Baratynsky, Evgeny | R. M. Grau (essay date 1984)
R. M. Grau (essay date 1984)
SOURCE: “‘Persten’: Baratynskii's Fantastic Tale,” in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 26, No. 4, December, 1984, pp. 296-306.
[In the following essay, Grau analyzes “Persten,” Baratynsky's only completed work of prose fiction, and suggests three different ways of interpreting the tale: as a fashionable tale of the fantastic, as a parody of the fantastic genre, or as a depiction of an artist searching for his place in society.]
In the fall of 1831 the poet Evgenii Baratynskii wrote to Ivan Kireevskii, promising to send him, among other things, a short story in prose for his journal Evropeets: “It is all mediocre, but it will do for a journal.”1 The story, “Persten',” appeared early in 1832 in the second issue of Evropeets, and was soon forgotten, contemporary critics apparently agreeing with the author's assessment.2 But although the story is Baratynskii's...
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