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Slavic Studies / Literature & Criticism / Poetry / Cultural Studies


The Imperial Sublime
A Russian Poetics of Empire
Harsha Ram

A Publication of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies
General Editors: David M. Bethea and Alexander Dolinin



"An original and persuasive illumination of the history of Russian poetry."—William Mills Todd III, Harvard University

The Imperial Sublime examines the rise of the Russian empire as a literary theme simultaneous with the evolution of Russian poetry between the 1730s and 1840—the century during which poets defined the main questions facing Russian literature and society. Harsha Ram shows how imperial ideology became implicated in an unexpectedly wide range of issues, from formal problems of genre, style, and lyric voice to the vexed relationship between the poet and the ruling monarch.

"An excellent knowledge of specifically Russian and general European contexts, incisive textual analyses, and a very fine aesthetic sensibility make Ram's book an outstanding achievement."—Boris Gasparov, Columbia University

"Given its broad perspective and eloquent argument, Ram's study of the confluent rise of the imperial sublime and the modern Russian poetic language should prove a vital resource for scholars of Russian history and poetics. . . . Ram breaks new ground in forging a synthesis of historical concern and poetic tradition. Essential."—N. Tittler, Choice

The Imperial Sublime
was a finalist, Best Book in Slavic Literary and Cultural Studies, AATSEEL

Harsha Ram is associate professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Of Related Interest

The Pushkin Handbook

Edited by David M. Bethea
In English and Russian
ISBN 978-0-299-19560-1 Cloth
A Publication of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies

The Uncensored Boris Godunov
The Case for Pushkin's Original Comedy, with Annotated Text and Translation
Chester Dunning with Caryl Emerson, Sergei Fomichev, Lidiia Lotman, and Antony Wood

ISBN 978-0-299-20760-1 Cloth
A Publication of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies

cover of the Ram book has a beige square with the title centered on a background of a pale blue map

April 2006
LC: 2002152196 PG
320 pp
.   6 x 9

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Paper $29.95 s
ISBN 978-0-299-18194-9
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