Bravaia Liza v. Bednaia Liza: Women Writers Re-imagine a Canonical Plot

• In Event: 19th-Century Russophone Women Writers IV: Noblewomen at the Intersection of Class and Gender

Abstract

When working on the Dictionary of Russian Women Writers, I became aware that from the late nineteenth century on, women writers took on the mainly male canon by reimagining their plots. These efforts were applied to literary plots such as Karamzin's "Bednaia Liza" that I shall deal with in this presentation, but it also included reimagining the plots of the folkloric skazka, and even Biblical plots. When Gippius, 'Ol'nem', and Verbitskaia retold Liza's story, they each made shifts in the narrative structure, class affiliation, and the cast of characters that widened out and deepened the presentation of class and gender power relations.

Author

• Charlotte Rosenthal, U of Southern Maine