Ulysses has been made for both its symbolist style and for the centrality of the city within the narrative. There are many allusions within the novel to the city's history going back to its founding by Peter the Great, and it incorporates a number of literary allusions to literature set in Petersburg (especially The Bronze Horseman) as well as Russian literature in general. The characters such as Apollon Apollonovich and Alexander Ivanovich often merge with their environments, while the city itself forms a significant role in the story's unfolding. The book was informed by many of the philosophies Bely and others of his time were concerned with, both political and spiritual. One of the major influences on the somewhat mystical tone of the book was Bely's experience with Rudolf Steiner and his philosophy of anthroposophy. The characters undergo various transcendent states, and these are generally drawn from Bely's spiritual studies. There are also discussions of Marxism and Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas, and, though the book revolves around a political action, much of it is concerned with spiritual states. Translations There have been four major translations of the novel into English: St. Petersburg (or Saint Petersburg), translated by John Cournos (1959, based on the Berlin version) Petersburg, translated and annotated by John E. Malmstad and Robert A. Maguire (Indiana University Press, 1978; based on the Berlin version) Petersburg, translated by David McDuff (Penguin Books, 1995) Petersburg, translated by John Elsworth (Pushkin Press, 2009); winner of the 2012 Rossica Translation Prize In a review of all the existing English translations, Professor Michael R. Katz writes that, "if someone wants to read Bely's masterpiece and to understand most of it, then learn Russian and read it in the original; if he/she wants to understand some of it, then read Maguire and Malmstad's magisterial annotated, introduced, and reasonably well-translated scholarly edition; and if someone wants just to say that he/she has read Bely's Petersburg for the sake of adding one notch to his cultural gun [then] go read Elsworth's version." In the Times Literary Supplement, Thomas Karshan noted that "Elsworth's version conveys little of Bely's sonic patterning" but that "McDuff's distinguished 1995 version does a good job of approximating the music of Bely's Symbolist prose poetry". References 1913 novels 1922 German novels 1959 Russian novels Novels set in Saint Petersburg Novels about revolutionaries Novels set in 20th-century Russia Symbolist novels Novels about cities Novels about