Lexington Books
Pages: 206
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-7936-0910-6 • Hardback • November 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-7936-0911-3 • eBook • November 2019 • $105.50 • (£82.00)
Kornelije Kvas is professor at the University of Belgrade.
Chapter 1: The Fictionality of Realism
Chapter 2: Realism, Intertextuality and Market Relations: Thackeray
Chapter 3: Realism and the Social Function of Art: Russian Theorists of Realism and Svetozar Marković
Chapter 4: The Realism of History and the Realism of Fiction: Tolstoy
Chapter 5: Power and Realism: Tolstoy
Chapter 6: Realism and Confidence in the Author: Dostoevsky
Chapter 7: Rationalism and Realism: Dostoevsky
Chapter 8: Style, Form and Realism: Maupassant
Chapter 9: Interculturalism and Realism: Matavulj
Chapter 10: Realism, Modernism and Magic Realism: Andrić
Afterword, Aleksandar Ilić
Kornelije Kvas offers a sweeping critique of Realism with subtle and thorough philosophical and aesthetic implications relevant to our reading and understanding of the canonical literary works of the nineteenth century by Thackeray, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Maupassant, as well as of the twentieth century by Matavulj and Adrić. It is a wonderfully engaging reading for the philosophically inclined. The author constructively engages with ancient thinkers—such as Plato and Aristotle— as well as Modern and Postmodern—such as Marković, Nabokov, Sartre, Bakhtin, Barthes, Foucault, Doležel, and many others in his interpretations of literary texts. Kvas successfully polemicizes with these scholars as he redefines and reaffirms the bounderism of Realism.
— Constantine Muravnik, Yale University
Kornelije Kvas shows here that the realistic literary procedure is not necessarily limited to the objective representation of natural, social, and psychological reality, but that it is capable of extending itself to cover the area of symbolization of reality and elements of magical realism. Kvas considers carefully, for instance, Tolstoy’s interest in human psychology and Dostoevsky’s passion for the metaphysical aspects of the soul. Regarding Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair, Kvas analyzes the interplay between trade and macro-politics as well as between the individual and economic change. Summarizing theory and interpretation, this book is well-researched and succinct—an impressive scholarly work in comparative literature that stands prominently among other studies on realism.
— Nebojša Radić, Cambridge University
Kornelije Kvas offers a useful and sweeping overview of some of the key debates about representation combined with an unapologetically traditionalist defense of literary realism. Moreover, the reader of Kvas’s study is likely to benefit from the introduction of some of the less familiar Eastern European literary texts and critical voices into the well-known debates about realism and representation.
— Aleksandar Stević, Qatar University