Dostoevsky Mondays

Being behind on my independent study of Dostoevsky's The Adolescent, I have decided that Monday, being our culture's most dreaded day of the week, shall become "study day".  This will not last long, I'm sure; however, free time is killing me right now and I need to have some kind of structure...it helps that we've moved play rehearsal to Monday morning, at least I get that drama high to carry me through.


Finished Bakhtin's The Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, the staple formalist work of criticism touching on Dostoevsky's work.  Bakhtin focuses on Dostoevsky's use of the idea in a polyphonic world (meaning that the author allows his characters to have thoughts and ultimately ideological viewpoints uncoloured by his own personal standpoint - the events and conversations are not biased towards reaching a didactic end).  An idea in Dostoevsky's artistic vision is indistinguishable from the person carrying that idea - Bakhtin uses the example of Christ as the word/idea in the flesh.  This organic inclusion of so many viewpoints in Dostoevsky's novels lead to the "great dialogues": telling conversations between vastly different, but equally valued, viewpoints.






A quote of interest from Dostoevsky himself:
"It is not enough to define morality as fidelity to one's own convictions.  One must continually pose oneself the question: are my convictions true? Only one verification of them exists - Christ."