Abstract
This article compares Nikolai Chernyshevskii’s novel What Is to De Done? (1863) with William Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794) in order to address the problem of the integration of ideological messages into popular literary texts. It presents previously unexamined evidence of Chernyshevskii’s open and strategic imitation of Godwin, in an attempt to reveal the melodramatic narrative mode common to both texts. This culturally contextualized reading allows for a new interpretation of the novels’ respective narrative structures, as well as their reception over time.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-19 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Modern Language Review |
| Volume | 112 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2017 |
Keywords
- Russian literature
- Nikolay Chernyshevskii
- Comparative Literature
- William Godwin
- Narratology
- Melodrama
- Ideology