In order to establish the views on suffering held by the nineteenth-century (1821-1881) Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, it is first necessary to determine the viewpoint of his age. In general, it was an age of humanitarianism-- the age of "compassion for the suffering of human beings," the age of optimism, of faith in a morality established by science and reason." Humanitarianism itself was an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment, the eighteenth-century intellectual movement which emphasized reason. This age of reason reflected the progress in science, which had weakened the hold of the Church and of faith on men's minds. Dostoyevsky's rejection of socialism made it necessary for him to reject the corollary of socialism: the elimination of human suffering. Thus he was forced to evolve a personal interpretation for the suffering that he would not let be abolished. Critics generally consider Siberia to be the turning point in Dostoyevsky's life, both from a personal and a literary standpoint. Before his imprisonment, Dostoyevskyts values were too immature for him to develop a significant theory illuminating the problem of suffering. It took Siberia to teach Dostoyevsky the meaning of metaphysical suffering-- the search for the meaning of God and reality. This meaning can be traced in the majority of his post-Siberian works in the form of the theory that happiness and ultimate salvation are made available to man through the purifying effects of his metaphysical sufferings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc663218 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | McMurtry, Helen L. |
| Contributors | Ballard, E. G., Hagan, William Thomas |
| Publisher | North Texas State University |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | iii, 91 leaves, Text |
| Rights | Public, McMurtry, Helen L., Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights |
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