Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T14:47:55.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Choosing the Right Card: Madness, Gambling, and the Imagination in Pushkin's “The Queen of Spades”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Gary Rosenshield
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In approaching the enigmatic representation of Germann's fantastic visions and experiences in “The Queen of Spades,” Dostoevsky argues that the perfection of the story lies in Pushkin's ability to make mutually exclusive ideas equally convincing. However, Germann's madness, one of the story's central events, has been treated almost uniformly as a sort of punishment visited on the hero by the author. To be sure, Pushkin often resorts to parody to bring out the reductive and vulgar aspects of his hero's imagination and madness—a literary practice of the times. Nevertheless, Pushkin also subtly provides evidence for an antithetical but equally valid romantic interpretation of Germann's madness and life. When Germann chooses the queen at the end, he takes the right card: for the first time in his life, he chooses to risk, to gamble—that is, to live. Germann's choice—and the madness that leads to and results from it—echoes in Russian literature from Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov to Nabokov's own Hermann/GepMaH, in Despair.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 109 , Issue 5 , October 1994 , pp. 995 - 1008
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Alekseev, M. P “Hec ” [Some New Findings about Pushkin and Batyushkov]. CCCP. [Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Division of Literature and Language] 8 (1949): 369–36.Google Scholar
Bitov, Andrej [Pushkin House]. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1989.Google Scholar
Blagoj, D [The Sociology of Pushkin's Works: Studies]. Moscow: Federaciija, 1929.Google Scholar
Burgin, Diana Lewis “The Mystery of ‘Pikovaia dama.‘” Mnemozina: Studia litteraria russica in honorem Vsevolod Setchkarev. Ed. Baer, Joachim T. and Ingham, Norman W. Munich: Fink, 1974. 46–56.Google Scholar
Byrd, Max Visits to Bedlam: Madness and Literature in the Eighteenth Century. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1974.Google Scholar
Davydov, Sergei “The Ace in Pushkin's ‘The Queen of Spades.‘” Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Dostoevskij, F. M [Complete Works]. Ed. V. G. Bazanov et al. 30 vols. Leningrad: Nauka, 1972–90.Google Scholar
Emerson, Caryl “‘The Queen of Spades’ and the Open End.” Puškin Today. Ed. Bethea, David. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1992. 31–37.Google Scholar
Ètkind, E [Pushkin's Symmetrical Compositions]. Paris: Institut d'Etudes Slaves, 1988.Google Scholar
Feder, Lillian Madness in Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Random, 1965.Google Scholar
Geršenzon, M My [The Wisdom of Pushkin]. Moscow: Pisateli v Moskve, 1919.Google Scholar
Gofman, M. L “” [The Problem of Madness in Pushkin's Works]. [New Journal] 51 (1957): 61–86.Google Scholar
Gogol', N. V [Complete Works]. 14 vols. Moscow: AN SSSR, 1937–52.Google Scholar
Vjačeslav, Košelev [Konstantin Batyushkov: Wanderings and Passions]. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1987.Google Scholar
Leatherbarrow, W. J “‘The Queen of Spades.‘” The Voice of a Giant: Essays on Seven Russian Prose Classics. Ed. Cockrell, Roger and Richards, David. Exeter: U of Exeter, 1985. 1–14.Google Scholar
Leighton, Lauren “Gematria in ”The Queen of Spades': A Decembrist Puzzle.“ Slavic and East European Journal 21 (1977): 455–45.Google Scholar
Leighton, Lauren “Numbers and Numerology in ‘The Queen of Spades.‘” Canadian Slavonic Papers 19 (1977): 417–41.Google Scholar
Lerner, N. O Pacc [Stories about Pushkin]. Leningrad: Priboj, 1929.Google Scholar
Levkovič, Ja L. “” [Pushkin's Lyric “God Grant That I Not Lose My Mind”]. [Pushkin: Research Papers and Materials]. Vol. 10. Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1982. 176–17.Google Scholar
Lotman, Ju. M. “” [The Theme of Cards and Card Playing in Russian Literature of the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century]. [Studies on Semiotic Systems] 7 (1975): 122–12.Google Scholar
Majkov, L [Batyushkov: His Life and Works]. 2nd ed. Saint Petersburg: Marks, 1896.Google Scholar
Makogonenko, G. P 1830-e (1833–1836) [Pushkin's Works of the 1830s (1833–36)]. Leningrad: Xudožestvennaja Literatura, 1982.Google Scholar
Modzalevskij, B. L A. C. [Pushkin's Library]. Saint Petersburg: Akademija Nauk, 1910.Google Scholar
Nabokov, Vladimir Despair. New York: Vintage, 1965. Trans. of V. Sirin [Vladimir Nabokov]. : . Berlin: Petropolis, 1936.Google Scholar
Nabokov, Vladimir Lectures on Russian Literature. Ed. Bowers, Fredson. New York: Harcourt, 1981.Google Scholar
Odoevskij, Vladimir Pycc [Russian Nights]. Leningrad: Nauka, 1975.Google Scholar
Odoevskij, Vladimir “” [The Sylph]. [Novellas and Short Stories]. Moscow: Xudožestvennaja Literatura, 1988. 173–17.Google Scholar
Osinski, Jutta Über Vernunft und Wahnsinn: Studien zur literarischen Aufklärung in der Gegenwart und im 18. Jhdt. Bonn: Bouvier, 1983.Google Scholar
Proffer, Carl R., ed The Critical Prose of Alexander Pushkin. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1969.Google Scholar
Puškin, A. S [Complete Works]. 17 vols. Moscow: AN SSSR, 1937–59.Google Scholar
Reeder, Roberta “‘The Queen of Spades’: A Parody of the Hoffmann Tale.” New Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Russian Prose. Ed. Gutsche, George J. Columbus: Slavica, 1982. 74–98.Google Scholar
Reuchlein, Georg Bürgerliche Gesellschaft, Psychiatrie und Literatur: Zur Entwicklung der Wahnsinnsthematik in der deutschen Literatur des späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Fink, 1986.Google Scholar
Rosen, George Madness in Society: Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness. New York: Harper, 1969.Google Scholar
Rosen, Nathan “The Magic Cards in ‘The Queen of Spades.‘” Slavic and East European Journal 19 (1975): 255–25.Google Scholar
Rosenshield, Gary “The Poetics of Madness: Puškin's ‘God Grant That I Not Lose My Mind.‘” Slavic and East European Journal 38 (1994): 120–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Murray M., and Schwartz, Albert “‘The Queen of Spades’: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 17 (1975): 275–27.Google Scholar
Shaw, Joseph T “The ‘Conclusion’ of Pushkin's ‘Queen of Spades.‘” Studies in Russian and Polish Literature in Honor of Waslaw Lednicki. Ed. Folejewski, Zbigniew et al. The Hague: Mouton, 1962. 114–11.Google Scholar
Sinjavskij, Andrej [Avram Terts] [Strolls with Pushkin]. London: Collins, 1975.Google Scholar
Slonimskij, A. L “” [On the Composition of “The Queen of Spades”]. C. A. [Collected Articles on Pushkin in Memory of Professor S. A. Vengerov]. Moscow: GIXL, 1923. 171–17.Google Scholar
Taborisskaja, E. M “” [Pushkin's Original Resolution of the Theme of Madness in the Works of 1833]. [Readings of Pushkin: Collected Articles]. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1990. 71–87.Google Scholar
Terras, Victor The Young Dostoevsky: 1846–1849: A Critical Study. The Hague: Mouton, 1969.Google Scholar
Tymms, Ralph The Double in Literary Psychology. Cambridge: Bowes, 1949.Google Scholar
Vol'pert, L. I “Te” [The Theme of Madness in the Prose of Pushkin and Stendhal: “The Queen of Spades” and The Red and the Black]. [Pushkin and Russian Literature: Collected Scholarly Articles]. Riga: Latvijskij Gosudarstvennyj Universitet Imeni P. Stucki, 1986. 46–58.Google Scholar
Weber, Harry B “‘Pikovaia dama’: A Case for Freemasonry in Russian Literature.” Slavic and East European Journal 12 (1968): 435–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Gareth “The Obsessions of Madness of Germann in ‘Pikovaja dama.‘” Russian Literature 14 (1983): 383–38.Google Scholar
Ziolkowski, Theodore German Romanticism and Its Institutions. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990.Google Scholar