
descending into the dark places in the soul, it descends, with
agonizing leisure and precision, into the dark places of the
body.” Please discuss this
citation from Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: an essay in the
old
criticism by George Steiner.
10. In his Biography
of
Tolstoy, Henri Troyat writes that “…No philosophical dissertations
can ever equal in
depth this simple documentary – unemotional, sharp, cruel, devoid of
all artistic
effect—of a sickroom." Discuss the quotation.
11. In his
Understanding
Chekhov:A Critical Study of Chekhov’s Prose and Drama, Donald
Rayfield says “The characterization of Dr. Ragin is striking for the
number of parallels between him and his patient, the fearful symmetry
of guard and patient …Ward #6 is Russia, where the sane are
locked up for their madness and the cynical serve the state by
acquiescing…(and) like Gromov (Ragin) sees the world only through the
prison of his ideas.” Discuss the citation.
12. “Doctor Ragin and
Gromov are
in fact two facets of one personality. Ragin is the symbol of the
contemplative but inert artist, while Gromov symbolizes suffering
humanity.” Discuss Rayfield’s statement.