Description
Book SynopsisSentenced to death in 1849 for utopian socialist political activity, Dostoevsky, a Russian writer, was subjected to a mock execution and then exiled to Siberia for a decade, including four years in a forced labor camp, where he experienced a crisis of belief. This title offers a reinterpretation of the life and work of Dostoevsky.
Trade Review"Dostoevsky's Democracy will be read both by literary scholars, and those interested in the history of ideas."--Lesley Chamberlain, Times Literary Supplement "Nancy Ruttenburg offers a major reinterpretation of Dostoevsky's life and work by re-examining the crucial transitional period between the early works of the 1840s and the important novels of the 1860s."--Times Higher Education "Dostoevsky's Democracy brims with surprising insights."--Robin Feuer Miller, Slavic Review "Dostoevsky's Democracy provides a plausible and open reading that challenges us to re-experience familiar texts."--Lawrence Mansozo, Slavic and East European Journal "[A] scholarly and well-written work... Its strengths are its erudition, sophisticated exploration of narrative technique and application of a range of conceptual models to literary contexts... [A]n excellent and original study of Notes from the House of the Dead which makes a real contribution to our understanding of this unique work."--Robert Reid, European Legacy
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 The Image of the Beast 1 The Ne To and the "Democrat" 6 The Ne To, the Writer, and the People 21 PART I: Building Out the House of the Dead 29 1. "Why Is This Man Alive?": The Unconsummated Conversion 31 2. The Disarticulation of the Autobiographical Self 41 3. Opposites That Do Not Attract (The Bezdna and Poetic Truth) and Opposites That Do (Estrangement and Conversion) 50 4. The Dostoevskian "As If": Self-Deception in Autobiography 61 5. The Narrator's Eclipse 72 6. Dostoevsky's Poetics of Conviction 82 PART II: Building Out the House of the Dead 91 1. The Chronotope of Katorga 93 2. Exception, Equality, Emancipation 96 3. Ontological Ambiguity in the Space of Exception: Katorga as Medium 105 4. The Ontology of Crime: Testimony/Confession 115 5. The Flesh of the Political 140 * The Grammar of Katorga 141 * Corporeality and Intercorporeality in Katorga 153 * Dostoevsky's Democratic Aesthetic 160 Conclusion 170 The Russian People, This Unriddled Sphinx 170 Carmen Horrendum 170 Bookishness, Literacy, and Becoming Democratic 176 Where Have All the Peasants Gone? 183 Notes 197 Bibliography 251 Index 263
