I’ve been neglecting my Tumblr because of my heavy reading and writing load, but I can easily answer this question!

Thank you for the kind comments.

For the last 6 months, I’ve done a tremendous amount of research for a Russian Romanticism paper/presentations focusing on the poets Mikhail Lermontov and Alexander Pushkin and on the English poet, Lord Byron.

Oh, I posted this on my F___book for friends who were asking about my reading habits:

1. Neil Gaiman - American Gods

A quick, fun reinterpretation of Norse and American(?) legends read during winter break.

2. Alexander Pushkin - Ruslan and Lyudmila

Here it comes… this Russian gets repeated on this list since I’m taking an advanced class all about his works.  This was a Romantic poem, using Byronic-like narrative structures to tell a Russian folk-like tale.  Funny and awesome and gave Pushkin instant fame.

3. Lord Byron - Don Juan

I’m not going to say much about this epic poem… It’s already covered in about 30 of my written pages.

4.  Johan Wolfgang van Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther

3rd time through it and Werther still manages to anger me and makes me want to take up a letter writing hobby.

5. Rousseau - Confessions

It was about time that I read this book.  Love the spanking.

6. Juergensmeyer - Global Rebellion

I’m trying to appreciate humanity not despise it.  Maybe the “Religion, Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict” class wasn’t the best idea for a fun class.

7. Pushkin - Boris Godunov

A dramatic play that I loved.  I saw most of the opera last year (I’m not that cultured, I was hoping for extra credit), but ended up liking it!

8. Madame de Stael - Corinne, or Italy

This made me want to visit Italy and meet my very own “or Italy”, also.

9. Freidrich Schiller - The Robbers

I want to read everything he’s written now. (side note - Pushkin has an unfinished prose work called Dubrovsky, which is definitely influenced by this Schiller play).

10. Pushkin - Eugene Onegin 

I won’t write much about this, either, since it takes up about 30% of my research paper.  Hmmm, I did re-read this twice already. (James Falen translation which was great and I recently got ahold of the Nabokov 4-VOLUME translation and commentary. Nabokov wrote a literal translation and if anyone wants to do quality English research on Pushkin, they are practically required to have read through this.  

11. Ugo Fosculo - The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis

I’m not sure what else to say… I like Jacopo better than Werther.

12. Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time

This made up about 60% of my research this semester.  I’ve read it three times this semester in 2 different translations (Nabokov and the inferior Foote).  I love it, that’s all.

13. Benjamin Constant - Adolphe

The inspiration for the love letters in Eugene Onegin.  Constant was a lover of de Stael’s for several years and this book is supposedly, loosely based around their strained relationship.  I like when there is inter-textual references between separate classes that I catch because I read way too much.

14. Paul Pope - Batman 100, 100%, Heavy Liquid 

Ok, these three are graphic novels, but I will give them one entry to appease people who don’t think they’re worthy of mentioning.  They are, Pope’s a great illustrator and story teller.  

15. Michael Sells - The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia

The professor told us in the beginning of class that this semester would make us depressed.  He was right.

16. Alexander Pushkin - Selected Lyric Poetry

I had originally signed up to learn Russian because of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but I’m more excited to be able to read Pushkin’s poetry now.

17. Pushkin - The Complete Prose Tales

See above, but just substitute “prose” for “poetry.”

18. C.J.L. Almqvist - The Queen’s Tiara

“An hermaphrodite heroine” or “A hermaphrodite heroine”???  

19.  Brian Vaughn - Y the Last Man

Another graphic novel, this time all ten volumes and over 1,000 pages.  I read this in-between driving myself crazy with all my other assigned readings.  It was worth it.

20. Lermontov - The Demon and Other Poems

Oh, I also am learning Russian because of this poet.  

21. Lord Byron - Childe Harold Pilgrimage (and other poems)

I’m so glad I can read poetry in English.  

22. Fouque - Undine

Does this count? It’s only 60 pages, but I’m counting it.

22 - 37.  I’m not going to list them out, but I skimmed and read at least 15 scholarly books about Russian masculinities in the time of Nicholas I in literature and culture, the same in England, Byron’s influence and reception throughout Europe, and a few Cambridge Companion’s to Byron, Pushkin, and European Romanticism.  I’m not even going to mention all the scholarly articles I’ve read this semester.  

Actually, A History of Russian Literature: From its Beginnings to 1900 by D.S. Mirsky is an invaluable resource AND highly illuminating for people interested in Russian lit.