3.5 - The Novel I

Summary

This chapter explores the unique formal features of the Russian novel from its tentative beginnings in the eighteenth century, through its rise in the 1840s, to its full flowering in the second half of the nineteenth century. The founders of the tradition broke with western models, setting a precedent for pushing generic boundaries. This involved experimentation with formal features (novel-in-verse, mixing history and essays with fictional narration, withholding narrative closure, etc.) and an expansion of the subject matter that novels were expected to contain. Given tight censorship, novels and literary criticism became a crucial space for engaging with the most pressing questions of the day. The form was made to accommodate ideological debates about social, political, scientific, and aesthetic issues far beyond the scope of most European novels. The Russian novel became rightfully famous for the depth of its psychological probing and the breadth of the existential questions it addresses.