Skip navigation
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp012227ms86z
Full metadata record
DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.advisorVinitsky, Ilya
dc.contributor.authorMatthews, Laura Elisabeth
dc.contributor.otherSlavic Languages and Literatures Department
dc.date.accessioned2022-10-10T19:50:51Z-
dc.date.available2022-10-10T19:50:51Z-
dc.date.created2022-01-01
dc.date.issued2022
dc.identifier.urihttp://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp012227ms86z-
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation explores the metaphors for education employed by three nineteenth-century Russian writers, Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov, and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. These metaphors reflect not only the pedagogical philosophy of these writers in a single cohesive image, but also the major tenets of their worldviews, thereby providing a window into their ideologies, literary stylistics, and views on the relationship between literature and education. Each chapter focuses on a close reading of a text onto which the author’s metaphorical construct of education can shed new light. I examine Pushkin’s “school of life” metaphor in his memorandum “On National Education,” Aksakov’s metaphor of the little scarlet flower’s growth in The Childhood Years of Bagrov’s Grandson, and Tolstoy’s dueling metaphors for education, the watermill and the windmill, in Anna Karenina. By unpacking the entailments, or implications and inferences, of each metaphor, we discover not only the key to understanding the texts in which they reside, but also a new way of viewing the authors and their literary production. Applying metaphor theory and contemporary educational scholarship of metaphors to our literary analysis of these writers’ works enables us to uncover why authors turn to metaphors – instead of to literal pedagogical discourse and terminology such as obrazovanie, vospitanie, and razvitie – to communicate their views most effectively. The nature of metaphor as a way of knowing, a means of communication, and a contributor to the construction of reality will illuminate this device’s function in the works of our authors and lead to productive ways of understanding metaphor that have implications on pedagogy and teaching practice today. In addition to highlighting new contours of the life and work of Pushkin, Aksakov, and Tolstoy, this dissertation’s objectives are threefold: illustrate the prominence of pedagogy as a major concern of the nineteenth-century Russian literary community, demonstrate the efficacy of metaphors as a means of communicating pedagogical knowledge, and make a case for examining educational metaphors in literature to train and equip educators today to do the same with their own constructs of education.
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherPrinceton, NJ : Princeton University
dc.relation.isformatofThe Mudd Manuscript Library retains one bound copy of each dissertation. Search for these copies in the library's main catalog: <a href=http://catalog.princeton.edu>catalog.princeton.edu</a>
dc.subjectAksakov
dc.subjectEducation
dc.subjectMetaphor
dc.subjectPedagogy
dc.subjectPushkin
dc.subjectTolstoy
dc.subject.classificationSlavic literature
dc.subject.classificationSlavic studies
dc.subject.classificationEducational philosophy
dc.titleThe Muse of Pedagogy: Metaphors of Education in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature
dc.typeAcademic dissertations (Ph.D.)
pu.date.classyear2022
pu.departmentSlavic Languages and Literatures
Appears in Collections:Slavic Languages and Literatures

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
Matthews_princeton_0181D_14212.pdf2.29 MBAdobe PDFView/Download


Items in Dataspace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.