The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin by Andrew Kahn

Abstract

MLR, 105.1, 2010 301 to educate King Hakon, that patron of French courtly literature in translation, to understand and to value skaldic poetry. Thus Snorri hoped to rescue themarket for skaldic verse, Iceland's major cultural export, inNorway and to preserve the cultural superiority of Icelanders skilled in this arcane practice over theirNorwe gian counterparts, a project doomed to failure.Wanner's application of Bourdieu's theory has substantial explanatory power, and the theory'smechanisms illuminate in some detail theways inwhich differentkinds of power relation are formed and maintained. The chapter charting Snorri's rise to power through the deployment of different kinds of cultural capital within Iceland itself is both persuasive and illuminating as it laysbare the society's hidden power structures. Itwould be ungrateful to complain of the lack of any analysis of Snorri's other surviving work, Heimskringla, a synoptic history of the kings of Norway. I also missed any discussion of how Snorri's putative authorship of Egils saga might be assimilated to the main argument of the book. Nevertheless, I would have welcomed more discussion ofHeimskringla s genesis and reception, and some spe culation about how Egils saga's fascination with and repugnance forNorwegian kingship might be read less as an instance of nostalgia for a timewhen Icelanders robustly defined their commonwealth as oppositional to the Norwegian crown, and more as an intervention in contemporary Iceland-Norway relations and as an element in Snorri's own practice of power politics. Despite Chris Abram's claim on the back that the book is probably themost comprehensive scholarly treatment of Snorri Sturluson's life and works yet to have been written' (a claim arguably true only for English), itmight profitably have been more comprehensive still. Nevertheless, Snorri Sturluson and the lEdda not only provides a valuable insight into the complexities of thirteenth-century cultural history in Iceland and Norway, it is also awelcome invitation topursue theusefulness ofBourdieu's theories across other cultural contexts in themedieval world. St John's College, Oxford Carolyne Larrington The Cambridge Companion toPushkin. Ed. byAndrew Kahn. Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press. 2006. 238 pp. ?18.99. ISBN 978-0-521-60471-0. The fourteen essays in The Cambridge Companion toPushkin are assembled with a concision and elegance that its subject would surely applaud. The editor, Andrew Kahn, has invited a pleiad of Pushkin scholars to contribute essays, from David Bethea and Sergei Davydov toMichael Wachtel, Caryl Emerson, andWilliam Mills Todd. The title is arguably misleading; this book would be equally well placed in the parallel series of Cambridge Introductions. Each essay is an acutely ob served introduction to, rather than a commentary on, one aspect of Pushkin's production or cultural legacy; the useful appendix on verse forms and metre (ably cross-referenced from the chapters on poetry) underscores that thebook's primary target audience is Pushkin novices. That said, the collection offersmany fresh 302 Reviews insights into old territories as well as studies of less common themes, such as Boris Gasparov's survey of Pushkin lyrics set tomusic, or Stephanie Sandler's evaluation of cinematic responses to Pushkin (a Sisyphean task she confronts with aplomb). Marcus Levitt's study of Onegin, Wachtel's essay on the narrative poems (with itsmasterful survey of key themes in The Gipsies), Caryl Emerson on Pushkin's drama, and Oleg Proskurin's overview of Pushkin's subtly conservative politics are four of the best introductions to key areas of Pushkin studies that a student could encounter. The book is split into two sections: texts and traditions. Bethea and Davydov's biographical sketch of the poet, placed conveniently first, is strikingly concise: the section heading 'Boldino 1,marriage, historian, Pugachev, Boldino 2' is a masterpiece of expressive compression. Several contributors explore links between Pushkin's creativity and his biography. Andrew Kahn analyses the conflict between the poet's consciousness of his own genius and his tragic financial dependence on a whimsical public. Irina Reyfman's essay studies how the fragment 'The Blackamoor', the Belkin Tales, and the unfinished 'Egyptian Nights' respectively trace Pushkin's racial insecurity, class anxieties, and self-image as a professional litterateur. In prose, Pushkin was at his most protean, constantly pastiching, fi nessing...