• Terror and Pity
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Terror and Pity

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Situated on the intersection of comparative literary criticism, political history and theory, and cultural analysis, Terror and Pity: Aleksandr Sumarokov and the Theater of Power in Elizabethan Rus...
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  • 31 May 2016
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Situated on the intersection of comparative literary criticism, political history and theory, and cultural analysis, Terror and Pity: Aleksandr Sumarokov and the Theater of Power in Elizabethan Russia offers an in-depth reading of early Russian tragedy as a political genre. Imported to Russia by Aleksandr Sumarokov around 1750, tragedy reenacted and shaped the symbolic economy and the often disturbing historical experience of “absolutist” autocracy. Addressing half-forgotten texts and events, this study engages with literary and cultural theory from Walter Benjamin to Foucault and “new historicism” in order to contribute to a broader discussion of early modern “poetics of culture.”
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Price: $109.00
Pages: 336
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Imprint: Academic Studies Press
Series: Imperial Encounters in Russian History
Publication Date: 31 May 2016
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781618114723
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

Literary studies: plays and playwrights
“...this bowdlerized regularization of Shakespeare’s beloved play...elicits considerable scholarly interest. Ospovat’s reading of Gamlet through Machiavelli, Benjamin, and Schmitt transforms it into an astonishingly relevant depiction of the rise of charismatic tyranny during moments of political crisis (states of exception), perceived or real.”
— Catherine A. Schuler, University of Maryland, The Russian Review (Vol. 76, No. 3, July 2017)
Kirill Ospovat received his PhD from the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU, Moscow) in 2005. He has held various postdoctoral appointments in Russia, Germany, the UK, and the US, most recently in the ERC-funded research group “Early modern drama and the cultural net” at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I

POLITICAL THEATER AND THE ORIGINS OF RUSSIAN TRAGIC DRAMA

Theater at Court

Sumarokov and the réformation du theater

Political Theater and the Poetics of Autocracy

“Scenarios of Power”: The Politics of Tragic Plots

Dramatic Experience: Tragedy and the Emotional Economy of the Court

PART II

KHOREV, OR THE TRAGEDY OF ORIGIN

Poetry, History, Allegory

Khorev and the Scenario of Marriage

Pastoral Politics and Tragedy

The Tragedy of Suspicion

PART III

POETIC JUSTICE: COUP D’ÉTAT, POLITICAL THEOLOGY, AND THE POLITICS OF SPECTACLE IN THE RUSSIAN HAMLET

Tragedy and Political Theology

The Drama of Coup d’état

Anatomy of Melancholy, or Gamlet the Hero

Investigations of Malice

The Catharsis of Pardon

EPILOGUE

THE THEATER OF WAR AND PEACE: THE “MIRACLE OF THE HOUSE OF BRANDENBURG” AND THE POETICS OF EUROPEAN ABSOLUTISM

Tragedy and Political Theology on the Battlefield

Frederick, or the Performance of Defeat

Peter, or the Tragedy of Triumph

Conclusion: Tragedy, History, and Theory

Bibliography