Dostoevsky in Jacob Wasserman’s Works

The article analyses the reception of Dostoevsky’s works by Wasserman. Comparison of the writers’ ideologies shows that they both protested against the suppression of human individuality by society and shared the concept of every person’s responsibility for the whole humanity. Yet, Dostoevsky’s Chri...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Alexander B. Krinicyn
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
RU
Publicado: Russian Academy of Sciences. A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/9dae43f87ff2455c86b2d4d10185229b
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:The article analyses the reception of Dostoevsky’s works by Wasserman. Comparison of the writers’ ideologies shows that they both protested against the suppression of human individuality by society and shared the concept of every person’s responsibility for the whole humanity. Yet, Dostoevsky’s Christian philosophy was alien to Wasserman, who, due to his negative attitude to religion, puts nature and “the truth of life” in Russo’s sense in the first place. In “Kaspar Hauser” Wasserman uses Dostoevsky’s character of “the positively good and beautiful man” from “The Idiot”. The article looks at convergence between Dostoevsky and Wasserman both in the novel poetics (lengthy dialogues, confessionary monologues, detective plot combined with philosophical content) and typology of characters. A character-ideologist is easily recognized in many of Wasserman’s characters, who are possessed by some idea (like Etzel Andergast, Mauricius-father, Kaspar Hauser, Agathon Geyer) or inspired by images of their grandeur (Alexander the great, Nothaft, Varemme, Ervin Reiner). At the same time Wasserman continues to depict the “humiliated and insulted” poor folk, which is another convergence with one of Dostoevsky’s types.