Olga A. Stuchebrukhov, 

The Nation As Invisible Protagonist in Dickens and Dostoevsky

Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press,

2007, 228 p.

ISBN : 0-7734-5478-0

DESCRIPTION:

This book contributes greatly to the study of two important authors from the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Charles Dickens, and in looking at these two, is an important work in comparative literary scholarship. Traditionally, studies of Dostoevsky and Dickens have focused on the problems of character and genre. Acknowledging the radically different national traditions that influenced Dostoevsky’s and Dickens’ novels, such studies failed to make a serious attempt to define this difference or to place it within the proper historical context. The historical significance of “national” is usually overlooked. In the 19th century, reference to “National” is highly charged with special meaning since many nations as we know them now appeared during this period and so nationalism was a major influence both in the political and literary arenas of the time. This study examines the impact of nationalism on the content and form of Dostoevsky’s and Dickens’ novels, The Devils and The Bleak House, and journalism. In so doing, it attempts to show what makes the works of the two men so similar, yet so very different.

Table of Contents

Preface by Harriet Murav
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Nation, State, and Gender in Political and Cultural Nationalisms
2. An Allegory of the Nation in Bleak House
3. The Nationalist Symbolism in The Devils
4. Nostalgia for the Lost World: Childhood, France, and the “Murdered” Nation in Household Words and All the Year Round
5. Nostalgia for the Lost Word: The State, the Land, and the Problem of Authenticity of Being in the Diary of a Writer
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index