Description
Book SynopsisBorrows from ancient Greek, Chinese, and Christian dialectical traditions to formulate a dynamic image of Dostoevsky's dialectics as a philosophy of compatible contradictions. Expanding on the classical triad of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, Blank guides us through Dostoevsky's most difficult paradoxes.
Trade Review[Blank's] great contribution lies in her ability to render the complex comprehensible and to enable the reader to engage with what she has so clearly presented as the essence, the kernel, of Dostoevskii. Hers is a study that should prove most rewarding and valuable, not only for the specialist in Dostoevskii and Russian literature, but for the general reader as well."" -
Slavic Review""Ksana Blank's interesting and suggestive study seeks to reconcile the different approaches to the religious interpretations that have developed since the earliest days of Dostoevsky studies, by conceptualizing and exploring the author's antinomic thinking."" -
Russian ReviewTable of Contents
- Note on the Transliteration and Sources
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I: The Dialectic of Goodness
- Chapter One. "If You Don't Sin, You Can't Repent; If You Don't Repent, You Can't Achieve Salvation"
- Chapter Two. A Ray of Light in the Abyss
- Chapter Three. "The Devil Begins with Froth on the Lips of an Angel"
- Part II: The Dialectic of Beauty
- Chapter Four. The Corridor of Mirrors in The Idiot
- Chapter Five. A Grain of Eros in the Madonna, a Spark of Beauty in Sodom
- Part III: The Dialectic of Truth
- Chapter Six. Dostoevsky's Case for Contradictions
- Chapter Seven. Antinomic Truth (Istina)
- Concluding Notes
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
