Types

Beginning in mid-nineteenth century, Russian writers make use of type as a principle of character construction, creating personalities conditioned by social codes. From Romanticism onward, outcasts, superfluous men, geniuses, madmen, little men, and provincials appear in fiction to express the writers’ responses both to literature and society. Most nineteenth-century novels and stories reflect the reality of Russian life by portraying representatives of different classes and their interactions and specifying the social practices to which these characters were subjected. The chapter pays attention to how critics of different persuasions reacted to new literary works and each other’s opinions about them.