"Rebels and Tyrants" is a unique literary collection that provides an introduction to key moments in cultural history, including the Renaissance, Romanticism, and Realism. These concepts are addressed by leading authors in major literary traditions such as William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The included works portray unforgettable fictional rebels and tyrants such as Richard III, Ivanhoe, and Robin Hood--characters that have profoundly influenced popular culture and world literature. The texts are organized around the subversive and creative ways in which the authors themselves were also rebels--rebels who challenged literary conventions and shaped daring new perspectives on what literature should be about.
Nicholas Rzhevsky is Professor and Chair of the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Stony Brook University, SUNY. His B.A. is from Rutgers University (with Highest Honors) and his doctorate from Princeton University, where he was a Title VI Fellow. His honors include four Fulbright-Hays fellowships, as well as grants from the U.S. Department of Education, NEH, and IREX. Among his publications are "Russian Literature and Ideology," "The Modern Russian Theater: A Literary and Cultural History," and articles and essays in "The Nation" and "Encounte"r. He edited the popular "Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture" and "An Anthology of Russian Literature from Earliest Writings to Modern Fiction: Introduction to a Culture." On the creative side of the arts, he wrote the English version of Yury Liubimov's and Yury Kariakin's adaptation of "Crime and Punishment," performed in the Lyric Theatre of London.