Dostoevsky's Spiritual Art: The Burden of Vision

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Transaction Publishers - 216 pagina's

Fyodor Dostoevsky's highest and most permanent achievement as a novelist lies in his exploration of man's religious complex, his world and his fate. His primary vision is to be found in his last five novels: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils, A Raw Youth, and The Brothers Karamazov. This volume culminates twenty years of studying, teaching, and writing on Dostoevsky. Here George A. Panichas critically analyzes the religious themes and meanings of the author's major works. Focusing on the pervasive spiritual consciousness at play, Panichas views Dostoevsky not as a religious doctrinaire, but as a visionary whose five great novels constitute a sequential meditation on man's human and superhuman destiny.

"A brief review cannot do justice to the profundity, erudition, and spiritual as well as moral candor displayed in George Panichas's treatise. Panichas's style combines lucidity, subtlety, and immediacy with a convincing eloquence which derives its force from a vision of undeniable truth. Hopefully, Panichas's work will receive the widest possible circulation among academic specialists, literary critics, and educated readers."--Heinrich A. Stammler, Slavic Review

"One cannot put this book down without experiencing the desire to read some of Dostoevesky's great novels. As Panichas makes clear, Crime and Punishment and the Brothers karamazov are part of the Western literary canon." - FCS Quarterly

"[T]he deep erudition in these pages is alive with a sympathy and a sensitivity--at times even a passion--that bespeak a real sharing in the author's prophetic vision. As few works of criticism do, this is a book that deserves its place on the same shelf with the inspired fiction it examines."--Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

"Dr. Panichas' book on Dostoevsky is, indeed, a new milestone in the immense body of literature on the Russian genius."--Sergei Levitzky, Novoye Russkoye Slovo (Russian Daily)

George A. Panichas is professor emeritus of English at the University of Maryland and editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. Among his numerous writings are The Reverent Discipline: Essays in Literary Criticism and Culture and The Courage of Judgment: Essays in Criticism, Culture and Society.

Michael Henry studied with Gerhart Niemeyer at Notre Dame, where he received his advanced degree in political theory in 1974. He has been teaching philosophy at St. John's University in New York since 1977 and is the series editor of Transaction's Library of Conservative Thought.

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Inhoudsopgave

Transaction Introduction
ix
A Critical Note
190
Notes
199
Index
209
Copyright

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Populaire passages

Pagina 19 - O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs ; let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice ; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.
Pagina 12 - For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains.
Pagina 63 - I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Pagina 69 - Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Pagina 151 - The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son : the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Pagina 48 - God we are dealing with something for which there is only one appropriate expression, "mysterium tremendum."1\\t feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its "profane," nonreligious mood of everyday experience.
Pagina 23 - The criminal type is the type of strong man made sick. . . . Concerning the problem before us, Dostoevsky's testimony is of importance. Dostoevsky, who, incidentally, was the only psychologist from whom I had anything to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life, happier even than the discovery of Stendhal.
Pagina 113 - Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant ; And my ending is despair Unless I be relieved by prayer ; Which pierces so, that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
Pagina 173 - Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.

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