Poetics of Prose [electronic resource] : Literary Essays from Lermontov to Calvino / by Mark Axelrod.

A Poetics Introduction, Mostly -- The Psychoanalytic Poetics of Weltschmerz in Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times -- The Poetics of Dramatic Prose in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons -- The Poetics of the Quest in Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog" -- The Poetics of Stagecraft & Dialogue in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard -- The Architectonics of Prose in Camus' The Stranger -- The Poetics of Reading in Calvino's if on a winter's night a traveler.

This creative yet scholarly book discusses prose's important relationship to close literary analysis, showing how such an approach can be beneficial for readers, scholars, and writers alike. Bringing together a literary history that consists of writers such as Lermontov, Chekhov, Camus, and Calvino, Mark Axelrod masterfully interweaves discussions of structure, context, genre, plot, and other key elements often applied to poetry but seldom applied to various forms of prose in order to offer bold and surprisingly fresh claims about the writer's purpose. By peeling back these layers of technique and style, this book opens up discussions to better understand and appreciate great dramatists, writers, and poets throughout time by returning back to the core elements that originally comprised their writing crafts. Mark Axelrod is a Professor of Comparative Literature at Chapman University, USA.