Social Functions of Literature: Alexander Pushkin and Russian Culture

Abstract

Part I. The Reader's Response to the Text: 1. The writer as engineer of human souls 2. Literature and the formation of the self 3. Catharsis Part II. Social Determinants of Aesthetic Norms: 4. Social groups and their 'strategies for living' 5. Measurements of popularity 6. Mass culture and the literary elite Part III. The Myth of a Poet: 7. The elevation of Pushkin to Sainthood 8. Pushkin lives Appendices.