Pushkin's Heroines and the Life-Art Connection
Freedom in a Female Frame
1st Edition
Published on 11. December 2025
190 pages
979-8-216-26007-3 (ISBN)
Description
This book traces the development of Pushkin's heroines from his youthful Southern Poems to his last published work The Captain's Daughter, placing them within the context of the author's dominant genre models and his own life circumstances.
Though Pushkin's innovative depictions of female characters were to alter the course of Russian literature and lead to the development of the "strong woman" in Russian literature, the extensive scholarship of the poet's oeuvre has remained largely herocentric. While Tatiana Larina from Eugene Onegin has received a significant degree of scholarly attention, his other heroines have not been studied in a systematic way. As a corrective, this book traces the development of Pushkin's heroines from his youthful Southern Poems to his last published work The Captain's Daughter, placing them within the context of the author's dominant genre models, focusing specifically on Byron, Shakespeare, and Scott, and his own life circumstances. The overarching purpose of this revisionist feminist study is to examine the ways in which Pushkin broadened the possibilities for heroines within his art and used the freedom he found in inhabiting the female frame to escape from the social norms that constrained Russian noblemen in order to puzzle through his own personal concerns.
Though Pushkin's innovative depictions of female characters were to alter the course of Russian literature and lead to the development of the "strong woman" in Russian literature, the extensive scholarship of the poet's oeuvre has remained largely herocentric. While Tatiana Larina from Eugene Onegin has received a significant degree of scholarly attention, his other heroines have not been studied in a systematic way. As a corrective, this book traces the development of Pushkin's heroines from his youthful Southern Poems to his last published work The Captain's Daughter, placing them within the context of the author's dominant genre models, focusing specifically on Byron, Shakespeare, and Scott, and his own life circumstances. The overarching purpose of this revisionist feminist study is to examine the ways in which Pushkin broadened the possibilities for heroines within his art and used the freedom he found in inhabiting the female frame to escape from the social norms that constrained Russian noblemen in order to puzzle through his own personal concerns.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
ISBN-13
979-8-216-26007-3 (9798216260073)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 02/2026
Bloomsbury Academic
€121.00
Not yet published
Person
Amanda F. Murphy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Content
Introduction: Alexander Pushkin: The Father of Russian Heroines
Chapter 1: The Dagger Cuts Both Ways: Jealous Passion in Pushkin's Southern Poems
Chapter 2: Thawing the Ice Goddess: Reexamining Pushkin's Marina Mniszek
Chapter 3: Love through a Funhouse Mirror in "Mistress into Maid" and "The Blizzard"
Chapter 4: "Preserve your [Maidenly] Honor...": Masha Mironova in The Captain's Daughter
Conclusion: The Afterlife of Pushkin's Heroines
Bibliography
About the Author
Index
Chapter 1: The Dagger Cuts Both Ways: Jealous Passion in Pushkin's Southern Poems
Chapter 2: Thawing the Ice Goddess: Reexamining Pushkin's Marina Mniszek
Chapter 3: Love through a Funhouse Mirror in "Mistress into Maid" and "The Blizzard"
Chapter 4: "Preserve your [Maidenly] Honor...": Masha Mironova in The Captain's Daughter
Conclusion: The Afterlife of Pushkin's Heroines
Bibliography
About the Author
Index
