| When Dostoevsky's novels were translated into German in the early twentieth century, they had an immediate and profound impact on the reading public throughout central Europe. Simultaneously, a lively reception of both the author and his texts ensued among many contemporary critics and Expressionist writers. This study illuminates the ensuing Dostoevsky discourse in its various stages and analyzes intertextuality between Dostoevsky's novels and selected Expressionist texts. Using a topical organization and close readings, this study examines ten critical and thematic “images” of Dostoevsky and his texts prevalent during the “age of Expressionism” (1906–1926).; This two-part study is the first to examine on a large scale Dostoevsky's impact on both theoretical and literary texts of the entire epoch of Expressionism. Part I follows the development of important trends in criticism and certain “images” or popular conceptions resulting from divergent critical approaches. Such images include the conceptions of Dostoevsky as a symbolist and apocalyptist, as a primitivist-vitalist and author of chaos, as a realist who nevertheless includes “fantastic” elements in his texts, and finally as an author of polyphonic, many-voiced narratives. These images rapidly became part of an ongoing Dostoevsky discourse that spanned twenty years and manifested itself in four different methodical approaches to the author and his fiction: the mytho-historical, the meta-historical, the literary-critical, and the literary-cultural.; Part II focuses on the literary reflection of the critical “images.” Here the term “image” denotes thematic, stylistic, or motific resemblance, direct or indirect representation, as well as any form of intertextuality in the age of Expressionism. These literary reflections are apparent in the fictionalization of the “image” of Dostoevsky the author as a literary character, and in the contextualization of particular thematic elements including the generational conflict, the double and the divided self, suffering and redemption, the “good” prostitute, and the “new” individual. Close readings examine certain stylistic and narrative devices that can be traced either to Dostoevsky's texts or to the ongoing critical discourse. As a common denominator in Dostoevsky's novels and in the texts of many German Expressionists, the ideas of human freedom and spirituality are consistently illuminated. |
