Alexander Pushkin’s four compact plays, later known as The Little Tragedies, were written at the height of the author’s creative powers, and their influence on many Russian and Western writers cannot be overestimated. Yet Western readers are far more familiar with Pushkin’s lyrics, narrative poems, and prose than with his drama. The Little Tragedies have received few translations or scholarly examinations. Setting out to redress this and to reclaim a cornerstone of Pushkin’s work, Evodokimova and her distinguished contributors offer the first thorough critical study of these plays. They examine the historical roots and connective themes of the plays, offer close readings, and track the transformation of the works into other genres.

This volume includes a significant new translation by James Falen of the plays—"The Covetous Knight," "Mozart and Salieri," "The Stone Guest," and "A Feast in Time of Plague."

<table of contents, p. v>
Table of Contents
Introduction: "The Devil of a Difference"--Tragedies, Long or Short?
	Svetlana Evdokimova	000
The Poets' Corner
	Pushkin's Stone Guest
		Anna Akhmatova	000
	Art in the Light of Conscience
		Marina Tsvetaeva	000
The Little Tragedies as a Cycle
	Scholarship in the Service and Disservice of The Little Tragedies
		Vladimir Markovich 000
	"Strange and Savage Pleasures:" The Erotic as a Unifying Element of The Little Tragedies
		Sergei Davydov	000
	The Anatomy of Modern Self in The Little Tragedies 
		Svetlana Evdokimova	000
Individual Readings
	Time or Money: The Paradoxes of Aging in The Covetous Knight
		Vladimir Golstein	000
	Feasting on Genius
		Monika Greenleaf	000
	 Moral-Philosophical Subtext in The Stone Guest
		Robert Louis Jackson	000
Literary Connections--Before and After
	"A Higher Audacity:" How to Read Pushkin's Dialogue with Shakespeare in The Stone  Guest
		David Bethea	000
	The Weight of Human Tears: The Covetous Knight and A Raw Youth
		Susanne Fusso	000
	Pleasures of the Plague: Pushkin and Camus
		Sofya Khagi	000
The Little Tragedies in Film and Opera
	Little Tragedies, Little Operas
		Caryl Emerson	000
	Little Tragedies on Film: Cinematic Realism and Embodied Inspiration
		Stephanie Sandler	000
Translations
	The Covetous Knight	000
	Mozart and Salieri	000
	The Stone Guest	000
	A Feast in Time of Plague	000
Selected Bibliography	000
Index	000
 

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich, 1799-1837 Dramatic works