In the beginning we wondered: “Students and professors may and likely do have differing opinions on the content and form of a course on literature. What are your expectations? What are you hoping to learn?” Re-read your original posts and those of your classmates, then briefly describe what you have LEARNED this semester. I am also eager to hear what you believe can or ought a class in literature TEACH.
Class has sprinted through the nineteenth century of Russian literature from Pushkin to Lermontov to Gogol to Turgenev to Dostoevsky, and finally to Tolstoy. However, as a class, guided by Professor Beyer, we made our own way through the conversations and ideas. The class wasn’t some boring lecture on literature, where each literary device is analyzed. Instead, our class moved passed that and talked about deeper meaning and overall impressions. In my opinion, these ideas represent what is really important about all literature and especially Russian literature, which is so much more emotionally and mentally focused. Writers like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are so intellectual and skilled, that one doesn’t need to work to look through their words in order to find some meaning, everything is perfectly clear, when the author wants it to be. In this course, I became better and better at looking through that veil and interpreting these stories for myself. The skills of discussion and insight gained in this course are worldly and practical rather than being stuck in the abstract. This is why I believe that discussion based classes like this are so important, in a strange way they breach the mentality of a liberal arts atmosphere, however, not train you towards a practical role like with engineering or business but instead changing your mind itself into an useful, practical tool.
I’ve learned a lot from the take away messages of a few of the books. Most recently, Tolstoi’s “don’t think too much” principle – I’ve found that I often do think too much, so going off of Levin’s experience and Tolstoi’s conclusion, I will try to cut back on unnecessary mental exercise. Also, I re-evaluated my conception of Dostoevsky’s “extraordinary man.” I feel like I didn’t fully grasp what he was trying to convey the first time, and I feel that I hit more accurately upon that this semester. I also learned a good deal about Pushkin, of whom I knew nothing before this semester. All of the readings taken cumulatively allowed me to build a foundation for further readings in Russian Literature. Before this semester, I didn’t know that the Russians lived in the dative case (but it’s extremely useful to see the general way that the Russian mind approaches certain issues).
A class in literature should teach a background for the times during which the studied works were written. Ideally, a class should have one foot in the literature and another foot in the history (or a more general studying of the culture). I think that certain interpretations can be taught in literature classes (and are often valuable to be taught). But the class should always be a forum for new ideas, questions, and interpretations – no one interpretation is ultimate and unquestionable. Outside of what the ideal should do – literature classes do actually make students think. Which is the most important function they serve – they teach life lessons an author wished to convey, not through experience, misfortune, triumph, or suffering, but through words and imagination.
I think a class in literature should do exactly what has been done for most of this semester. There should be a conversation initiated about the principle ideas and events that take place over the course of an author’s work and the discussion should lead to wherever it leads. Beyond this I don’t think there needs to be any great, omnipresent fact that should be picked up from a literature course just as I don’t think anyone should attend a philosophy class with the intention of learning the meaning of life. Discussion and analysis of texts as rich and interesting as those in the canon of 19th century Russian literature will always offer profound and enlightening insights into the quintessential elements of human nature and existence.
It is definitely difficult to say how a literature course should be structured. How much should the professor tell his/her students about the material and how much should they have to glean for themselves? My hope in taking any lit course is to improve the analytical skills it takes to read a book and come to informed opinions and interpretations. In taking this particular Russian lit course, my intentions were broader. I was interested in becoming familiar with this this small sliver of the Russian cannon, and I understood that with my nonexistent knowledge of the subject that I would be able to benefit greatly from the readings of classmates and professor. The fact that this course was based on open blog posts and informal and inclusive discussion meant that we could learn from, build up, on disagree with other peoples opinions; which I believe benefits all parties. I thought the works we read were very interesting and sometimes even profound, which in my opinion makes them deserve to be read.
It is interesting, looking back on what we wrote for that first post in February. Many of the things I wanted to learn were things that I could take away from the literature, and in on this a lot of what I would like to talk about are covered up there in Barrett’s post, so I won’t be redundant. The other thing I wanted to know is what makes Russian literature Russian, and it is especially thought provoking to think about how morality has always seemed to be there. It was there in Poor Liza, and the question of the morality of cheating the state is central to the character of Chichikov in Deal Souls. Maybe it didn’t always come off as morality — perhaps “self-awareness” would seem better fit for a work like Fathers and Sons — but by the end of the Golden Age we see religion’s heavy hand in the great works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I can say that seeing this theme sufficiently answered my question as to what exactly is the Russian part of these translated books; maybe the morality aspect doesn’t make them “Russian,” but it certainly is an undeniable trend that seems to fit the nation’s history of church and state relations.
I think that the people above are right, that literature begs for discussion as a means of instruction. If we have learned anything from our occasional separation in class — sometimes by gender, sometimes by Russian students, or other ways — it is that there are many ways to read the same words, and to learn a work in a social context is not so much to understand the many dimensions within the pages as it is to become acquainted with the vault of opinions that a group provides. Maybe that isn’t saying something new, but I simply liked learning from what all of you had to say.
I was also interested in finding out what Russianness meant in terms of literature. It’s really fascinating how many of the same themes and conflicts and even plot devices turn up in so many of the books we’ve read, especially religion and ethical behavior and love and illness, which I suppose turn up in most great literature, but they seem especially prominent here. I still don’t know what it was about Russia particularly that encouraged this kind of thinking, especially while British and American writers were still concerned with fairly excessively plot-driven narratives. But I’ve mostly enjoyed hearing people’s different reactions to controversial characters like Raskolnikov and controversial passages like the end of Anna Karenina. I can’t really think of an elegant way to sum this up. Previous posts have already done it pretty well. Mostly I just appreciated this class as a chance to read some excellent books and learn a little about web design.
In my initial blog post, I expressed interest in the interaction of literature with Russian culture and history. I definitely learned about the role of Russian literature in Russian history from class lectures and discussions about the unique persecution of authors in Russia. I was excited to read these novels in a class setting, because I thought that I would be exposed to different perspectives and ideas, and this held true. Although I simply enjoyed creating the website for our project, researching the different historical and cultural themes in the texts was very helpful in placing the novels in a broader historical and cultural context. It was exciting to read some scholarly literature on the relationship between some of the authors with various philosophers and ideas. I also found it very interesting to research the impact of reading translations from the standpoint of studying Russian language. I think the general theme of all of these components shows that I learned various tools for engaging with literature, and connecting it to universal human truths and the culture from which the literature comes. Most of all it was enjoyable to read some really good novels – which I think is an essential part of any piece of art.
When reading my post in February, I realize that I expected to have a general understanding of Russian culture at the culmination of this class. Having skimmed the surface of Russian literature, I now laugh at this expectation. From “Poor Liza” to “Anna Karenina”, I have seen innumerable “Russian cultures” and could only begin to truly understand it if I spoke the language, read about 100 more books, and lived there.
Instead, I have come out of the course with the ability to reference some of the most famous literature of all time and a greater ability to understand the “point” of a novel. My literature teachers in high school seemed to have been caught up in the “language” of the literature we covered. Since we were reading translations and could not necessarily accurately analyze language or word choice, we looked at the plot and characters and the meaning behind them. The discussions that stemmed from this approach reached more towards the meaning of life and less towards the meaning of a sentence. Discussing these questions with a roomful of virtually strangers with Professor Beyer’s fresh perspective is what I value most coming out this class.
The primary thing that I have learned from this course is actually not directly related to Russian Literature, but I feel like I should still share it. I learned that I can actually enjoy a literature class. This was my last general education distribution requirement class to fill, and I chose Lit over Art. I had high hopes for the class, but I was not expecting to enjoy myself. In that regard, this class did what I think a good literature class should do. It made reading the books fun, it made literature something desirable. I also learned that in many ways, Russian literature is more interesting than American or English literature. There seems to be less overdone analysis of Russian novels, the authors are much better explaining their points, and the stories usually have interesting conclusions. I guess I learned a respect for literature that high school largely beat out of me.
I think this course did exactly what a literature course should do. It engaged us in the novels and gave us a personal stake in completing the books and in the development of the stories. The longer books allowed us to really identify with the characters and track their development across several readings. The short stories gave us a chance to see what Russian authors think of as important, and give a slight glimpse into the general style of Russian literature. A course in literature, especially one that is part of the Russian department, should allow students of all levels of literary skill to engage in the class; it should teach students to enjoy literature.
As a Russian Major this course is one step of many on the way to gaining an understanding of Russian Culture and Literature. I think I gained some insight into the Russian mindset through this course, but mainly I’ve learned the things that have been stated before in this discussion. I would like to add the lesson of Pushkin’s Queen of Spades to the list of things of learned. You cannot hold two things in your mind at once, and because of that Hermann sees the queen of spades instead of the ace and loses it all. It almost makes me want to rethink my decision to be a double major. Though I read many of these books in high school on my own, I feel like the structure of the class helped me understand them better. Doing large papers seems like it is less effective than doing blog posts before every class. The blog posts allowed us to answer in writing on a larger variety of topics. Their informality allowed us to learn from each other a little more. Discussions were usually productive and they were always interesting. I think using technology in a literature class is helpful, not only because being able to use technology is a very useful skill, but also because it can be more efficient and more available for later reference. I think looking into new ways to use technology will be a good way of improving the class. I cannot really think of any specific technological improvements, but I’m sure they’ll come up sooner or later. I think my opinion of what one should learn in a literature class has remained the same. I believe in Tolstoy’s idea that literature should have a purpose beyond mere entertainment. It should have a moral message or it should express profound ideas that should be discussed. I think this class has discussed many of the important ideas from the literature that we have read either in the blog posts or in class, and I think that is always a valuable and enjoyable experience.
I gained everything I wanted from this course, to firstly read Russian literature, and also to discuss and to gain an idea of Russian culture. I have learned a great deal from each of these areas and have learned many things from Nihilism to how unrequited love in Russian novels always tends to lead to long days of sleep. I think a literature class should teach how to think in different ways if that makes sense. I don’t think I’ve been using so much of my critical thinking side of my brain as much as I’ve wanted to and these books have helped me to engage that part of the brain. Why were these murders committed? Why did he chose the Queen of Spades? How will Anna and Vronsky end up? These questions helped me to gauge my discussion both on the blog and in class. Class discussions have been interesting to see how people feel about the books and/or characters (even if its been with my eyes closed on certain occasions).
This was sort of an interesting experience for me. With the exception Anna Karenina, I had read all of the literature previously in more or less formal settings. Although it was occasionally frustrating to treat the works as though it were my first time reading them, it was enjoyable to discuss them with the class. More than anything, I thing the class demonstrated the relevance of “ancient” literature to the present day as the conversations cycled through the moral qualms of CEOs and drug decriminalization. How much was due to random chance and how much to actual relevance…well, I’ll leave that up for grabs. I learned a bit about myself – that I no longer have the interest in literature’s philosophical thought experiments that I once had. I have to agree with Tolstoy – life is significantly more pleasant when you aren’t reflecting on everything. What else of interest did I learn…I learned a bit about geography and a little more about map-making. Looking back and considering whether I learned what I thought I would – I’d say I didn’t, but in reality that’s sort of an unrealistic expectation for any class. I don’t know that I believe the blogs are the best method for getting deep into the readings, but they are helpful in focusing the mind. Hmm, that’s all for me…it’s too late, maybe I’ll continue this later.
I was wrong in my first post. I do not think I learned a substantial amount about Russia’s people, but rather quite a bit about the everyday life during the time in which each book we read was written. I did read the books probably most educated Russians have read at some point, so in an indirect way I suppose I did learn something about the people. However, in RUSS 151 we probably went deeper into the works than one would in a typical Russian classroom. If I had read the books by myself, I do not believe I would have gained so much insight as I did during our class discussions.
I agree with Erik; writing papers would not have been as effective as the posts. With longer papers, I think I would have felt forced to find my own meanings in the books, which could have resulted in me completely misinterpreting them, whereas reading others’ posts and listening to others’ interpretations of the books was not only interesting, but very productive in helping me learn what was actually important in the literature. Many aspects of the literature we read that did not have much to do with the literature itself (i.e. the fact that a lot of them were first published in serial form, the living conditions of the authors, etc.) also gave me a better idea about Russia at that time.
I think a class on literature should not only allow the students to expand their knowledge of literature, but also simply expose them to a variety of situations, whether real or fictional stories. The students can either somehow relate these situations to situations in their own lives, or they can accept as something completely different form anything they are used to, which also serves as a learning experience.
I agree with many of the things that have been said above. Expecting to learn a significant amount about the Russian people was quite naïve. However, as Nelson has pointed out, I now can say that I share an educational experience with Russians by having gotten an idea what their greatest literature is composed of. Most striking to me was the notion of “byvaet” and the incredibly inherent faith that are displayed in this notion. The former, because it shows the limitations language can impose on thought. The question of the former, however, is so intriguing as every character, even those, who appear to be atheist and quarrel with the idea of a god, ends the novel with some sort of reconciliation that faith is necessary for life. This was probably, because it addressed thoughts that I have had before.
As to teaching this course, the most important thing I have learned that it is quite impossible to teach a discussion based literature course in a class of 21 students. That being said, I would not recommend to change the format to anything else than discussion, as the many different views and readings of the works were what kept me interested during class. At the same time it would be nice to include maybe mini presentations during the year on every author’s life. Apart from that, I too consider the blogs a great way of having everybody reflect on the material before class.
What I’ve learned from this class is that great literature does not necessarily have to have a clear theme, which is very different from my favorite genre: science fiction. I’ve always liked the simple books where there’s a central plot and one doesn’t have to think much about the human condition when reading them. But this class has introduced me to realism. From reading Gogol and Tolstoy’s novels where so many things go on at the same time, I realize that these novels are valuable not necessarily because there is one central theme that we’re supposed to follow, but because the emotions created and described are so real, and gives us so many reflections of the many facets of society.
I like the way Professor Beyer asks us hypothetical questions or ones relating to our lives so that we can internalize the dilemmas that the authors face. One particular example that comes to mind is when we were talking about Raskolnikov, and he related the Ubermensch by asking us to imagine ourselves as presidents, and discuss whether such an Ubermensch could exist.
I loved working on the project. Although it has taken a lot of time, we learned a lot and had fun compiling it and filling it in.
I have taken from this course a renewed appreciation for the very personal nature of literature. I went into the classroom having written my first post on how much I hoped for the class to reflect a sort of Russian-ness that I apparently felt to be lacking in my life (as did many of my classmates, looking at their posts), and will be leaving it in a somewhat different frame of mind. I certainly did learn a great deal about Russia through reading its greatest classics, but I learned more about characters and humans than I did about Mother Russia, because as the professor had said at the beginning, we would and did find that there is something more generally human about a lot of the characters than there is Russian. Not only this, but the approach to a text is very, very personal – I think it is difficult to analyze a piece of prose without bringing one’s own experience to bear on a character’s plight. Discussion has of course been useful in that it has looked at each character – Pechorin, Bazarov, Raskolnikov, Anna – from some 19 perspectives, kind of like the Wallace Stevens poem.
What the discussion class did teach and should teach in a literature class is that characters can be more than the two-dimensional caricature we initially perceive, because as soon as we pivot a little, ask someone else what they think, we experience that character anew. To a certain extent, the more opinions you bring to bear, the more complex and inscrutable his/her motives seem – the more alive, then, the characters become because you lose the notion that you can truly know what goes in inside their head. Aside from this, which is not necessarily taught, there are a few more elements useful to learn: some background history, which gives a historical and geographical context for what you read; some linguistic exposure, so that you are aware of the art involved in what you read; a little personal information about the author, so you know what really stands out in the text; and some knowledge of how others across space and time have reacted to what you are reading, so you can get a sense of its relative worth.
It’s difficult to quantify what I learned this semester. I have to agree with Phoebe, that wanting to understand Russian culture from 19th-century literature seems outlandish in retrospect, because it encompasses so much more than what happens within these canonical, literary confines. At the same time, the historical context given by Professor Beyer was crucial to a more complete comprehension of each text; I learned the origin of many ideas specific to Russian literature, which will help me to read other works from this region in the future. But I was also glad simply to read the texts for what they were or are, and come up with my own conclusions that contrast or compare to classmates’. Discussion was usually enlightening and brought up, as I had hoped, new perspectives I had not personally considered.
A class in literature ought, in my opinion, to teach how a text can be read. Class discussion helps me articulate the way in which I, and shows how my peers, approached the same text. But I do this in the context of a course, rather than informally around a dinner-table or in a reading group, because I want to see how someone who has approached a text professionally (or at least multiple times over a lifetime) does so. Every teacher, literary region, epoch, genre, and so on has a different set of interpretive rules that work well in terms of accessing a text’s content, context, and manner of recounting. So, I found it helpful and learned most when Professor Beyer explained how or why a Russian reader and writer would approach a word, circumstance, or scene a certain way. I believe a class cannot teach what a book means definitively, but it is able to give students a set of tools most useful for deciphering a work (for example: the prevalence of the dative case as based in a cultural acceptance of fate, the early workings of metaphorical language, the super-omniscient role of an author, etc.). I’ll definitely return to Russian literature for such unique aspects, and be able to read it more knowledgeably the next time around!
In my first blog-post, I talked about the goal of balancing some sort of ‘intellectual’ and ‘spiritual’ approach to reading. I guess that, at the beginning of the semester, it seemed to me like this approach to reading was a challenge, something to work and strive towards. But at this point it really doesn’t seem to me to be all that difficult of a goal, especially as it applies to Russian Literature. The authors we have read were so good at putting themselves into their works – whether they did so sarcastically or seriously – that I found it easy to read and at the same time criticize and find meaning in the text. As the semester moved on, I suppose what I have learned are the different ways in which one can strike this balance between intellectual and personal readings. In Notes from the Underground, for example, I found myself unusually and perhaps frighteningly compelled by the work, and I think I really learned throughout that book (as well as Crime and Punishment) how to stay comfortable and most importantly open while you might be feeling discomfort. In Dead Souls, I think I was able to learn from the way in which I strangely felt engaged by reading chapters that were filled with quite mundane occurrences. What I likely gathered is the way in which monotony, if expressed in a certain way, actually holds underlying absurdity (and therefore meaning).
And I really think that all a Literature class can teach is the ability to be open, self-aware, critical, and patient with the infinitely unique situations that come up in each novel we read. I believe that this sort of thing prepares us and allows us to reflect on for life. So, I guess a literature class should give us room to both, as a teacher of mine once put it, rehash and rehearse. I think that our class was successful in doing so, in a large part due to the ways that the authors we read gave themselves over to the reader so apparently.
The main thing I received from this course was a grounding in the more fundamental authors and veins of writing at the onset of Russian literature.
Its difficult to say what I learned in this class. There is a quantitative knowledge that was imparted merely by the historical progression of Russian Authors, of which I was previously ignorant.
On a more qualitative note, due to the discussion focus of our class I learned about human nature in seeing how people responded to the literature. All of the different responses to Lermontov’s hero Pechorin were particularly interesting. How Danielle could say that here is a character she could really sympathize with, when by all appearances he’s a sleazeball while Phoebe responded that she couldn’t believe men like that actually existed. The same with the discussion about Bazarov. There is something fascinating that comes out in the discussion of these ambiguous and difficult to define characters and situations. Merely observing people’s reactions was a learning experience in and of itself.
I am ambivalent about what I learned from the texts. Much of Russian literature has become entertainment for me more than any growing and learning experience. I felt I learned something from the generational relationships in Fathers and Sons, and something of females from Lermontov. The big authors, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky were too didactic for me. They are too predictable and boring.
Tolstoy is obviously behind Levin, Raskolnikov is obviously going to repent. I can appreciate the scope and the grandeur of the novels but it is mostly strangely artificial to me. This all was prophesized by the initial course reading, “Poor Liza”. I thought this story was so remarkably awful that it was beyond comprehension. What is the point? Where is the art? Where is there anything interesting or stimulating in it?
One of my ideas about this, is the fault that everything we read is in translation. If I could hear the original Russian I could have a feeling for the poetry and naturalness of the writing and be able to vicariously experience what I was reading. I remember when we read Dr Zhivago in our Russian winter term class some of the passages were so brilliantly poetic that I felt a surge of joy reading them. Unfortunately (due to the translation nature of the books) these moments did not last and were only brief glimpses and hints at something more. I also remember reading The Master and Margarita in Russian and being literally unable to control myself from laughing. A lot is lost in translation.
I felt that this class functioned as a real survey of 19th Century Russian literature. We didn’t get to go into some of the bigger books in as much depth as I would have liked to, but I recognize that an introductory class needs to cover a much broader spectrum of information. The class has definitely provided me with a good foundation of knowledge about a literary tradition and surrounding context that I didn’t really know anything about. My favorite classes of the semester were the ones in which Professor Beyer used a text we were reading as a basis for a larger school of thought—for example, when we read Notes from the Underground, we had a class-long discussion on existentialism. I think this is a really effective way to structure such a class (with so much material jammed into a relatively short time) because it provides really illuminating lenses with which to analyze the texts, when much of the analysis is happening outside class, by necessity. Additionally, I really appreciated being in a class primarily full of Russian majors. As many of my literature classes are filled with literary studies majors, most of who have the same background in literary analysis and appropriately artsy eyewear and facial hair, it can become a bit repetitive with the same theories are repeated over and over again. The presence of Russia experts (both students and obviously the Professor) allowed me to pry myself away from a stagnant habit of analysis that I was used to. I learned just as much from my peers as I did from the books, and I hope every class can be as engaging.