Nikolai Semenovich Leskov, Ledi Makbet mtsenskogo uezda [Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk]

Robert Chandler (Queen Mary, University of London)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.1.00: Slavic and Russian Writing and Culture: Old, Medieval and Tsarist, 700-1917.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1865

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Leskov's most famous work, Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo Uezda [Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk], is Shakespearean both in its linguistic vitality and in its emotional intensity. Leskov was not the first writer to transport a Shakespearean hero to the Russian provinces – Turgenev had already published his story “Gamlet shchigrovskgogo uezda” [“Hamlet of the Shchigry District”] (in his Zapiski okhotnika [Tales from a Hunter's Album, or A Sportsman's Sketches, 1852]) – but none of his contemporaries, not even Dostoevsky, ever came so close to recreating the essence of Shakespearean tragedy. While writing this story, Leskov appears to …

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1073 words

Citation: Chandler, Robert. "Ledi Makbet mtsenskogo uezda". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21812, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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