Irony of the Ideal

Mikhail Epstein is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at Emory University (USA) and Honorary Professor of Durham University (UK). His research interests include new directions in the humanities, contemporary philosophy and religion, Russian literature, and postmodernism. He has authored 30 books, and his works have been translated into 23 languages.

• IntroductionPart I: The Titanic and the Demonic: Faust’s Heirs1. Faust and Peter on the Seashore: From Goethe to Pushkina. Comparativistics and Typologyb. Toil and the Elementsc. The Bronze Horseman as the Anti-Faustd. Demonic Ironye. Pushkin between Goethe and Mickiewiczf. Apocalypseg. The Transformation of the Faustian into the Mephistophelian2. The Bronze Horseman and the Golden Fish: Pushkin’s Fairy Tale-Poema. Semantic Convertibilityb. Textual Parallelsc. The Subjugation of the Elements, and Their Retributiond. Peter and the Old Woman: A Pair of Autocratse. The Fate of the “Little Man”f. The Family and the Stateg. The Poem and the Tale as a Single Work3. The Motherland-Witch: The Irony of Style in Nikolai Gogola. The Irony of Style and the Apotheosis of Russiab. An Aesthetic Demonology of RussiaThe Stare or Fixed GazeRootedness to the SpotLight and ChimingGhostly LightChiming and WeepingDream and WakingFast Riding, Flickeringc. Patriotism and Eroticismd. Blok Gives Gogol’s Secret Awaye. Gogol, Betrayed by Words: The Irony of StylePart II: The Great in the Little: Bashmachkin’s Offspring1. The Saintly Scribe: Akaky Bashmachkin and Prince Myshkin2. The Figure of Repetition: The Philosopher Nikolai Fedorov and His Literary Prototypes3. The Little Man in a Case: The Bashmachkin-Belikov SyndromePart III: The Irony of Harmony1. Childhood and the Myth of Harmony2. The Defamiliarization of Lev Tolstoya. The Death of Ivan Ilyichb. “Alesha-the-Pot”c. Happy and Unhappy Families: Anna Karenina3. Soviet Heroics and the Oedipus Complexa. “Big Brother”: Between Freud and Orwellb. The Mythological Basis of Materialismc. Militant Atheism and the Oedipus Complexd. The Call of the Underworld: The Erotics of the Worker’s Blowe. Materialism as Rooted in Matf. Mother-Worshippers and IncestorsPart IV: Being as Nothingness1. A Farewell to Objects, or, the Nabokovian in Nabokov2. The Secret of Being and Nonbeing in Vladimir Nabokova. The Chain of Negations: Omnipresent “Nonnons”b. “A Series of Hinged Lids”c. Physical Vacuum and the Buddhist Nirvanad. The Secret of the Afterlife3. Andrei Platonov between Nonbeing and Resurrectiona. Russian Literature and German Philosophyb. The Nonbeing within Beingc. Between Martin Heidegger and Nikolai Fedorovd. A Strange Language: On the Other Side of Subject and Objecte. The Boring Void and Deatheningf. Nabokov and Platonov: A Metaphysical Dispute4. Dream and Battle: Oblomov, Korchagin, Kopenkina. Oblomovka and Chevengurb. Warrior-Dreamersc. Oblomagin: Bipolarity in Russian CulturePart V: The Silence of the Word1. Language and Silence as Forms of Beinga. Quietude and Silenceb. The Word as Beingc. The Beingfulness of the Russian Word2. The Ideology and Magic of the Word: Anton Chekhov, Daniil Kharms, and Vladimir Sorokina. The Word-Figment: Daniil Kharms and Anton Chekhovb. Three Literary Episodes: The Silence within and around the Word3. The Russian Code of Silence: Politics and Mysticisma. The Eternal Quietb. Two Silences: Political and Mysticalc. The Formative, Informative, and Fictive Word: The Self-Devouring of LanguagePart VI: Madness and Reason1. Methods of Madness and Madness as a Method: Poets and Philosophersa. Hölderlin and Batiushkovb. Two Half-Witted States (poloumie): Poetic and Philosophicalc. Madness as Methodd. The Self-Critique of Pure Reason2. Poetry as Ecstasy and as Interpretation: Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelʹshtama. Alien Language: Poetry and Kabbalahb. Pasternak, Hasidism, and the Sparks of the Universec. Mandelʹshtam, Talmudism, and the Textbook of Infinity3. The Lyric of Idiotic Reason: Folkloric Philosophy in Dmitrii Prigova. Folkloric Philosophism: The Poetics of Platitudeb. The Stripped Consciousness. A World without a Groove. Allthing and Allbody.c. The Banality of Abstraction: The Deeply Thoughtful UnconsciousThe Cyclical Development of LiteratureConclusiona. Literature and Metaphysicsb. Metanarrativesc. Metaphysics without a Metanarrative

Reviewed in the TLS (June 22 2018)"A study that explicitly avoids a "metanarrative" and seeks instead, with the greatest dexterity, to illuminate its topic in its most diverse manifestations.""A.S. Brown's impressive translation, together with the volume's strong internal coherence, amply justifies the appearance of a book that shows a remarkable consistency of thought over several decades.""...Epstein at his most agile and outward-looking..."