Jake de Luca
22 April 2024
ENLS 341
Professor Siewers
Final Project Memo
Nearly half a century removed from the rubble of Byzantine civilization, Fyodor Dostoevsky emerged as a unique writer following the early stages of European-influenced modernization. His writings in The Brothers Karamazov offered a significant perspective on the importance of introspection and morality. Dostoevsky’s work reinforces Christian ecopoetic tradition by posing his scenes in a reverent context which aims to connect the natural and the divine. Coupled with Dostoevsky are Alexander Dugin and S.L. Frank, who both focus on the interconnectedness of life as a source of consciousness and harmony for existential life, thus pointing toward transcendent meaning for human existence.
Alexander Dugin asserts that the scene of Adam and Eve in The Garden of Eden is a result of being and, as Dostoevsky suggests, to be human is to understand humans’ inclination to act morally. Keeping that in mind, Fyodor Dostoevsky uses storytelling to invite the reader to understand the text from a moral standpoint. With that, his use of overlay landscape and otherworldly virtue signals a deeper philosophical and theological purpose behind his narratives. Rather than totally depend on the rigid texts of pre-modern Christianity, Dostoevsky incorporates his own experiences as a man surrounded by the influence of modernization in Russia to shed light on the importance of morally-conscious behavior. Alexander Dugin and S.L. Frank take an approach honed in on being and searching for meaning through the human experience. Their works ground the reader by combining literal symbolism of the pillars of Christian ecopoetics with the transformative power of spiritual reality and truth. Dostoevsky’s work is relevant as a contrasting opinion toward modernization when considering the moral agency he instills in his readers, therefore allowing Dugin and Frank’s interpretations on dualistic individualism to propose an alternative meaning to life that is more holistic and connected with life, earth, God, and the cosmos.
Focus sections from The Brothers Karamazov:
- Book Two, Chapter 6
- Book Four, Chapter 2
- Book Seven, Chapter 2
Bibliographical Information:
Annas, Julia. “Ancient Ethics and Modern Morality.” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 6, 1992, pp. 119–36. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2214241.
George G. Strem. “The Moral World of Dostoevsky.” The Russian Review, vol. 16, no. 3, 1957, pp. 15–26. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/125940.
Jackson, Robert Louis. “Bakhtin’s Poetics of Dostoevsky and ‘Dostoevsky’s Christian Declaration of Faith.’” Close Encounters: Essays on Russian Literature, Academic Studies Press, 2013, pp. 277–304. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1zxshr0.21.
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