What have YOU learned from this literature course?

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. We will spend part of our last class considering what can or what ought a class in literature TEACH.

41 thoughts on “What have YOU learned from this literature course?

  1. Kaylen Baker

    I began this class hoping that I would discover in Russian literature a different style of voice than what I am used to in English literature. I wanted to know what Russian culture was like in this romantic, intellectual, and transformative age and I remember becoming disappointed the first day when Professor Beyer told us that culture isn’t really described in their literature.

    But having finished all our books now, I think I really have gained both an understanding of the culture of Russian life back then and each author’s style of writing, which are all different, but have many of the same habits.

    I’ve learned that 19th century Russian literature is full of purposeful contradictions and stereotypes, which often help to point towards a moral or intellectual message. Sometimes this message is obscured by the inner turmoil of the author, who feels indignant about prevailing ideas and problems in Russia, but can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. This made the books so fascinating, that I could feel this sort of pulsating, agitated emotion behind the simplistic stories.

    I’ve learned that often times we criticize characters as too idealized, too one-toned, only because we are students looking to critique. Different people read literature for different purposes, and I know I primarily read because I love to lose myself in stories, and for me it doesn’t matter if something isn’t realistic – this isn’t our world’s reality anyway. I also realized thought that it was usually easier to blog about the books I didn’t like as much. Since literature encompasses so many different facets – plotline, context, author, message… there’s no correct way to teach literature. But discussions are essential.

  2. Elise Hanks

    I came into this class expecting a more formal study of the texts, I will admit. This class marks one of my first literature courses where almost all the dialogue about the novel was discussion based. I gained a great deal more insight into Russian life, history, and culture than I anticipated. I have not previously studied anything Russian and enjoyed learning about the politics and lifestyle that sustain the Russian way of life through literature. Because this was my first course dedicated to a foreign literature, I feel that I gained knowledge on how to approach translated literature and its interpretation as well.

    I also feel like I am better able to understand the recurrent thematic elements within this period of Russian literature that really do come from various authors to create a unique era and culture not seen anywhere else in the world at any other time. I am really pleased that I feel like I have the beginnings of an understanding of Russian literature and the intertextual and literary references that are applicable to both Russian texts as well as others found in the literary canon.

    I’ve also enjoyed the insight into the minds of the authors we have studied. Knowing that there were specific events or documents or religious beliefs in each of their lives that aided in the construction of their characters and stories has given me a much deeper understanding of this era of Russian Literature.

  3. Patrick O'Neill

    Looking back I think I actually learned a lot in this literature course. To begin with, I certainly learned a great deal about the “Golden Age” of Russian literature and Russia in the 19th Century. The many ideas and ideals of the times were often reflected in the works, which also opened windows into Russian life, be it through a caricature of Gogol’s or the heavily detailed portrayal of Tolstoy. Of course I also learned a great deal about Gogol because of my project and actually even gained an appreciation of Nabokov while reading the biography he wrote.

    More importantly, however, I feel that the way I read a text has changed profoundly throughout the run of the semester. Even though the volume of reading done in this course has been heavier than anything I have ever taken before, I really began to read more into the text and to see the devices, etc. that the author was employing to drive the story-line, forward his message and so forth. The contrasts in styles and tastes between different authors became increasingly apparent and making these comparisons became really enjoyable.

    Most of all, though, I think I really learned just to enjoy literature. Beforehand I had never really thought of literature as something enjoyable, but rather something that simply had to be read for school. However, after reading these works and actively discussing the ideas presented in them, especially those of “Crime and Punishment”, which absolutely dumbfounded me in every way, I realized that I enjoy kicking these ideas around in my head and could possibly even see myself going on to grad school to do just that.

  4. Brett Basarab

    This class turned out different then I expected, which means that I learned different things than I expected. For the first few weeks, I was slightly taken aback by the unusual format of the class. While I understood that discussion is essential for understanding literature, I thought the classes would be more lecture based with extensive student participation. I expected to have regular lengthy papers, where we would be asked to offer deep insight into the themes presented in the works we studied.

    When I saw that the class was going to be quite different, at first I feared that I wouldn’t be able get out of this class what I had hoped. How could free-form discussions that often ranged off topic help me to gain insight into Russian literature? However, I soon grew accustomed to the discussion-based classes, and as some previous entries have mentioned, I started to enjoy literature as just literature. The discussions allowed me greater insight into the characters and the plot lines of the stories. Of course, all the stories we read had their themes and messages, but I found it more fulfilling when we discussed which characters where honorable and dishonorable, which ones were slick and which ones buffoons. I also learned a lot about how the authors’ own experiences played into their stories (Tolstoi’s experiences manifested in Levin, for example). While all the writers we studied had their message or convoluted philosophies to get across (Dostoyevsky in Notes from the Underground), they all also wrote literature that was meant to be enjoyable. I loved Anna Karenina, for example, mostly because of its great plot alone.

    Overall, this class was a refreshing break from the usual lit courses I’ve taken in the past. While the workload was massive, it was nice to just focus on the reading and not have to worry about giant paper assignments. By concentrating just on the readings, my understanding of them was deepened.

  5. Ashley Quisol

    After approximately 236,457 pages of reading (give or take) I feel that I have grown at least a small step forward to my goal of this class. But when that goal is to better understand the Russian soul, that step is no small feat. You weren’t lying, Beyer, when you said that Russian literature would tell us the meaning of life. In fact, perhaps that is an understatement since it also taught us the meaning of love, death, solidarity, ignorance….at least from the point of view of several authors…who all happen to be relatively wealthy men of the same time period and, apparently, the same intellectual circle in most instances.
    Aside from the homogeneity of these authors on paper, the messages that they conveyed to us through their writings were quite diverse; with each novel, we the readers were forced to stretch our minds in different directions. From nihilism to religious awakening to the superfluous man to the poor Liza to Anna Karenina, we certainly explored a number of issues and themes that everyone encounters at some point in their lives.
    Though, at first, I wasn’t a fan of the group assignment (the whole group part mostly) I found it to be entirely rewarding. It was perhaps one of the first group projects where I felt that the product was better from collaboration and the process was more efficient than I had expected.
    It was a good call to divide the class into two. I liked the freedom we were given in discussion, but sometimes I felt that we needed to go deeper….or to just cut off the discussion….but those issues were governed by time, so there’s not much one can do to address that.

    So in view of time and tradition, my last 300th word can only be:

    спасибо

  6. Matthew Lazarus

    I could not agree more with Ashley that the Russian soul is something that is very difficult to comprehend. Needless to say it was my fascination with this very idea, this culture, this generation of the 19th century so influential on our society to this day (if we give ourselves the chance to study it) that inspired me to jump into this world of Russian literature. It was my goal to have under my belt a solid vocabulary in the various Russian authors, and I believe I have accomplished this. I don’t know if I’ll ever really know what Pushkin was “about” versus what Dostoevsky was “getting at,” but I certainly have a better idea now. Maybe a Nabokov class would help. But a literature class in itself is a tricky subject. I am in a British novel class as well, and I found it interesting that both of the professors in both my literature classes began the year with the question: “Is literature dead?” My answer to that is: only as much as you make it. The words used and the situations presented in these texts may sound foreign to this generation, but the nature of the human experiences described will never lose its relevance. The literature class to me incorporates two aspects. On one side, we as students must familiarizing ourselves with and learn to access in an academic sense the critical interpretations of these works, in order to “do justice” to them. But on the other side is the organic effect that the text has upon you, the reader, as an individual. One is significantly more elusive in classroom dialogue. I have learned that literature is a personal experience, and that to really understand a text, one needs to understand the author. The group projects were illuminating in this sense. Since literature can be viewed through so many critical lenses, I think we cannot be disappointed nor can we be surprised that sometimes our conversations did not feel as satisfying as we wished them to be. But the battle between new criticism and post-modernism gets a little bit exhausting after awhile, and I think we are here to engage with, not be directed by, these texts, or the language we assume should be used to discuss literature in college. If that means calling Vronsky a d-bag, then awesome.

  7. Catherine Ahearn

    First off, our blog posts were way shorter back then.

    I think it’s great how I start off with “I expect to enjoy every work we read,” because this was not the case. I hated Dead Souls, as some of you may remember (mainly Ashley, Sophie, and Casey) and a number of the short stories because I felt that they lacked volition to a definite goal or point. On another note, I noticed that a lot of people’s posts included some sort of desire to learn about the culture and society that the books were influenced by or made an impact on. Although I don’t feel like this class did that, I also don’t believe that it needed to.
    We took a very strict approach when discussing each work we read that narrowed our discussions to the book itself (and at times to pirates). I liked this because it enabled us to apply it to ourselves, now. Each of our comments reflected on our own view of the work and did not give way to speculation on how it must have affected others in a time other than ours.
    This question is funny because it relates to what we’re talking about in my Greek Tragedy class. We’re reading Aristotle’s poetics in which the argument is made that literature has the capacity to teach due to man’s natural tendency to imitate. Literature (and art in general) serves as an educational tool in that we can imitate it, or learn about life from what it proposes. I think that this best sums up what a literature class can teach. In fact, its not so much the class that teaches but the literature itself. The class becomes the forum in which we can talk about what we’ve learned and the observations we have made. In this way, I surpassed my original expectations to learn from the work because I also got to learn a lot about others in the class and see how they interpreted texts.
    Oftentimes, we can make clear connections between real life and the literature we’re reading (as some made between Anna Karenina and some stupid girl in our class…) and that is where the learning takes place. The classroom, and in this case the blog also, serves as a great setting where we can see what other people have gotten out of, or learned from, a work.

  8. Lisa Eppich

    I think I got a great deal out of this class. I came in wanting to learn more about the building blocks of Russian literature and how they relate to live in Russia itself at the time, and I think we certainly accomplished that. I think it was really interesting to find out how Russia borrowed and responded to Western ideas, yet at the core of every work is still a distinctly Russian spirit. My Russian professor told us not too long ago that Russians don’t ache from their heart, they ache from their soul, and I think these works really convey the distinct way Russians feel and approach life. I also think that this is important as to what literature should teach: the distinctness of the society it came from. I don’t think there is really a western counterpart to Pushkin, Gogol, or Dostoevsky, which goes to show just how important it is to know and understand these works.
    I also wasn’t a huge fan of the group projects, but by the end I also felt that it was worthwhile and that we put together a really solid and beneficial piece of work. I don’t necessarily think that the teaching of literature needs to change for the 21st century because I think some things are timeless, but it was great to see what everyone came up with for the projects, and I was blown away with how creative and hilarious the projects were. I also enjoyed blogging a lot, though a more consistent word limit might have been nice. Cutting the class in half was also a great idea: I can’t imagine how we would have had discussions on the larger works if we kept the class whole. Overall the class was really effective in showing what kind of intellectual thought was going on in Russia in the 19th century and how a lot of the lessons and ideas are still applicable and worthy of thought and discussion in our time.

  9. Casey Mahoney

    I feel like I took this class at a perfect time, that is, after a year and a half of Russian and at the same time as a political philosophy class. It was great to be able to have the time and the intellectual, discussion-based space to talk about the big questions of life, which I feel the 2 classes I just mentioned helped introduce/discuss from a Russian perspective from different lenses. So go liberal arts.

    By having to read a pretty comprehensive body of literature from a fairly specific time period, setting, tradition, I feel that not only have I been able to get a grasp on what the culture of the top 2% of Russians were at the time (which is disappointing, since we only got a really limited glimpse at what the other 98% is about…), I also think I’ve been able to learn a little about what the study of literature involves, as far as criticism goes, and I’ve seen how much personal experience consistently does contributes to one’s reading of texts.

    The group project was a great opportunity to apply ourselves practically (i.e. 21st century style) and share some of what we learned.

  10. Ben Tabb

    Let me begin by saying that the greatest thing I got out of this class, as with every literature class I’ve taken, was the experience of reading great books. It’s hard to sum this up or say what exactly I’ve “learned” from this reading, but it’s been a great experience, and some of these authors I’ve always wanted to read and finally got the time to.

    Other than that, I remember Professor Beyer telling us that we wouldn’t learn much about Russian life or culture in this time, which I don’t think is necessarily true. Perhaps because I knew so little to begin with, I learned a lot of aspects of Russian life that I did not know about, such as the importance of official positions and the prevalence of alcohol, among other things. I can’t say I have a full view of what Russia was like in the 19th century, nor can I say how accurate these stories portray it, but I certainly have a better than I did.

    Perhaps the best lessons I got out of this class were in regard to how I learned to view literature differently. For one thing, I now have a much greater appreciation for the importance of a good translation in foreign literature. I had never really thought of it before and had pretty much taken foreign works as I read them, assuming that everything was the work of the author. Though I can’t read the Russian, I could tell from our discussions, Beyer’s explanations, and my own readings of different translations how important it really is, and how difficult it is to convey both the actual meaning of a text, while still keeping the its artfulness. The other major thing I learned was the importance of the lives of the authors. These texts would not have meant the same to me if I read them with no outside knowledge. Without knowing about Lermontov’s life, I would’ve had a completely different view of Pechorin. Same with Tolstoi and Levin. Had I not known Pushkin had died in a duel or Gogol had starved himself to death I would have different views of their work. I always thought that a good piece of art should stand on it’s own, but this class made me appreciate the context under which it was published.

  11. Susanna Merrill

    As a person who almost never has articulated goals of any kind, I am amazed, looking back at my post from the beginning of the semester, at a) how well it matches what I’m pretty sure what my goals actually were and b) how well they worked out in reality.

    My older post was:
    “I am looking forward to reading classical works of Russian literature with time and opportunity to think about them and discuss them in ways that may not have occurred to me on my own. As a senior Russian major, I have read many of these works before, some more than once, but I know that I can get a lot more out of them with additional readings in the context of a literature class. I hope that we will approach the works as more than illustrations of their historical settings, which is the context in which I have read them in classes in the past.”

    Totally what happened! I really appreciated reading literary works with the assumption that they have something to say about the nature of humanity and the universe, rather than about something lame and boring like the interpersonal disputes of 19th-century critics.

    I guess that doesn’t really answer the question of what I learned, but I don’t think that the broadening of intellectual and spiritual scope that comes with reading literature can really be communicated, and any “theme” or “moral” you try to draw out makes the work into a piece of propaganda rather than literature. So yeah, I don’t mean for this to sound pretentious, as it’s supposed to be the opposite, but my un-original conclusion is that to say what I learned would take the same number of words as it took all the works that we read.

  12. Anonymous

    i came in wary of taking a literture class. In my first post, I emphasized that my goals were to merely read the books and look at them in a historical and cultural context. I wanted to avoid any mention of the fucus of actual lit classes (which I imagine is symbolism and forshadowing?)

    I agree with casey that we didnt learn much about russian culture and history because most of the stories focused on the upper 5% of society. I do think, however, that the political and social messages and themes in the story provided a glimpse into more than this upper-sociatal-tier. The high society atmosphere was merely the frame.

    I was satisfied with the layout of the class. I think the blog posts forced us to think about our reactions to the text, and was also a way to prepare for the class discussion. I particularily enjoyed the debate we had in one of the first few classes- i thought it forced us to organize our thoughts well.

    Really enjoyed the group project- its not often that I get truly excited about work- and that definitly happened with this project.

    I did learn, that a life of contemplation and self-awareness may not be optimal.
    So I didnt learn the meaning of life
    but i am not so sure I want to know it anymore

  13. Susanna Merrill

    Guess on identity of anonymous, based on scorn of lit classes and frequent anonymity: Sophie?

  14. Hannah Wilson

    I came into this class wanting to read good books and deepen my understanding of them. At the beginning of the class I didn’t know what form I wanted this learning to take place in. Once we started meeting in the small groups I knew this class was not only going to teach me about the literature but also challenge my oral presenting and writing skills. The small size of my discussion group forced each one of us to make at least one substantive comment per class and to stay engaged. This is more than I can say for any of my other classes. I always looked forward to coming to class, excited to see what sorts of ridiculous arguments would arise. While at times they may have seemed unnecessary (think whether we would marry Levin or Vronsky) or completely out of left field (the pirates), they forced to defend our opinions. I think that the blog forced us to do the same. No longer do we only have to worry about what we want to say, we were forced to consider others opinions and articulate reasons why we either disagreed or agreed. A professor’s job should be not only to point out key themes to students, but also to challenge their ideas and their rational. I think that this class did exactly that.

    Like Cathy, I think that this class has not only improved my written and oral skills, it has helped me question life. I know that sounds cliché, but who can’t help thinking about what it would be like to live like Levin? Or if religion really provides with all the answers? One of the reasons why I love literature is because it allows me to vanish into this world, put myself in the place of different characters and then come back to reality affected by them. Too often, literature class strip literature of this power to go searching for the authors intention or the hidden message, while there are more correct interpretation (based in more fact) there must be room for personal freedom and exploration, or else I would dread doing my reading as much as I dread doing my physics homework.

    Oh, and as per usual, I wrote too much. Sorry.

  15. Stewart Moore

    From this course I now know some names and major works of Russian authors and a little bit about a Russian writing style (and we’ll throw Tolstoi out of the Russian writing style because to me he is more continental). I have gained some memorable quotes, good for motivation and for faking that I am wise.

    I didn’t come into the course hoping to gain some huge insight or the meaning of life, and a literature class, in my opinion, isn’t the type of class you can truly measure what you have learned. I did learn some historical facts about Russia and about famous authors. By sitting back and rarely talking in class I learned about the people in my class from their reflections and opinions about the works.

    I learned that what many people call ‘good’ literature is exploitation of subjects such as infidelity, murder, rape etc… and that books about ‘moral’ characters or books with happy endings are dismissed by enlightened people as cliche paintings of life and are not ‘real’. I’ve learned that people try to extract every drop from books and often think higher (or lower) of the authors than the authors did of themselves, or than perhaps what they deserve, placing modern methods of evaluation upon the dead.

    I’ve learned that I have no idea how to work computers other than basic functions, emailing, and watching videos; blogging is new to me as well as the things many groups did for projects. And I’ve learned quite frankly that I am happy in my ignorance of technology and plan to continue my life without an iPod.

  16. Alexandra Boillot

    In my first post I talked about how my first exposure to Russian literature in What Is to Be Done? sparked my interest in this class and how I felt reading literature was an important lens through which to view other societies and cultures. I was very much looking at this course with a historical benefit since I hoped to learn about Russia. I don’t think I ever expected to get so much out of the literature that was completely unrelated to history. Once I began reading all the different works I forgot completely about Russia’s history and simply thought about the literature in front of me. I could not be happier that I spent a semester reading works all related to each other by their country. I still think it is important to read the major literature of the major countries to gain insight into their lands but I also think it is important to enjoy the literature and not try to extract historical significance from it at every step. Now, looking back on the course as whole and thinking about its progression and the short stories and novels we read, I can very much see historical significance but during the readings I was able to lose sight of that and just focus on the characters and what the author was trying to do with his words at that moment.

    I enjoyed this class because instead of picking apart every last detail of the literature, we took the works for what they were and discussed the major themes, events, and shortcomings of the works, and, in turn, Russian society. My critical reading skills definitely improved and the post assignments helped me alter my way of reading so that I was constantly thinking about the meaning behind the words on the page. I really appreciated the insight into Russian culture that I got from these works and this course and it has opened my eyes to just how much I enjoy literature and want to continue with literature classes.

  17. Harry Morgenthau

    In my first post of the semester, I wrote that I wanted to learn something about Russian identity, and about the struggle between europe and slav that is such a distinctly Russian problem. In many ways, and as many people have said, we did not reach these goals with the books that we read. They provided us with only a small glimpse of a particular class of intelligentsia, and they left many voices out. But at the same time, I do not think that I can say that I learned nothing about Russia in this class. The problems, the solutions, and even the mannerisms of the characters had a tinge of something that was distinctly not American, distinctly different from what I had ever read before. This literature did not tell me anything about the tsars or their wars or the style of Russian architecture, but it did give us a few glimpses of Russian life, and I don’t think we should discount those.
    Where these books may have failed in their portrayal of a particularly Russian world, I think they succeeded in portraying humanity. In another lit class, I was told that a great novel is one that can provide some essential truths about the human condition; in other words, one that can tell you something important about life, and maybe even change the way you live it and view it. I think that the readings in this class, especially the last two novels, succeeded in this regard. The human truths that Anna, Levin and Raskolnikov gave us are, in my opinion, much greater and much more important than any truth about Russian culture that they could have given us. In the end, I think that that is why these novels have survived, and remain at the forefront of literature; they tell something real about humanity, something that transcends time and place, and can help us to live our lives better.
    In the end, what I finished this course with is much greater than what I had hoped to gain at the beginning; I learned something about the human condition, and that is infinitely more valuable.

  18. Kara Shurmantine

    To be honest, this class wasn’t quite what I expected. I’m an English major, and I’ve been intense about literature all my life. This is the first English class I’ve taken with people who aren’t also English majors, but who instead come from a variety of different academic backgrounds and with a variety of different perspectives. One thing that was totally weird for me was the fact that during our discussions, we very rarely (if ever) referred to the text. I stopped bring my text to class because a) Anna Karenina was really heavy, and b) I didn’t need it during our class discussions, because they were based not on the text itself, but in our individuals interpretations and opinions about the different characters, their motives, their behaviors, and what they might do in the future. Sometimes this was hard for me to adapt to, but most of the time it was a refreshing break from “typical” in-class literary analysis and allowed me to experience a new way of approaching literature, perhaps a more modern way. Speaking of modern, the inclusion of and emphasis placed on the latest technological developments, right alongside nineteenth-century dead Russian authors, was rather unusual and unexpected. But again, it was refreshing and allowed us to have an authentic and innovative approach to these books, to make them resonate in the present. I really like the class and I really like our discussions, because we all just openly shared our thoughts and opinions without being afraid, as is the case in some of my more Englishy literature classes, of our thoughts and opinions not being sheer analytical genius. Our discussions were, in many ways, more honest, blunt, and modern than those I experience in my other English classes.

  19. Natalie Komrovsky

    In my first post, I discussed wanting to read all of these texts and understand how all different elements of writing came together to create great works of literature. Having never taken a literature class, I always envisioned anything having to do with literature as involving a breakdown of an author’s writing, and being practically beaten over the head with reasons why they’re brilliant. I also thought that these works would further illuminate my understanding of Russia and the Russian spirit. This was not what happened. Though I can’t quite put my finger on everything I’ve learned this semester, one of the most interesting things was what the literature illustrated to me. For me, most of what we read didn’t reflect a distinct Russian theme, but instead reflected aspects of universal experience. When reading Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina, I was never thinking “this is so typical of Russian society.” Instead, I was thinking “these are conflicts and issues that every human being has to grapple with, experience, and overcome.” Though some characters and parts of books may have been more Russian than others, every character was one that I could identify in my own life. Everything was real to me. That was the magic of literature and of this class-everything was clearer, deeper, and more universal than I had ever imagined it could be.

  20. Gabriel G Suarez

    I need to agree with part of what Natalie said. If the questions is “what have I learned from this course,” some of it is certainly the universality of good literature, Russian or not. The questions and themes posited in Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina are not specifically Russian problems; everyone must deal with redemption, everyone must deal with ennui and emptiness. Dead Souls spoke of opportunism and forgotten lives, doesn’t every culture deal with that?

    The diversity and depth of these questions lead me to conclude that I learned how to learn the meaning of life. Professor Beyer told us that this course, particularly our studies of Tolstoi and Dostoevskii, would point to us competing visions of “the meaning of life.” That is: (1) There is a God. Accept Him, and love actively. And (2) You will die. Now stop stressing about that and live! Well, those are made out to seem like universal truths in competition, but the “real meaning” must be somewhere between the two, or somewhere beyond the two. The universality of this literature does not stop at posing great questions, or covering great themes, but in it, I can see a hard, complex truth that might be brought out through several more years of study. So if there is just one thing I learned from this course, it’s this: there’s much more to learn from these books. I’ve only scratched their surface, but there’s a wild heart to these novels.

    At the same time, my appreciation for these works leads me to conclude that there are remarkable things about these authors that are NOT universal. Yes, everyone deals with suffering and redemption, but no American writes about it like Dostoevskii. Sure, ennui and disenchantment with love are universal problems, but Tolstoi can write it better than a German. It is the expression of a universal experience coupled with the flavor and character of this particular country that make these books what they are.

    Another consequence of the universality of these works is their temporal transcendence. For the most part, we studied these books divorced from their historical periods. We didn’t hear much about the politics or economics or history or art of the 19th century (well, those of us not in that group,) but their message, their sublimity, and their significance was never muddled. True, we chose the very best. But what a good collection of people the guys had. Go Russia.

    Finally, after having thought and said a lot in this post, past posts, and class, if the question is “what did I learn from this class?” the answer has got to be simply this: surrender. Levin, and Raskolnikov, and the Underground Man, and Anna, and Pechorin, and Poor Liza, and Akaky, and Belkin and the rest of our parade of characters in the end had one shred of a common experience, that is, the futility of determinism. The idea of the exceptional man is torn apart by these works, just surrender (to Dostoevskii, it might be to God, to Tolstoi it might be to history, to Pushkin or Gogol it may be to the irony of your position. Just do it, surrender. Soak it in. You’ll write well.

  21. Adam Levine

    The last line of my first blog post is: “…I look forward to reading great works in the Russian canon, and getting a chance to read relevant and well-known authors with a mix of students – some taking their first literature class ever, and some graduating with a degree in Russian.”

    This course exposed me to many pivotal works from the Golden Age of Russian Literature. From Pushkin to Gogol to Tolstoi, we chronologically followed the styles of writing that pervaded the nation, and watched influences from and reactions against them. These are the “backbone” works – the novels and stories that molded Russia’s literary canon, and by reading them we enter ourselves into the dialogue that surrounds them.

    After reading the first blogs, I was excited about the varying experience other students would have with Russian literature, or literature in general, and after a semester with our class, it is clear that my expectations were more than fulfilled. The discussions and responses that the class generated allowed the works to become three-dimensional, live beings. Professor Beyer and students of Russian were able to shed enlightening details that contextualized the books. I would like to thank the rest of the class for their passion and drive.

    Which brings me to the final question: what should a literature class teach? I think a fundamental necessity for a literature class is a path into the texts that elicits fervent discourse and reflection. Language is a beautiful, intricate, and precious way to express human emotions and present human issues. Discussing the works of art that shaped our current literary conceptions and overall perspectives of humanity leads us to a fulfillment of life that cannot be paralleled. Art and artifice – how are they connected? When do literature classes transcend the page and become visions of our everyday lives? I believe that books can easily become lenses to our human experience, but only with a serious and enthusiastic commitment to literature. Our class showed how spirited conversations can extract the fruit of literature, and I am so glad to have been a part of the picking and savoring process.

  22. Zachary Harris

    Hey, sorry I forgot to post for class today. I looked over what I posted at the beginning of this course, and I basically said that I hoped to improve my knowledge of Russian culture by reading Russian literature. This course has definitely done what i hoped it would do for me. The way the class was structured, by doing readings and then blogging and discussing the works in class, allowed me to read the most influential works of Russian literature and then be able to talk about the works further.

    I can’t really think of another way of teaching literature that would be much effective. This is basically the way I was taught literature in high school, the only difference being that we read much less and had tests and papers. However, I am not a literature major, nor have I taken any other literature classes in college, so I am not really one to judge. At least for my purposes, to gain a broader understanding of Russian culture, this class was extremely beneficial.

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