Critical studies of Turgenev have tended to focus on his realistic portrayals of
nineteenth-century Russian life and have therefore closely allied Turgenev with
the dominant literary movement of that time, Realism. By contrast, this book
reveals the non-Realist literary patterns that distinguish Turgenev's fiction.
In so doing, it newly uncovers an intricate, imaginative vision of human
experience that unites poetics and ethics.
The first part of the book identifies and assesses the ethical values associated
with Realism, finding them rooted in the virtues of the traditional rural
community. It then elucidates the very different ethical values that inform
Turgenev's art, which are rooted not in the virtues