February 28, 2010
How Can One Learn Russian Through Dostoevsky?
Как учиться русскому через Достоевского?
Well, I am not sure anynore. There has been a бунт, a rebellion, in my 204 course — I use the word that entitles the chapter in Братья Карамазовы in which Ivan details the crimes of men against innocent children.
So I feel like the God to whom Ivan decided to return the ticket of life — thanks, but no thanks, not on these terms.
Well, here are some ideas. I, in your position, I would really, really study the text, with my notes. I would listen to the recording of the Russian actor reading these pages; it’s a couple of hours in length for Part I, Chapters 1-7, those pages we are reading. I think the experience of reading over and over again, without having to use the dictionary, is a marvelous learning vehicle by itself. I would listen to the voices of the всеведущий рассказчик, пьяный Мармеладов, дорогая мамаша (которую Родя любит). I would memorize a few pages by heart for recitation.
But these are practices of mine that you know about already. You may have heard my recitation of the first eight pages of Nakobov’s chapter on Chernyshevsky. But you are not me. I already know a lot of Russian, you do not. How could you memorize pages from Crime and Punishment?
But you could, you could.
Some of you have objected that not all the words are on the bottom of the page. This argument is vitiated: true, true; but those words not on the page are in the glossary in the back of the book, so all the words are in the book. Those in the glossary are the most frequent words in the text, and you might read the glossary to see what they are. You do not need a dicitonary to read this.
But, as Byron justifiably complainted to me, you feel that you are losing your grip on Russian language. (At least Dostoevsky is not making you lose your grip on your sanity.) I understand; you want to continue advancing all your skills and feeling your speaking/writing/grammar atrophy. Indeed, I agree.
So I am encapsulating some grammar topics that are really and truly useful, in distinction to the abstract musings of Jakobson’s conjugation rules. I will jump on examples in our text that can present these grammar topics. So far: infinitive constructions, predications with не–, real and unreal conditions, and more. I will give you great examples from the heart of the novel itself.
A good example: Нет мамаша, нет Дунечка, не обмануть меня вам. Raskoln’kov here says, bitterly and angrily: “No, darling mother, no dear Dunia, you’re not going to trick me.” Here you see the tremendous modal power of the Russian infinitive. Check the word order: ‘not to trick me is-it-to-you (dative)’. And our latest handout has a set of expressive unreal conditions from a letter of the young Dostoevsky to his brother.
I think you have to tell me, precisely, what grammar you want to look at. Sasha has already mentioned that you want to speak more in class. She's right I am sure.
So we still have eight weeks left, and a magnificent murder lies ahead for us!
Счастливо,gmc
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2 comments:
Professor Cummins,
I enjoyed class on Friday. Combining the text with grammar lessons and more discussion will keep us feeling motivated to read. I like the direction in which our class is headed.
Katharine
Я думаю что...
These are really good ideas. Sometimes, Dostoevsky's writing is intimidating and it becomes very discouraging to read entire sentences that contain only a few words I know. However, I realize this is largely my fault. In my frustration, I've become a bit lazy and tend to turn to the English translation more than I would like to admit. With the rest of the semester, I would like to re-dedicate myself to learning the vocabulary and understanding the grammar as opposed to glossing over your notes. I'm also going to make more of an effort to speak in Russian in class. Lately, I've been answering your questions with English. That classroom is a perfect setting to practice my speaking skills. I'm not (too) terrified of saying something incorrectly because I've known most people in the room for some time now. I need to stumble, to feel embarrassed, to be corrected. That is how I learned a lot of my Kiswahili.
You are doing an excellent job of teaching this text in Russian. It's a difficult novel, and a super difficult language! But I accepted that challenge at the beginning of the semester and I'm not going to give up yet :)
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