The intellectual anti-heroes of Dostoevsky’s novels, novellas, and short stories from the period beginning in 1864 have left a more decisive and enduring mark on Western culture than those of any other Russian writer. The author’s struggles with poverty, poor health, imprisonment, epilepsy, and gambling led him to question the existence of any social, moral, or metaphysical order. His underground characters, divided between reason and will, confront lust, despair, schizophrenia, and insanity, sometimes descending into sado-masochism, rape, murder, and suicide. We will read this powerful fiction with an eye first to its Russian context and then to a sampling of its international repercussions (Gogol, Tolstoy, Gorky; Faulkner, Sartre, Bernhard …).
Code
CL3056
Name
DOSTOEVSKY: BETWEEN MARGINALITY AND MADNESS
Credits
4
Pre-requisites
None
Co-requisites
None
Can be taken twice for credit?
No
Discipline
CL (Comparative Literature)
Level
Undergraduate
Type
Regular
CAMS ID
2585
Last update with CAMS
To discover the nature and place of Dostoevsky’s fiction in historical and international context.
To engage with Russian and other masterworks from the nineteenth century to the present.
To situate representative texts and authors in Russian and comparative literary history.
To assimilate and apply relevant critical terminology.
To develop coherent, well-structured analyses of the works under scrutiny.
To refine and polish essay-writing skills, both under time pressure and with research content.