Embodying Masculine Selfhood through Diary and Performance in Lermontov's 'Princess Mary'

• In Event: East and South European Masculinities: From Imperial Patriarchy to Liberating Queerness

Abstract

This paper will examine appeals in Lermontov's "Princess Mary" to two seemingly opposed generic modes for representing the self. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these self-representations are informed by mid-19th-century models of masculinity. The first generic mode is the diary form, a traditionally private genre which posits the self as stable and knowable, and which claims to give voice to authentic feelings. The second is dramatic theater, which in the 1830s and 40s was understood as a public artform which viewed the individual (who might perform a variety of different roles) as an inherently unstable entity.

Author

• Kit Pribble, Wake Forest U