Open AccessOn the Meaning of Parallel Scenes and Cross-Cutting Motives in F. M. Dostoevsky’s «Super-Novel»: The Search for a Method Between Innokenty Annensky and the «New Criticism»
Author(s) -
Maria B. Plyukhanova
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
russkaâ literatura
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0131-6095
DOI - 10.31860/0131-6095-2020-3-84-93
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , idiot , punishment (psychology) , criticism , key (lock) , literature , computer science , sociology , aesthetics , epistemology , psychology , philosophy , art , social psychology , computer security
The article is based on the idea that fi ve Dostoevsky’s novels can be interpreted as one continuous text. This opinion has already been expressed by Vyacheslav Ivanov, Petr Bitsilli and others, in various frameworks. The article shows how certain scenes and details migrate from one novel to the other, gaining key positions in the novels’ structure. Scenes involving a coffi n with the body of a victim (a woman, a child), are analyzed: flowers, birds, a fly acquire different functions and meanings in such scenes in "Crime and Punishment", "The Idiot", "The Eternal Husband", "The Brothers Karamazov". The concept of one continuous work («great novel», or «super-novel») takes shape through correspondences and contrasts between such images and details.