In Dostoevsky’s binary poetics, an opposition can be drawn between two fundamental stances – asceticism and incontinence. Ascetics adhere to an ethos of self-restraint in response to the desires of the flesh. Incontinents act spontaneously to gratify their desires. The current study draws an analogy between the behavior pattern of Dostoevsky’s self-denying intellectual heroes and that of exiled castrate (skoptsy) communities. Dostoevsky’s ascetics represent a cerebral mindset attracted to visions of social utopia; their intellectualizing detaches them from the life of the body and thus weirdly parallels the strictures of the skoptsy. An encounter between an ascetic and a prostitute serves as a central plot moment in works such as Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground.
Duke University, United States
Titolo del capitolo
Ascetism and Incontinence and Dostoevsky’s Gift of Tears
Autori
Carol Apollonio
Lingua
Russian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0122-3.08
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2023
Copyright
© 2023 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Ф.М. Достоевский: Юмор, парадоксальность, демонтаж
Curatori
Dar'ja Farafonova, Laura Salmon, Stefano Aloe
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
222
Anno di pubblicazione
2023
Copyright
© 2023 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0122-3
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0121-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0122-3
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0123-0
Collana
Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici
ISSN della collana
2612-7687
e-ISSN della collana
2612-7679