Shakespeare's Macbeth in nineteenth-century Russian literaturean intertextual study of social and ideological negotiation

Resum

This thesis explores the literary reception of William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth in nineteenth-century Russia as it picked its painful way between neo-classical adaptations, literal prose versions and poetic translations and contributed to the development of nineteenth-century Russian literature. The thesis not only reviews the nineteenth-century appropriation of Macbeth and its reflection in the criticism, drama, and fiction of the major writers of that time but also attempts to explain historically why the tragedy became such a crucial source text. In the process, it defines the peculiarities of the social and political conditions and problems in nineteenth-century Russia as well as specific features of European romanticism and realism and gauges their impact on the development of Russian literature. It features detailed discussion of the place and the role of Shakespeare in nineteenth-century Russian literary history and social and political controversy and analyzes the contribution of Macbeth to the transformation of political, religious and philosophical concepts. Ranging from the romantics' accommodation of Shakespeare's supernatural in their plays and prose writings to the realists' recurrent use of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth figures to problematize issues of crime and punishment, humanism and personal responsibility, the thesis shows how Russian Macbeth morphed from a protest symbol against lawless tsarist tyranny into an anti-nihilist image of a Russian population which had not yet lost its humanity and might still recover the moral righteousness which many Russian writers believed would salvage humankind.