Пособие по развитию навыков чтения для студентов III-IV курсов факультета филологии и журналистики ОЗО. Часть II

Министерство образования Российской Федерации Ростовский государственный университет

Пособие по развитию навыков чтения для студентов III - IV курсов факультета филологии и журналистики ОЗО Часть II

Ростов-на-Дону 2003 год

Пособие обсуждены и утверждены на заседании кафедры английского языка гуманитарных факультетов РГУ Протокол № 10 от 17 июня 2003 г. Составители: Кокарева А.А., Баркова С.Л. Ответственный редактор: Звягина Н.Ф.

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Методическая записка. Настоящее пособие предназначено для развития навыков ознакомительного и изучающего чтения у студентов отделения филологии. Профессионально-направленные тексты и система упражнений имеют целью развитие таких навыков, как чтение с охватом общей информации, ее обобщение и анализ. Задания по чтению сопровождаются упражнениями, направленными на развитие навыков говорения в виде пересказов, сообщений, оценки информации и т.д. Пособие состоит из 10 уроков и рекомендуется для работы в V-VIII семестрах. Каждый урок состоит из предтекстового задания, целью которого является снятие трудностей в произношении, самого текста и ряда послетекстовых заданий.

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UNIT I 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: virtually - [Èv«:tju«li] extraction - [iksÈtrQkS(«)n] elite - [eiÈli:t] curtail - [k«:Èteil] verge - [v«:dZ] suicide - [Èsju:said] conjecture - [k«nÈdZektS«] mature - [m«Ètju«] curious - [Èkju«ri«s] beggar - [Èbeg«] paean - [Èpi:«n] bicker - [Èbik«]

Fine Poet for Our Age Asked at an exam to identify several historical figures from a course in Soviet history, a Boston University student wrote next to Admiral Kolchak the words "a poet". While, Kolchak might have been a poet at heart, despite his propensity to execute his enemies during the Civil War, in view of the student's ignorance so typical of America’s younger people, his choice displayed good judgment, simply because of the large number of outstanding poets Russia has produced, if for no other reason. Yevgeny Baratynsky is yet another important Russian poet little known even among literary circles in the West, but familiar to virtually every educated Russian. This year March 2 is Baratynsky's 200th birthday. Yevgeny was born to an aristocratic family of Polish extraction in 1800 in the village of Vezhlya, Tambov Province. His father was a general, and his mother a maid of honor at the Czar's court. An Italian gentleman was the young boy's tutor, and in addition to Italian, he learned French, the principal language spoken in the family, and, at eight, could write letters in French. In 1808, Yevgeny was taken from the remote spot where he had been born to the brilliant capital St. Petersburg. He was placed in a German boarding school, where he also learned German. From the boarding school, Yevgeny went to the Corps of Pages-an elite military school. His education there was soon curtailed, however. Yevgeny and a group of cadets became involved in mischief, which bordered on crime, in particular theft. Caught red-handed, he was dismissed and banned from entering, state service except as private in the military. This unfortunate event had a strong effect on the 15-year-old poet. Later, he admitted that he was on the verge of suicide at the time. It is a matter of conjecture to what extent this episode in 4

Baratynsky's life was responsible for his pessimistic world outlook. His early letters show that the boy was already intellectually mature at an age when today's children are still quite infantile. At 11 he shared the following philosophical thoughts with his mother in a letter: "Isn't it better to be a happy ignoramus than an unhappy sage? By rejecting the good things in science, don't we avoid fined vices?" In another letter written in 1814, Yevgeny consoled his mother on the occasion of his grandmother's death: "I understand your grief, but dear Mother, consider that it is a law of nature. We are all born to die, whether several hours sooner or later, we will all have to leave the paltry atom of dreams which is called the earth." It is curious to compare Baratynsky's interests at the time with those of Alexander Pushkin, who was a year older. While Yevgeny pondered over the issues of life and death, Alexander avidly read the Greek poet Anacreon famous for his paeans to love and drink, and frivolous French poets. After leaving the Corps of Pages, Baratynsky lived for several years with his mother in Tambov Province and with his uncle Admiral Bogdan Baratynsky in Smolensk Province. It was at this time that Yevgeny wrote his first original verse in Russian. The poems dated 1817 that have reached us are still quite raw. The breakthrough came in 1819, when Baratynsky mastered the technique of poetry writing and found his distinctive poetical voice. An important role in his poetry was played by his interest in mathematics, which he retained from his school days. There is much in common between poetry and mathematics, and in Baratynsky's case it was a winning combination. Despite his pessimistic nature, the poet did not shun worldly pleasures. On his uncle's estate, he spent time with a group of younger people who devoted themselves to amusement. In a letter to his mother he wrote about it: "We argue a lot about happiness, but these arguments resemble the bickering of beggars over the philosophical stone," and went on to refer to "the darkness, our common father." At his family's insistence, Baratynsky enlisted as a private in the Guards Regiment of Chasseurs in St. Petersburg. In the capital he met Delwig, who encouraged his poetical experiments and introduced him to the leading poets of the age, Zhukovsky, Pletnev, Kuchelbecker and Pushkin. Delwig also helped Baratynsky publish his poetry for the first time in 1819. In 1820, Baratynsky was promoted to non-commissioned officer and posted with another regiment in Finland. 2. Look through the text and prove the following statements by the facts from the text: a) Yevgeny Baratynsky is not a very famous person among literary circles in theWest; b) Yevgeny Baratynsky was a perfectly educated person; c) the unfortunate event happened to a 15 year-old poet; d) he was intellectually mature at a very young age; e) Baratynsky has some winning combination in his technique of writing; f) he was introduced to the best poets of that period. 5

3. Give Russian equivalents for: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h)

…in a view of student’s ignorance; …the principal language spoken in the family; …caught red-handed he was dismissed and banned from entering state service; …he was on the verge of suicide; …it is a matter of conjecture; ...the boy was already intellectually mature; …to ponder over issues of life and death; …it was a winning combination.

4. Give English equivalents: a) …известный практически каждому образованному русскому; b) …не лучше ли быть счастливым невеждой, чем несчастным мудрецом; c) …мы все будем вынуждены покинуть ничтожный атом мечты, называемый Землей; d) …обнаружил свой характерный поэтический голос; e) …эти споры похожи на ссору нищих над философским камнем; f) …Евгений перешел в кадетский корпус, элитную военную школу. 5. Answer the questions: a) Is Baratynsky a well-known poet among literary circles in the West? b) What family was Baratynsky descended from? c) How many languages did he speak? d) What education did he get? e) What event had a strong effect on the 15-year-old poet? f) What philosophical thoughts did he have when he was a very young boy? g) When did he write his first poems? h) What played an important role in his poetry? i) How did he spend his free time? j) Who encouraged his poetical experiments and introduced him to the leading poets of the age? 6. Describe the life experience and poetical activity of the young poet Baratynsky.

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UNIT II 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: harsh - [ha:S] curb - [k«:b] premature - [,prem«Ètju«] throng - [TrN] resign - [riÈzain] assert - [«Ès«:t] urge - [«:dZ] agitation - [QdZiÈteiS(«)n] hail - [heil] rarely - [ÈrE«li] insensitivity - [in,sensiÈtiviti]

Yevgeny Baratynsky Five years spent in Finland had a deep effect on Baratynsky's works, and he wrote several of his best lyrical poems in this harsh northern land. A friend of this period described him as follows: "He was lean and pale, and his features had an air of deep-seated despondency about them". In 1824, the young officer was allowed to go to Helsingfors, where he fell in love with General Zakrevsky's wife. This unfortunate affair was reflected in several poems. However, Baratynsky combined passion with cold rationalism. In a poem he advised lovers to curb their passions, since the opposite harms joy and reduces pleasure. In a letter he wrote that a few hours alone with his love might bring him back to his senses. He would write several elegies and sleep soundly. His ideas on love were also marked by cool rationalism: "What an unfortunate fruit of premature experience - a heart greedy for passion but already incapable of devoting itself to one permanent passion and losing itself amid a throng of boundless desires." In 1825, Baratynsky was promoted to commissioned officer, and his regiment transferred to St. Petersburg. Here he renewed his literary acquaintances. Shortly afterward, however, he resigned from the military service and moved to Moscow, where he married Nastasya Engelgardt. His wife was not beautiful but had a keen mind and refined tastes. After his marriage, Baratynsky settled for quiet family life, although there were occasional lapses, one of which he described as "the darkening of my sickly soul." Baratynsky divided his time between Moscow, his estate in Muranovo near Sergiyev Posad, Kazan, and St. Petersburg, where he met Mikhail Lermontov. In Moscow, he became close to a circle of literati including Kireyevsky, Yazykov, Khomyakov, Sobolevsky and Pavlov. Baratynsky’s first collected lyrical verse appeared in 1827, by which time 7

he was recognized as a prominent poet. Critics were not very kind to Baratynsky, accusing him unfairly of being overly sentimental. It was only Pushkin's positive attitude to Baratynsky's works and his prestige that, by quiet consent, forced critics to acknowledge Baratynsky as one of the best poets of his time. Baratynsky's own attitude to Pushkin was not always just. It was even asserted subsequently that Pushkin chose Baratynsky as his prototype in depicting Antonio Salieri in "Mozart and Salieri". Baratynsky worked on his poetry very slowly, often rewriting old works. He wrote prose only when pressed to do so by circumstances. When he learned of Pushkin's death he was writing the poem "Autumn," where he hinted that Pushkin's popularity was due to his appeal to common thoughts. To his credit, Baratynsky left the poem unfinished. In 1842,he published a slim book of verse, which caused him great distress. Particularly upsetting was the response of the critic Vissarion Belinsky, who misinterpreted Baratynsky's latest works. In fact, Baratynsky predicted the triumph of the materialistic urge in European society, which has continued until today, and took a skeptical view of science, which also seems more justified today than Belinsky's thoughtless acceptance of industrial progress. The fall and winter of 1843/1844 saw Baratynsky's long-time dream come true. He visited Paris, where he met French writers, among them Merimee, Chevalier, Lamartine and Nodier, for whom he translated several of his poems into French. In the spring of 1844 Baratynsky set out for the south of Italy. Upon arriving in Naples, his wife suffered one of her frequent nervous fits, and this had such an effect on the poet that he developed a severe headache and died the next day. Baratynsky's attitude to life is marked by his conviction that perfect bliss cannot be found in this world. In life he saw only two destinies: either hope and agitation or hopelessness and peace. The poet even welcomed death, regarding as blissful the insensitivity of the dead, and hailed the Ultimate Death, which will put an end to all existence. Baratynsky was a poet of deep thoughts; his language is far from perfect, and his poetry rarely musical. In his last years, the poet turned to religion and begged God to give him strength in his "strict paradise." Today's religious revival and the renewed search for the Truth make Baratynsky a poet for our age. 2. Look through the text and state whether these observations are true, false or not known. a) b) c) d)

Baratynsky stopped his military service as commissioned officer; he had the only love, his beautiful wife; he was fond of Pushkin greatly; Baratynsky was a very cheerful person and loved life very much.

3. Give Russian equivalents for: 8

a) …in this harsh northern land; b) …this unfortunate affair was reflected in several poets; c) …an unfortunate fruit of premature experience; d) …he resigned from the military service; e) …she had a keen mind and refined tastes; f) …the darkening of my sickly soul; g) … Pushkin’s popularity was due to his appeal to common thoughts; h) …he was only two destinies: either hope and agitation or hopelessness and peace. 4. Give English equivalents for: a) …Баратынский был продвинут по службе в качестве сержанта; b) …его черты носили отпечаток глубоко затаенной подавленности; c) Баратынский сочетал страстность с холодным рационализмом; d) …советовал влюбленным обуздывать страсти, т.к. противоположное вредит наслаждению и уменьшает удовольствие; e) …что за несчастный плод – преждевременный опыт; f) …отношение Баратынского к Пушкину не всегда было справедливым; g) …жена страдала от одного из своих частых нервных припадков; h) …совершенное блаженство не может быть найдено в этом мире. 5. Answer the questions: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h)

What was Baratynsky's military career? What was his attitude to love? What advice did he give in his poems? When did his first collected lyrical verse appear? What was his relationship with Pushkin? What was the attitude of the critics and poets to his literary activity? What kind of person was the poet? What made Baratynsky a poet of our age?

6. Describe Baratynsky as a personality and as a poet. You may add any information you know about him. Compare his point of view on life with your own.

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UNIT III 1.

Practise the pronunciation of these words:

Jewish - [ÈdZu:iS] affectionate - [«ÈfekS(«)nit] accomplish - [«ÈkmpliS] exile - [Èeksail] memoir - [Èmemwa:] milieu - [Èmi:lj«:] benevolent - [biÈnev«l«nt] aid - [eid] turmoil - [Èt«:moil] injury - [ÈindZ«ri] 2.

Read the text and find the answers to these questions:

a) What kind of family was the poet born into? b) What kind of education did he get? c) What was his first distinctive volume?

Pasternak Unlike many talented poets, Pasternak was by no means an early developer. He was born in Moscow in 1890, into an affectionate Russian-Jewish family for whom art of all kinds was the most important thing in the world. His mother, who came from the cosmopolitan city of Odessa, was an accomplished concert pianist and lover of music, although she abandoned her own ambitions in that direction when she married and began to have a family. His father, a modest, hard-working man, was one of the most accomplished Russian painters of his time. He drew several portraits of Tolstoy and illustrated his novels. His son remembered these occasions. The feel of hot summer trains and small railway stations near the great writer's country estate at Yasnaya Polyana was there when he came to write his first essay in autobiography. Safe Conduct; and he was to reproduce the same sort of atmosphere in the opening scene of Doctor Zhivago. As an old man exiled in England after the revolution, Pasternak's father himself wrote a memoir of life in Moscow, about friends and fellow artists, and the rich cultural milieu in which Zhivago himself is represented as growing up. Boris Pasternak's younger brother, who in the thirties became a distinguished Soviet architect, also makes brief appearances in Doctor Zhivago as the hero's half-brother Yevgraf, the enigmatic but benevolent figure whose aid is often the means of preserving Zhivago during the turmoil of the revolutionary years. 10

Pasternak was educated in the classics, and as a young man began to study music under the influence of Scriabin. Then he abandoned it and went to take a course in philosophy at Marburg in Germany. This too he gave up, although his teachers, some of them the most distinguished German philosophers of the time, said he had a marked gift for the subject. But he had determined to be a poet, and he returned to Moscow shortly before the war, in which a childhood injury prevented him from serving in the army. He had already published one slim book of poems, A Twin in the Clouds, and during war-work in the Urals area the scene of much of the action in Doctor Zhivago he produced another. Above the Barriers, which appeared in the revolutionary year of 1917. Both contain interesting pieces, but Pasternak produced little that was truly distinctive until his third volume, My Sister, Life, appeared in 1922. By then he was married, and had embarked on the hard slog of literary work, mostly translating and doing articles, which was to earn him his living in Moscow until his death in 1960. During that time his reputation as one of the best Russian poets of the age was steadily growing.

3.

Read the text and find Russian equivalents for:

a) He was born in M. in 1890, into an affectionate Russian-Jewish family; b) Pasternak was by no means an early developer; c) …she abandoned her own ambitions in that direction; d) he was to reproduce the same sort of atmosphere in the opening scene of "D.Z."; e) …the rich cultural milieu in which Zhivago himself is represented as growing up; f) …he makes brief appearances in Doctor Zhivago as the hero's half-brother Yevgraf. 4.

Find English equivalents for:

a) …ощущение жарких летних поездов и маленьких железнодорожных станций; b) …загадочная, но благосклонная фигура; c) …через суматоху революционных лет; d) …у него был особый дар к предмету; e) …детское увечье помешало его службе в армии; f) …Пастернак написал мало действительно значимого для своего 3-го тома. 5.

Answer the questions:

a) What were the poet's father and mother like? b) What kind of work did his father do? 11

c) What influenced Pasternak when he was writing his opening scene of "Doctor Zhivago"? d) Who was exiled in England? e) What kind of character did Pasternak brother represent in "Doctor Zhivago"? f) What are the titles of the first Pasternak's rhymes and which one was the truly distinctive? g) What kind of job did he do to earn his living? h) What kind of reputation did he have? 6.

Describe the atmosphere in which Pasternak's personality was formed and give the fact of his biography that influenced some parts of this novel "Doctor Zhivago".

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UNIT IV 1.

Practise the pronunciation of these words:

fervour - [Èf«:v«] idiosyncratic - [,idi«siNÈkrQtik] chiefly - [ÈtSi:fli] insight - [Èinsait] sombre - [Èsmb«] genius - [ÈdZi:nj«s] uniqueness - [ju:Èni:kn«s] livingness - [ÈliviNn«s] tarred - [tA:d]

Pasternak The poems in My Sister, Life are a remarkable combination of idealistic fervour - like most young Russian poets and intellectuals Pasternak was at first enthusiastic about the promise of the revolution - and a vivid and altogether idiosyncratic depiction of natural moments - spring, wet leaves, rubbish in a canal, starlight on the surface of a tarred road. At first these twin manifestations of Pasternak's joy in the change of heart the revolution had brought about, and his extraordinary sense of livingness, with his gift for realizing it in words, are in harmony and able to work together. He lived very much the life of a Soviet poet, attending committees, giving views on policy and helping fellow artists, and writing the sort of new-style epic verse which Mayakovsky, a friend of Pasternak and the darling of the Soviet artistic regime, was popularizing throughout the new Russia. In 1927 Pasternak published Nineteen Five and Lieutenant Schmidt, poems commemorating the mutiny of the Black Sea fleet and the battleship Potemkin, and a few years later Spektorsky, a 'novel in verse'. All these experimental works are accomplished and have their own sort of interest, particularly to students of Pasternak, but they lack the inner inspiration and personality which marked his lyric poetry, and which would become so much a feature of Doctor Zhivago. At the same time Pasternak was writing prose, chiefly memoirs of his childhood and youth. The Childhood of Luvers, The Last Summer, Safe Conduct, all more or less meet and mingle with each other, the last being rewritten in 1957, the year which saw the publication in the West of Doctor Zhivago, and given then the title of An Essay in Autobiography. The feel of this 'Essay' is recognizable close to that of Doctor Zhivago, whereas Safe Conduct is much more a young man's book, overblown and over-poetical, and suffering from the younger Pasternak's undoubted tendency to take everything about himself and his impressions with an almost comic seriousness. There are traces of this tendency still to be found in Doctor Zhivago, but its insight, craftsmanship and importance 13

as a work of art is not affected by them. There is all the difference in the world between a young man indulging his own sense of uniqueness and his genius for words in an autobiographical sketch, and Pasternak's sombre and symbolic portrait of a figure who embodies the principle of life itself, the principle that contradicts every abstraction of revolutionary politics. For by the time he came to plan and write Doctor Zhivago it had become obvious to Pasternak, as to many other artists and thinking people in Russia, that the revolution, which had seemed to promise such high hopes, had developed under Stalin into a soulless tyranny. 2.

Look through the text and say whether these statements are true, false or not known.

a) Pasternak was not enthusiastic about the revolutionary idea at first; b) Pasternak wrote a number of new-style epic verses commemorating the revolutionary doings; c) he had never written prose memoirs; d) Pasternak greeted the principles of the revolution up to the end of his life. 3.

Give Russian equivalents for:

a) …a vivid and altogether idiosyncratic depiction of natural moments; b) …starlight on the surface of tarred road; c) …these twin manifestations of Pasternak's joy in the change of heart the revolution had brought about; d) extraordinary sense of livingness with his gift for realizing it in words; e) …the sort of new style epic verse; f) …a young man indulging his own sense of uniqueness and his genius for words in an autobiographical sketch. 4.

Give English equivalents for:

a) …удивительное сочетание идеалистической горячности; b) …был охвачен энтузиазмом в связи с надеждами, подаваемыми революцией; c) …в них был недостаток внутреннего вдохновения и личностного отношения, которые характерны для его лирической поэзии; d) …несомненная тенденция молодого Пастернака воспринимать себя и свои впечатления с почти комической серьезностью; e) …революция превратилась в бездушную тиранию. 5.

Answer the questions:

a) How was Pasternak's enthusiasm about the revolution reflected in his works? b) What new style did he begin to write? 14

c) What poems were written to commemorate the mutiny of the Black Sea Fleet and the battleship Potemkin? d) What kind of prose did he write? e) What kind of tendency did the author of the article notice in his memories? f) Was he disappointed with the revolution and why? 6.

Describe Pasternak's life and poetical work during the years of the Soviet Power and compare it with the first period of his life.

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UNIT V 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: unconsciously - [ÃnÈknS«sli] thrive - [Traiv] vigorous - [Èvig«r«s] vitally - ['vait«li] imperfective - [,imp«Èfektiv] echo - [Èek«u] prayer - [prE«] sensuous - [Èsensju«s] worthy - [Èw«:Di] preach - [pri:tS] martyr - [ÈmA:t«] survivor - [s«Èvaiv«] attitude – [ÈQtitju:d]

Doctor Zhivago Unworldly or not, Pasternak had his own way of seeing what was going on, and he was beginning unconsciously to shape it into the world of art created by his own uniquely personal vision. Against the new Soviet Communist world he became the champion of life itself, of which Doctor Zhivago is not so much the spokesman as the embodiment. His poems are the voice of the living, opposed to those voices of authority who will not live in today but only in the glorious vision of a socialist tomorrow. Pasternak's writing is saved from attitudinizing by its unselfconsciousness: it does not take up an attitude to its own message. This is very important, for Russians thrive on argument and polemics, and all the greatest Russian literature is vigorously and vitally combative. But in the hands of a master like Dostoyevsky, or like Pasternak, the Russian language and style take on naturally what can only be described as their most sublimely provisional, or as the grammarians would say 'imperceptive' quality. Nothing is settled or concluded, nothing is laid down: everything, like life itself is beginning again at every moment. As Pasternak himself used to say: there can be no Party line about life. The name Zhivago is itself a kind of pun: 'Mr. Lively'. Dostoyevsky used to talk about zhivaya zhizn, 'living life'. Fortunately, in the rich echoes and associations of Russian, 'Doctor Zhivago' does not sound as bald and simple as 'living' or 'lively' would do one remembers that in the old prayers of the English Church God was asked to send forth his 'true and lively word', and the word zhizn has always possessed in Russian a sensuous immediacy and feel which is lacking or lost in European languages. D. H. Lawrence's followers used to talk about being on the side of life: a depressing concept which sound much like being on the side 16

of the people, or democracy, or humanity. A worthy position no doubt, but art cannot do its work through these means and these terms. D. H. Lawrence knew that as well as anybody, but besides being an artist he was by nature a passionate and combative man who loved a fight, and who could and did preach his own gospel as well as showing and revealing it through his art. The temper and tendency of politics and belief in Pasternak's time made him far more of a martyr than Lawrence was, although Pasternak was also a miraculous survivor. But he never preached a rival gospel, or established a band of like-minded followers and disciples. Unlike Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, or Lawrence himself, he had no ‘message’ to give.

2. Look through the text and prove the following statements by the facts from the text: a) Pasternak had his own vision of what was going on; b) Pasternak was a very lively personality; c) In the hands of masters of the Soviet literature, the Russian language takes on a special quality; d) The name Zhivago has come special meaning and is a kind of pun; e) Art can follow any special means or terms; f) Pasternak didn’t create his own gospel. 3. Give Russian equivalents for: a) b) c) d) e) f)

“Doctor Zhivago” is not so much the spokesman as the embodiment; Pasternak’s writing is saved from attitudinizing by its unselfconsciousness; this is important, for Russians thrive on argument and polemics; …in the rich echoes and associations; the word “zhizn” has always possessed in Russian a sensuous immediacy…; …who could and did preach his own gospel as well as showing and revealing it through his art. 4. Give English equivalents for: a) …он начал сознательно формировать из этого мир искусства, созданный его собственным уникальным, персональным видением; b) …он стал победителем самой жизни; c) …которые будут жить не сегодня, а в “прекрасной мечте” социалистического завтра; d) …русская литература, яростно и страстно борющаяся…; e) …он никогда не проповедовал противоборствующую веру, не основывал группу мыслящих так же последователей и учеников. 5. Answer the questions: 17

a) What was Pasternak’s view of his time? b) How did he express his thoughts? c) How did the author of the article characterize the Russian literature and the language of Russian masters? d) What does the name Zhivago mean? e) Can “Doctor Zhivago” be translated as bald and simple “living”? f) What kind of concert did O.H. Lawrence’s followers talk about? g) What kind of person was D.H. Lawrence? h) What is the difference between the personality of B.Pasternak and D.H. Lawrence? 6. Characterize the connection between the personality and creative work of B.Pasternak and prove the individuality of the author in comparison with D.H. Lawrence’s for example.

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UNIT VI 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: rapturous - [ÈrQptS(«)r«s] connoisseur - [,kniÈs«:] ingenuity - [,indZiÈnju:iti] aftermath - [ÈA:ft«mQT] tumult - [Ètju:mÃlt] contingent - [k«nÈting(«)nt] poohpooh - [p(h)u:p(hu):] ill-advisedly - [il«d'vaizdli] forbear - [f:ÈbE«] depreciation - [di,pri:SiÈeiS(«)n] 2. Look through the text and state whether these observations are true, false or not known. a) b) c) d) e)

Pasternak’s novel has a very interesting structure; Pasternak’s novel was not compared with any other one; Zhivago observes that you have to live well not just now but in future; Vladimir Nabokov didn’t like the novel; The film was made by this book.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO Doctor Zhivago is valued and appraised, taking its distinctive live and distinguished place in the tradition of Russian literature art. Now that it is in a sense no longer the single cry from the dark depths of Stalin's Soviet Union, Russian readers and critics are more interested in its art than its politics, insofar as the two can at all be separated. On its new publication over there its old “message” may now seem commonplace, but that hardly matters: indeed it may make the book's status as a work of art all the clearer, for the Russians, who are thoroughly soaked in their own literature, are fascinated by the presence in the book of all sorts of “voices” from the past of Russian literature - voices of Pushkin himself, of the mystical “Silver Age” novelist and poet Andrey Bely, of Anna Karenina, which ends with suicide under a train while Doctor Zhivago begins with the same event. There are even direct echoes in the passage about the grass snake which I quoted, and which a Russian reader would certainly notice. In one of his very early poems Pushkin writes of vine tendrils in the Caucasus, “as elongated and transparent as a young girl's fingers...” 19

When the novel appeared in 1958 in the excellent Hayward and Harari translation the rapturous welcome it received soon itself begot argument and controversy. A long-time connoisseur of the Russian novel, V. S Pritchett, called it 'a work of genius' and the best novel to come out of Russia since the Revolution. The knowledgeable and powerful American critic Edmund Wilson did not dissent from this; and he drew particular attention to the originality and ingenuity of the novel's structure, comparing and contrasting it with the structure of Proust's great masterpiece A la Recherche du temps perdu. The seemingly chance encounters and partings of Doctor Zhivago built up an exact and graphic panorama of the way their lives were shaped for Soviet citizens in the aftermath of revolution and in the years of Stalin's supreme power. Tossed about like corks in the tumult, people are thrown up against one another in all sorts of unexpected ways. The ruthless partisan commander Strelnikov turns out to be the same young officer we used to know rumoured to have been killed in an attack on the Austrian trenches in 1916. The old Swiss lady walking past the tram in which Zhivago has his fatal heart attack is the former governess of a member of the nobility, whom he met when they both worked at a hospital during the war. And this final coming together, so accidental and contingent in itself, is in any case unknown to both parties, and is without apparent significance. Only the reader dimly apprehends the vortex of chance, which seems to boil and hubble in times like these. Significance? Who can say, for every meeting between lives has its own value and its own secret meaning, far from the ends and aims of those tyrants of ideology who drown the world in blood? As Zhivago himself observes, you have to live: you cannot always be making preparations to do it: a sharp comment on communist promises that everything will be wonderful, some day, some time in the future. But not all men of letters in the West were so deeply impressed by Doctor Zhivago. Vladimir Nabokov, whose early novels had achieved a reputation among Russian émigré intellectuals before he became famous in the United States with Lolita and Pale Fire, poohpoohed the novel. For him it was a piece of muddled and sentimental romance ill-advisedly composed by a man who was a talented poet. Nabokov was attacked in his turn by Edmund Wilson who could never forbear to cross swords with the novelist on a Russian topic, whether it was Dostoyevsky, whose reputation Nabokov held to be inflated, or the translations of Pushkin's Eugeny Onegin. Nabokov's depreciation of Doctor Zhicago is none the less significant, because it concentrated on what might vulgarly be called “the loveinterest” in the novel, the interest that was of course seized upon by the makers of the film. What does a reader feel about Pasternak’s presentation of the love story? When the novel first appeared a far from reckless critic, the philosopher Stuart Hampshire, said it was “one of the most profound descriptions of love in the whole range of modern literature”. What seemed mere sentimentality to Nabokov could seem to other, and serious, critics a deeply moving love story.

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3. Give Russian equivalents for: a) …the excellent Hayward and Havari translation the rapturous welcome it received soon itself begot argument and controversy; b) …the way their lives were shaped for Soviet citizens in the aftermath of revolution; c) …tossed about like corks in the tumult; d) …which seems to boil and hubble in times like these; e) …a piece of muddled and sentimental romance ill-advisedly composed; f) …it was Dostoyevsky, whose reputation Nabokov held to be inflated. 4. Give English equivalents for: a) b) c) d) e) f)

…особое внимание к оригинальности и новизне композиции романа; …превращается в того самого молодого офицера, которого мы знали; …только читатель смутно постигает водоворот шансов, которые…; …который потопил мир в крови…; …ты должен жить, ты не можешь постоянно готовиться делать это; …который никогда не мог удержаться от того, чтобы скрестить шпаги с романистами по русской теме.

5. Answer the questions: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h)

When did the novel become widespread? How did foreign critics react to the novel? Which particular features was the attention drawn to? What is one of the most interesting and distinctive figures of the novel? What sharp comment did Zhivago himself make on communists’ promises? How did Nabokov characterize the novel? Who did Nabokov have controversy with? Have you read the novel and what’s your own opinion?

6. Speak on Edmund Wilson’s and Vladimir Nabokov’s characteristics of the novel, its brightest features. Give your own impression of the novel.

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UNIT VII 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: assertion - [«Ès«:S(«)n] sage - [seidZ] assumption - [«ÈsÃmpS(«)n] ungainly - [ÃnÈgeinli] scheme - [ski:m] memoir - [ÈmemwA:] endorse - [inÈd:s] capability - [,keip«Èbiliti] tacit - [ÈtQsit]

Introduction 'My hero is truth', claimed Tolstoy about some of his earliest writings, Sevastopol Sketches, which were the product of his service as a junior artillery officer in the Crimean War of 1853-6. How many novelists and war reporters sometimes both, like Ernest Hemingway - have since made the same claim, either openly or implicitly? "Tell it as it is” is - or perhaps rather used to be - the sacred talisman and duty of a writer. Tolstoy was making his claim only a few years after Dickens had proclaimed, in his introduction to Oliver Twist, that “What I write is TRUE!” The slightly hysterical assertion is typical of Dickens, but his own generation and those novelists who came a little after - Thackeray, Trollope, George Eliot, all of whom Tolstoy much admired - would certainly have endorsed the point. The novelist had authority, had responsibility; and that made it necessary for him to seek the truth, to be in his own fashion a modern sage. All that has changed today - at least in terms of the way novelists and their critics tend to consider their art. The novelist today sees himself, or is seen, as constructing his own form of 'literariness', making out of the craft of language his own personal world, game, or device. This may indeed tell us much that is instructive or revealing about the way we behave and live - even about the way we ought to live - but most writers would no longer feel it possible to “tell the truth”, in the old simple style. Does such a thing indeed exist, or exist, in terms of human capability? In the literary climate of our time there is a tacit assumption that, as the philosopher Wittgenwein put it, “the limits of my language are the limits of my world”. Such an assumption would have been incomprehensible to Tolstoy, and indeed would have seemed contemptible to him as well. Ever since he became a writer, starting with the memoirs of his earliest days that became Childhood, Boyhood and Youth, he had of course realized how difficult and subtle the art of writing was, how much depended upon getting the thing across with an apparent 22

immediacy and simplicity which concealed hours of labour and crossing out and rewriting. In his study the Craft of Fiction Percy Lubbock went so far as to say that there existed an ideal novel, which could be extracted out of the vast and ungainly mass of War and Peace. Recent research has shown that mass to be not at all as ungainly as was once thought, but on the contrary a project carefully schemed and planned along deliberate lines. But, however that may be, who could think of Anna Karenina as being excessively bulky, or as a novel which could with advantage be made much shorter? And the simple reason for this is that Tolstoy did indeed plan it as a novel, and - as he put it-“the first I have attempted”. 2. Look through the text and prove the following statements by the facts from the text: a) …to show the truth is the main idea of Tolstoy’s works; b) the way of showing the truth has changed; c) “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” are not the ungainly mass of events. 3. Read the text and give Russian equivalents for: a) …claimed Tolstoy about some of his earliest writings; b) …service as a junior artillery officer; c) …at least in terms of the way novelists and their critics tend to consider their art; d) …making out of the craft of language his own personal world, game or device; e) …much that is instructive or revealing about the way we behave…; f) …has shown that mass to be not at all as ungainly as was once thought. 4. Give English equivalents for: a) …которые являлись плодом его службы; b) ..сделали с тех пор подобное заявление, так же открыто или безоговорочно; c) …священный талисман и обязанность писателя; d) …слегка истерическое утверждение; e) ..что сделало необходимым для него искать правду; f) …проект, тщательно спланированный по обдуманным направлениям. 5. Answer the questions: a) b) c) d)

What did Tolstoy claim about some of these earliest writings? What is the sacred talisman and duty of a writer? What other great writers proclaimed the same ideas? What made it necessary for the novelist to seek the truth to be in his own fashion and modern sage? e) What has changed today? 23

f) How are the modern novelists going to tell the truth? g) Could that way be comprehensible for Tolstoy? h) Can you consider the great novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” the vast and ungainly mass? i) How did Tolstoy plan “Anna Karenina”? 6. Compare the claims of Tolstoy’s contemporaries with modern views of the literary activity. Do you think modern principles of writing can be applied to that of great Tolstoy?

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UNIT VIII 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: uncongenial - [ÈÃnk«nÈdZi:nj«l] dubious - [Èdju:bj«s] pursuit - [p«Èsju:t] harass - [ÈhQr«s] theme - [Ti:m] obsess - [«bÈses] irresponsible - [,irisÈpns«bl] torment - ['t:ment]

Introduction He began it in 1873, five years after finishing War and Peace. The tremendous success of that work - although it had also received much measured and in some cases severe criticism - had encouraged him to try his hand at a true 'historical novel', about the life and times of Peter the Great. But he never got very far with this. The figure of the great reforming but tyrannical Tsar was uncongenial to him, and one of his own ancestors had played a highly dubious role in Peter's judicial murder of his son Alexis. More significantly, Peter the Great had loved foreigners and Germans, and had done his best to tidy up and “germanise” Russian society and the Russian way of life. Tolstoy was xenophobic, particularly disliking Germans and Russians of German origin, of which there were many in his time in the army and civil service. In Sevastopol Sketches there is a Captain Kraut, “a man who seemed to lack something just because everything about him was so satisfactory”, and in War and Peace the Rostovs' son-in-law Berg is portrayed in a similar way. In Anna Karenina too there are traces of Tolstoy's lifelong prejudice against foreigners and foreign customs. It is an interesting and important fact, however, that Russian high society, the “upper ten”, which in practice was preponderantly Baltic and cosmopolitan, is not portrayed in that novel with the same warmth and affection as the native gentlemen and landowners of War and Peace. One of Tolstoy's more or less unadmitted purposes in writing War and Peace was to celebrate the role of his own class in winning the epic struggle against Napoleon, a victory, which had liberated Europe, and for which Tolstoy considered they had never received proper credit. Things are quite different in Anna Karenina. The upper class, as represented by such a man as Stiva Oblonsky, or by Vronsky himself, Anna's lover, have become frivolous and irresponsible, neglectful of their civic patriotic duties; while the well-intentioned country squire is beset by all sorts of doubts and difficulties, not only about the way he himself ought to live, but about the future of the Russian landowner and the now liberated 25

peasants. It is a far cry to the idyllic days of the Rostov family, and the country pursuits of War and Peace. Just as War and Peace had a subject which grew up inside and whose personal relevance to his pride in family and try he never fully admitted, so Anna Karenina came into being at a time when Tolstoy was tormented by doubts about his own way of life and that of his class, from whom he felt and more isolated; increasingly unhappy in his own marriage and family life; secretly harassed by the wish to break with his old life and proclaim a new gospel, the well-known Tolstoyan creed of his last years. He wanted an external theme, which would mirror the growing drama inside him perhaps, resolve it, at least in terms of literary art. It was no longer a question of looking for a subject that interested him, but of one that obsessed him. 2. Look through the text and say whether these statements are true, false or not known. a) b) c) d)

“Anna Karenina” had a tremendous success without any criticism; Peter the Great was an uncongenial figure for Tolstoy; Tolstoy was not xenophobic; Tolstoy preferred the country squire to Russian high society, the “upper ten” in “Anna Karenina”; e) Tolstoy was happy in his marriage and family life. 3. Read the text and give Russian equivalents: a) …had encouraged him to try his hand in…; b) …is not portrayed in that novel with the same warmth and affection; c) …to celebrate the role of his own class in winning the epic struggle against Napoleon; d) …Tolstoy considered they had never received proper credit; e) it is a far cry to the idyllic days of the Rostov’s family; f) …an external theme which days would mirror the growing drama inside him… 4. Give English equivalents for: a) …он также подвержен умеренной и в некоторых случаях жесткой критике; b) …один из его родственников сыграл весьма сомнительную роль; c) …сделал все от него зависящее, чтобы упорядочить и германизировать русское общество и русский уклад жизни; d) …следы Толстовского пожизненного предубеждения против иностранцев…; e) …но он никогда не заходил слишком далеко с этим …; 26

f) …Толстой был мучим сомнениями о своем собственном образе жизни и жизни своего класса, от которого чувствовал себя всё более изолированным. 5. Answer the questions: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h)

What did the success of “Anna Karenina” encourage Tolstoy to? Why didn’t Tolstoy fulfill his plans? What way did he portray the Russians of German origin? It there any difference between the description of “upper ten” in “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”? What was one of Tolstoy’s more or less unadmitted purposes? Was Tolstoy a happy person when he was writing his “Anna Karenina”? What kind of doubts did he feel? Did he want to proclaim his own gospel?

6. Trace the connection between a deep inside work and its influence on his great novels “Anna Karenina” and “War and Peace”.

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UNIT IX 1. Practise the pronunciation of these words: clue - [klu:] occur - [«Èk«:] conscious - [ÈknS(«)s] consequence - [Èknsikw«ns] placate - [pl«Èkeit] etch - [etS] adultery - [«ÈdÃlt«ri]

Anna Karenina If his wife the Countess Tolstoy was right, the idea of it had been haunting him since 1870, and finally caused him to put aside his plan for the historical novel, and any other literary projects. He had told his wife of his idea of writing about a lady of the grand mantle who would ruin herself in some way, and he felt that as soon as he got the clue to the main character all the other persons in her world, and to be put into her story, would become real. Nearly two years after Countess Tolstoy recorded this conversation in her diary the mistress of a landowner who lived close to the Tolstoy estate at Yasnaya Polyana committed suicide by throwing herself under a train at a nearby station. The event made a deep impression on Tolstoy; as one of the local magnates he was kept informed of what had occurred, and he went to see the woman's body. A little later Tolstoy picked up a copy of some stories by Pushkin, which his wife had been reading to their teenage son Sergey. He was particularly struck by the forceful simplicity of an unfinished narrative and economy of Pushkin's method and by the opening. It was certainly Tolstoy's conscious aim, as we know from his letters, to show the causes and consequences of adultery in society, where both sexes were concerned: and it was a brilliant stroke to begin with the adultery of Stiva and go on to the main subject - that of his sister; and of a sister; moreover, who has exercised all her good offices to placate her sister-in-law Dolly, and get her brother Stiva off the hook. Life adds what seems a wholly natural further irony in that it is while she is with her brother's family that Anna meets Vronsky. The symmetries of a novel are being drawn; and at a slightly later stage of composition Tolstoy added the incident of the railway guard who is run over by a train soon after Anna and her future lover have met. Stiva Oblonsky we know at once, from that wonderful opening scene; and it is because we seem so immediately and so completely at home with him that we feel at home too with his sister Anna, before we have come to know very much about her and the life she leads. This indirect and totally effective way of making 28

us at home with his characters was only achieved by Tolstoy after a great deal of laborious effort and false starts, as the early draft chapters of the novel reveal. As he told his friend, he was taking a great deal of trouble over Anna because it was a novel, and because its composition offered a challenge quite different from the more purely idiosyncratic work he had written up to that time, starting with Childhood, Boyhood and Youth. Of course, nothing that Tolstoy wrote is artless, but the problems he wished to confront in Anna required an especially and for him unusually external treatment. We can get glimpses of this when he exaggerates his new stance in that first draft opening scene at Princess Vrasski's party. Not only are the characters boldly and simply etched, as if in a novel by Balzac or Trollope but the idea of a novel itself is deliberately emphasized when a fashionable diplomat looks at young Madame Karenin as she comes in, and male quests swarm about her, with the remark that now or never is her moment to become the “hero of a novel”. Tolstoy is parodying his form, and he continues to do so when the hostess remarks with a laugh that Anna is not obviously pretty but that she would “fall for her if she were a man”.

2. Look through the text and prove the following statements by the facts from the text: a) Tolstoy postponed all his plans because he had an idea to write “Anna Karenina”; b) One event had influenced him a lot in writing this novel; c) One of his main ideas was to show the adultery as it is in a real life; d) It was difficult to work out the composition of the novel. 3.

Read the text and give Russian equivalents:

a) …he was particularly struck by the forceful simplicity and economy of Pushkin's method; b) …the indirect and totally effective way of making us at home with his characters; c) …he was taking a great deal of trouble over Anna, because it was a novel; d) …required an especially and for him unusually external treatment; e) …the characters boldly and simply etched; f) …"fall for her is she were a man"… 4.

Give English equivalents for:

a) …идея преследовала его с 1870; b) …послужило причиной того, что он отложил свой план написания исторического романа; c) …как только он получил ключ к главному герою; 29

d) …совершила самоубийство, бросившись под поезд на ближайшей станции; e) …показать причины и последствия супружеской измены. 5. a) b) c) d) e) f) g) 6.

Answer the questions: What was Tolstoy's new idea? What event influenced him a lot? What Pushkin'sui composition was Tolstoy particularly struck by and why? What was Tolstoy's conscious aim? What did life add to the novel? What did Tolstoy achieve after a great deal of laborious effort and false starts? What did the problem Tolstoy wished to comfort require? Say a few words about the idea of writing the novel "Anna Karenina", about its main idea and the way Tolstoy fulfilled it in his work.

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UNIT X 1.

Practise the pronunciation of these words:

lighthearted -[ÈlaitÈhA:tid] germ - [dZ«:m] miraculous - [miÈrQkjul«s] fascination - [fQsiÈneiS(«)n] reside - [riÈzaid] anxiety - [QNÈzai«ti] assiduous - [«Èsidju«s] tranquility - [trQNÈkwiliti] valediction - [,vQliÈdikS(«)n]

INTRODUCTION Stiva makes lighthearted worldly comments about “we men”, and arranges to dine with Vronsky next day. “They talked of persons known to them all, and, equally naturally, they talked scandal about them: there would have been nothing to say otherwise, since happy people have no history”. That of course is the germ of the famous epigram with which the completed novel was to open. Happy families are alike, without the 'history” that makes a novel. A novel is concerned with what is particular and unusual and therefore memorable. And indeed the Oblonsky household, with Stiva waking up in the morning, does appear so, while the party at Princess Vrasski's was just the same as any other party anywhere. In his miraculous way Tolstoy has contrived, with the help of an epigram, which might have been used as a lifting-point by Jane Austen, to individuate his situation and to make it quite unlike any other. These people, these matrimonial disasters, will in a sense be like all others: but in a much more important sense they will be unique, totally different. The strength and fascination of the novel resides in that paradox. Of course, Tolstoy himself loved high life - the life to which he was born. War and Peace begins with a fashionable party, and Anna Karenina might have done the same, if Tolstoy had retained his first draft. It is significant that Levin, who is in one sense an outsider because he prefers living in his country and feels out of place in town, is nonetheless always happy to participate in the pleasures of his class, and is accepted by his fellows as one of them. He enjoys his lunch with Stiva, a memorable scene that reminds us of the pleasures of War and Peace, and he is pleased to belong to the “Club”, even though he goes there so seldom. “Let me have your hat, sir”, said the porter to Levin, who had forgotten the club rule that hats must be left at the entrance. “It's a long time since you were here...” This hall-porter not only knew Lenin but knew all his connections and 31

relatives as well, and at once mentioned some of his intimate friends ... [Everyone] seemed to have left their cares and anxieties behind them in the hall with their hats. This carries more than an echo of the assiduous young man, so pleased to be invited everywhere, so careful to wear the right gloves for the grand ball - the young man whom the famous sage and writer had himself once been. In the “tranquility, decorum and pleasure” of the social life in Anna there is an air of valediction, even of nostalgia and regret: and never forget that Anna herself, once an unquestioned member of the highest and most fashionable society, has cut herself off from all the pleasures and rewards of being one of the in-group. As an old man with grown-up daughters, Tolstoy would question them about the grand parties there when they had been staying in Moscow and St. Petersburg; he would want to know exactly what was worn now and whether any of the fashions of his youth had returned. His daughters always remembered his relish, and the laughter that would accompany these discussions. Tolstoy, like Levin, was always good with children, and fascinated by matters that were also absorbing to young girls. 2. a) b) c) d) 4.

Look through the text and say whether these statements are true, false or not known. The novel begins with the epigram; Tolstoy didn't love high life; Levin is like Tolstoy himself; Tolstoy had never any conversations with his daughters about high life. Give Russian equivalents for:

a) …these would have been nothing to say otherwise, since happy people have no history; b) …the Oblonsky household, with Stiva waking up in the morning, does appear so…; c) the strength and fascination of the novel resides in that paradox; d) …Tolstoy has contrived, with the help of an epigram which might have been used as a starting point; e) …"tranquility, decorum and pleasure" of the social life in Anna there is an air of valediction; f) …has cut herself off form all the pleasures and rewards of being one of the ingroup. 4.

Give English equivalents for:

a) …Стива беспечно рассуждает на тему: “Мы мужчины…”; b) …это, конечно, зародыш известной эпиграммы, с которой должен был начаться весь роман …; 32

c) …счастливые семьи похожи; d) …Толстой сам любил жизнь высшего общества, жизнь, для которой e) был рожден; f) …молодой человек, которым знаменитый мудрец и писатель сам когда-то был…; g) …Левин, который в некотором смысле аутсайдер и чувствует себя неуютно в городе. 5.

Answer the questions:

a) What did Stiva and Vronsky talk about and why? b) What is the famous epigram like? c) Is the beginning of the novel typical of any other? d) What was Tolstoy's attitude to high life? e) What is Levin like? f) What kind of air is there in the “tranquility, decorum and pleasure” of the social life? g) What society does Anna belong to? h) What did Tolstoy ask his daughters about and why? 6. Characterize Tolstoy's personal attitude to high life and the way he depicted it in his novel.

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