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I have read Thoureau, and here lies the difference: Thoureau idealism against Dostoievisky strong pessimism. The end of romanticism is exactly when they start to consider that progress is not leading foward, but we are stuck. That is why Dostoievisky is that important to XX century, because he was already showing the chaos and desillusion of moderm world. That is why he is not a romantic.
All writings deal with feeling as well.
How about the pessimistic romantic writer Herman Melville, who wrote, Bartleby, the Scrivener, in which the author portrayed a tragedy of a man who could not fit into society and died in the end?
Our understanding of Prince Myshkin, JCamilo, is radically different.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
You say that he does 'not perceive the underneath of the individuals'. I argue that he sees with incomparable insight, with the vision of genius. Prince Myshkin alone is able to filter out the bad and see clearly the good in such pariahs as Ippolit and Roghozin. You say 'his trust is too big'. Not too big: infinitely big, boundless, divine!
How is such fearless magnanimity and selflessness naive? Rather, the prince sees through enlightened eyes, as guileless Vera Lebedev, child-like Lizabetha Prokofievna, and sceptical playboy Evgenie Pavlovitch are realising in the last page of the novel.
Would we were all like Prince Myshkin. You say he is 'a futile martyr'. It is not Dostoevsky who’s cynical, but yourself.
Mishkin have a vision of genious? He is a mockery, Dostoieviksy intents him as a critiic of naivity... How come he saw really what is underneath his peers? He often trust them basead on his own godness. Apparently, irony in Dostoisviksy is lost by the feelings towards Mishkin.
Dostoievisky is cynical, are you joking me? The underground man, his own experiencer ithat almost resulted with his death on siberia, brothers karamazov, works of genial cynic
Dostoieviisky is so good that you are seeing his trick as truth, the book name is the idiot, and even if the russian name is not perfectly fit.
Will you please tell me how we should follow Bartleby as a model in Bartleby, the Scrivener, wriiten by a pessimistic writer of the American Romanticism? By the way, I quite agree with you in believing the innocence of the prince.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
The mainstream writer of American Romanticism once presented an idea about beauty in his essay, Nature. Beauty emerges only when you encounter nature coincidently. It submerges into the depth of water if you manage to seek for it.
I totoaly agree with him.
Once I had a chance to be photographed in a photo studio, for my college required some photos by the time I was about to graduate, and the photographer started to give instructions as to how I should look, where I should look at, the position of my hat, my postures, or the smile on my face when I sat before the camera. I did as I was told and applied myself to the task of posing, or looking nice, but the harder I tried, the more awkward I looked in my photos. Utterly perplexed, an idea cropped up in my mind one day. I rushed to the photo studio and told the photographer not to give any instructions and to shoot the photo when I was unaware of it. That man was quite smart and he got my point immediately. Again I was sit before the camera, but this time he began by chatting with me something about my boyfriend. My current of thoughts was directed to a course which drew such fervor to my heart, though I was still looking at the camera. "Click", he snapped the photo, and he succeeded. Again and again he did the same thing, and I ended up with a pack of photos in which I looked wonderful. I was really delighted when I glanced throuh the photos.
The photographer captured the momentary beauty.
The same idea applies to writing as well, so I don't think we should re-write our works over and over again when the inspiration leaves us. One of these days, I read a part of the introduction to the book, The Idiot, and I learned that, unlike his friend, Turgenev, who never sat down to write any of his novels before he worked out a detailed plan of his novels, Dostoyevsky began with the main idea of his novel and never had a carefully worked-out plan of it or its characters. I can quite understand the way he wrote his novels. His inspirations and momentary emotions, which followed one by one in a flow, led him to write, so he never made plans beforehand, for he didn't quite know himself what would come into his head the next moment. He never attempted to create beauty, and beauty visited him almost each time he wrote. That is the reason why I always consider him as one of the most romantic writers I've ever read.
I suppose it depends how you define "romantic." If you just mean it to be the beauty in his works, then sure. As a literary movement, he was not part of Romanticism or associated with romantic authors. His novels tend more to psychological realism, and his works are deemed as precursors to existentialism.
But in any case, your post, virginia, reminds me of something Dostoevsky once said: "Beauty will save the world."
The gap between realism and romanticism is the feelings involved. Realists writers portrayed events and people drily without emotions getting involved, and those writers of naturalism, an outgrowth of realism even did their best to remain calm and objective. They more often than not did not give their chracters names. However Dostoyevsky was driven by his feelings to write, and as far as that is concerned, Dostoyevsky could never be classified as a realist. As for existentialism, I believe his feelings did direct him to some hidden truth about life.
No. Prince Myshkin trusts the likes of Ippolit and Roghozin simply because he rightly perceives sparks of goodness in them.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Cynical? The several Dostoevsky novels I have read are full of restrained hope - even Crime and Punishment. And Brothers Karamazov, most will agree, is thoroughly inspiring despite grim circumstances. Dostoevsky paints a penetrating, if uncomfortable, picture of human life that accentuates the positive in people.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
The novel's title, The Idiot, is ironic. The prince is surrounded by idiots! As the old doctor in Pavlofsk told Lebedev, Prince Myshkin is the sanest of men, although all around him would wish to think otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
There is much more to The Idiot, JCamilo, than your two dimensional interpretation would have us believe.
Dostoevksy, still, was not a romantic author. Romanicism has a lot more than feelings involved.. it is a movement which encompasses a lot of things (mainly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, with a focus on imagination, feelings, aesthetic pleasure, etc--. think Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, etc). Dostoevsky came right after the Romantic Movement, though still influenced by it.
As for realism, he is not fully realistic. There is a lot of psychology to his works, this is why I see it as a psychological realism (though I think his works are so great and vast that they cannot be fully catagorized), and definitely existentialism (esp. in Notes from Underground)
"The first rise of the psychological novel as a genre is said to have started with the sentimental novel of which Samuel Richardson's Pamela is a prime example"
Sorry, I haven't quite understood the term Psychological Realism until I read some articles online, and the quote I offered above showed that psychological realism originated from some romantic writing.
Prince Myshkin in The Idiot is an exemplar of the existential man. Both Dostoevsky and his existential father, Soren Kierkegaard, were blessed with exceptional insight into human psychology.Quote:
Originally Posted by PoeticPassions
To compare Myshkin with Jesus is not to say that we can find a parallel for everything Myshkin does in something Jesus did. It is just to say that their overriding motivations were similar. Since their backgrounds were entirely different, and the situations in which they found themselves were entirely different, it's pointless to look for parallels in their specific actions. But we can certainly see them in their characters: they were both motivated by compassion and self-sacrifice above all else.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladys
I don't think these two viewpoints are entirely incompatible. Myshkin is naive in the sense that he lacks the experience necessary to survive in society. However, prior to the vase scene, we are aware of his conviction that he will break the vase. So, as well as the power to see into other people's souls and divine the good in them, he has the power of introspection. This shows us the depth of his emotional intelligence, both inter- and intrapersonal. His naivete is "external", it's an extrinsic trait of his character, due to the fact that he has spent so long away from society. But his emotional intelligence is intrinsic, it is the essence of Myshkin.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
I have to disagree here. If anything, Dostoevsky intended Myshkin as a critique of society. He characterises Myshkin as an idiot to show us how society would view a person who is completely pure in his nature. There is irony here, but it is in the fact that society would reject the pure of heart. The parallel with Jesus seems blindingly obvious.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
Romanticism differs from all genres in that it mainly involes feelings and intuitions, and different writers had vent their feelings in different areas in the time and place they lived in. Therefore those aspects that you mentioned above are only the workings of their heart, which is the focus of Romanticism. As I said in my last post, psychological realism stems from some sort of romantic writing, so it is a romantic form intrisically. If you had classified Dostoyevsky as a writer of psychological realism, you already admitted that he was a romantic writer.
I explained in that post, that Dostoyevsky did explore some hidden meanings of life, but that did not deny the fact that he was driven by his impulses to write all the time, and that made him a romantist.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
[QUOTE=Tsuyoiko;741729]To compare Myshkin with Jesus is not to say that we can find a parallel for everything Myshkin does in something Jesus did. It is just to say that their overriding motivations were similar. Since their backgrounds were entirely different, and the situations in which they found themselves were entirely different, it's pointless to look for parallels in their specific actions. But we can certainly see them in their characters: they were both motivated by compassion and self-sacrifice above all else.
The fact that they are situated in different eras, places and conditions in life does not deny one fatal point, and that is Jesus would never have hurt one living being for the purpose of saving another. If it were not for love, such a compassionate and good-natured man, the idiot, would never have done such a thing to hurt another, Agaly, whom he also cared quite a lot. He loved Nastasya more than he was aware of it. You talked about motivations, but to think and to act differ to a great extent. You may say you wish to do something, but that doesn't mean you will do it without fail. You may have good intentions, but you probably do the opposite in the end. Who knows?
I think your reluctance to accept the comparison is based on your denial that Myshkin was motivated entirely by compassion and self-sacrifice. What do you think he should have done in the situation? In other words, what would Jesus have done?Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
Jesus never claimed that we should never hurt people, on the contrary, he was perfectly aware that it was sometimes inevitable for the greater good:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jesus in Matthew 10
Myshkin and Jesus had about the same likelihood of surviving in society, yet would you describe Jesus as naive?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tsuyoiko
A man left his betrothed to spend time with another woman and marry her after a fortnight. Will anyone believe he was sacrificing himself like Jesus? I wouldn't if I were the first one. I am sure I would get extremely angry if he said he did it for the greater good. How about you?
Attachment between a man and a woman is beyond our power to reason. You may say something but do something quite different. You may have reasons to believe you are doing something like God, but you cannot figure out how your feelings go all the time.
[QUOTE=Tsuyoiko;741729] His naivete is "external", it's an extrinsic trait of his character, due to the fact that he has spent so long away from society. But his emotional intelligence is intrinsic, it is the essence of Myshkin.
I agree with you in what you said about the prince's emotional intelligence. People who are hyper-sensitive are often found intuitive in many situations where most ordinary people do not feel a thing. They tend to look into their inner selves more often and are always ready to discern the subtleties in their surroundings. However I don't think his naivete is only an external trait. It stemmed from the purity of his heart, the most inner part of himself, which led him to the path he took.
It's not the fact that Myshkin is unlikely to survive in society that makes him naive, but his lack of experience in society, which I don't think applied to Jesus. As I said, this naivete is not an intrinsic trait of Myshkin's, it is a description of his situation. He is naive from the viewpoint of society (which of course does him an injustice).Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladys
You're judging with an ordinary human understanding of romantic relationships and with your emotions. The understanding Myshkin had was far beyond this; he saw his duty to other human beings from an objectively compassionate standpoint. He loved everyone in the way that Jesus taught when he said "love your neighbour as yourself".Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
Imagine Myshkin is a doctor. There has been an accident in which his fiancee is injured very slightly, but his ex-lover is seriously wounded. Who should he help?
You will object that the situation is different, but that is the point. To Myshkin, they are the same. Because of his superior compassion, he is capable of acting totally unselfishly and going to the aid of one he judges to need him most.
You are judging the prince's case as if he were really a God, dealing with living organisms without his own feelings getting involved. I don't think Dostoyevsky intended to portray his main character as a God-like, indifferent machine, and the women there as simply dull objects to be saved, or he wouldn't have portrayed Nastasya's beauty, Agala's affability and subtlety in such details. The author was thinking about a world where human beings inhabited rather than some etherial place of acient Gods, or an area filled with mechanic devices, when he wrote the book. If, according to you, he treated everyone with equal love just like Jesus did, why did he choose the two most pretty women to fall in love with? It's a book of human beings, who have senses to feel and a heart to live, and it deals with the noblest part of human sentiments. A true love for one is even beyond God's love in that it transcends above our consciousness. God's love is fair, equal, and in a sense,dull and unemotional, so the difference between a theology book and the book, The Idiot, manifested itself.
The prince had great compassion for everyone including the two women he had affairs with, but he surrendered himself to the strongest love for a woman toward the end of the novel. That love exceeded his compassion for Aglaya, so he did what he did. The true cause of his everlasting idiocy was the sight of the dead woman whom he loved most all his life. It is a love tragedy, not a theological story about missions impossible.
Read one or two paragraphs from Bible and you'll feel the omnipotent God all at once, which is different from a mere human being like the idiot, who was susceptible to all inflences in his surroundings and the beautful woman who captured him at the first sight. Though his sentiments involved compassion, that didn't devalue his love for her. Some sentiments of compassion can be a part of the romantic love as well. Dostoevsky here portrayed the most agitated workings of a heart beyond consciousness so well that he had been considered as one of the most romantic writers I've ever known.
There is the anti-model. You should not follow Ahab or be like him, but his traits are idealized, he is the anti-hero. Keep in mind that Melville is hard to cathegorize, because he may have romantic traits such in Moby Dick or Billy Budd but at sametime his writings are already poiting to modernism or the endo of IXIX century literature. (to guys like Kafka, Dostoievisky)Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
Dostoievisky is more close to european romantism such as Dickens than north-americans who are a separeted group.
Another thing: It is not that Dostoievisky had no romantic trait on his work. He do have. After all he was created by this movemment. The thing is that Dostoievisky add a new perspective to romanticism, even as a form of criticism because the idealism, and this already place him out of the group and moving foward to the XX century.
And realism deal with feelings. How Zola is without feelings? Or Flaubert? (Realism as school is a myth, but if we categorize the writers of second half of XIX century they would be there).
The prince trust more than one person. Altough this is irreelvant, the prince pretty much judges others by his own standards and that is social naiviety.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladys
I have no idea how being cynical is contrary than showing hope, but most of the novels have a character that have hope inside a sittuation of no-hope. It is the contraditory that Dostoievisky explores. He create sittuations of stress - two different viewpoints that enhance the other side. Mishkin would be a dull character but inside the society of The Idiot, he is a notable character. The same society would be just irrelevant without the presence of the Prince. Aliocha enhances the conflicts of his brothers and his father character. But hope? In the end, Dostoievisky have the conclusion always open, it is always hard to cause any change, it is not clear if anything turned better or worst. He is not optimistic, and even the Prince final fate is hardly something that can be somehow positive.Quote:
Cynical? The several Dostoevsky novels I have read are full of restrained hope - even Crime and Punishment. And Brothers Karamazov, most will agree, is thoroughly inspiring despite grim circumstances. Dostoevsky paints a penetrating, if uncomfortable, picture of human life that accentuates the positive in people.
The old doctor would be one of those idiots, right...Quote:
The novel's title, The Idiot, is ironic. The prince is surrounded by idiots! As the old doctor in Pavlofsk told Lebedev, Prince Myshkin is the sanest of men, although all around him would wish to think otherwise.
Meh, The prince is an Idiot because all his traits puts him a sittuation where he is the idiot, not the others! It is ironic because we know he is not an idiot (by the way, someone can be sane and an idiot) but inside that sittaution he is one, exactly because he is not part of that society and hypocrisy. In the end, it is always a gamble: while the prince shows that the socieity is made of idiots, the society shows the prince is an idiot.
err, do not be pretentious. My interpretation is hardly two dimensional, in fact I am adding aspects to your interpretation because you seems to refuse to acknowledge that the critic of Dostoievisky is not limited just to the society but to the prince as well, even if his human traits are louvable (Or exactly because of that).Quote:
There is much more to The Idiot, JCamilo, than your two dimensional interpretation would have us believe.
Do you really think Nastasya would have committed suicide if the prince had gone with Aglaya, from an objective standpoint? She didn't commit suicide when her seducer insulted her and left her in the beginning of the novel. How would she commit suicide if the prince did not follow her instructions?The fact that the prince was convinced that she would do so only tells us that the prince was utterly bewitched by the woman. The comparison you made about a doctor and his two lovers, whom, according to you, he didn't love as a man loves a woman, is supposed to be changed as such. A doctor had to choose between his betrothed and his ex-lover, who was not wounded more than his betrothed. To go on does not make sense, I think.
Totally wrong. Realists tried to show real people in real situations, and it was very objective and Dostoevsky is along with Tolstoy the best in that. Just read Crime and Punishment and after that The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Hugo and you will see the obvious difference. Naturalists are far from objective, they are too pessimistic.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
He used Mishkin to criticize society, not his naive; it was just the tool he used to show it.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
No, Dostoevsky just showed how people and society really are. That's sad, not cynical. Maybe we could describe Gogol as cynical, but not Dostoevsky.Quote:
Dostoievisky is cynical, are you joking me? The underground man, his own experiencer ithat almost resulted with his death on siberia, brothers karamazov, works of genial cynic
Miskin is The Idiot, not society that surrounds him. His idiotism lays in fact that he cannot realize and understand how humans and world really functions. And we could hardly say that all of others characters in the novel were idiots. They actually act totally normal - everyone was just looking for their interests no matter of others.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladys
Yes, that is one side of The Idiot. The other is also using Myshkin as a critic to idealized or idealistic members of russian society. Neither side of The Idiot is free of Dostoievisky critic, at the same time the society would not accept Myshkin, Myshkin would also not fit there. Dostoievisky do not pick sides or give confort to Myshkin, his fall is also his doing. The message is of the book is more "everything is wrong" than "there is one good option to follow"...Quote:
Originally Posted by Tsuyoiko
I think Brothers Karamazov is where Dostoievisky can achive this vision of society more completely.
But you said in your post before that Romanticism deals with heros to be followed as models, not anti-model or whatever. I am curious to know how one should follow an anti-model, a term I've never heard before. Therefore, according to you, everyone can be followed as a hero, because you can always find him in either of the two categories, models and anti-models, and that's really an interesting way of looking at things.
By the way, I have to tell you realism and naturalism do not involve feelings, and you can get to know more from all websites about them.
Don't want to be rude or inpolite, but virginiawang; did some male done something really bad to you lately in your life?
Please go to websites about realism and naturalism, to get to know more about the two terms. Naturalists are objective and indifferent. They don't even give their characters names.Quote:
Originally Posted by bazarov
You are quite mistaken. I would like to share with you the most beautiful blessings in my life, but my reason forbade me. Sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by bazarov
I reckon that sentence I wrote is not sounding like it should, Yeah, not a critic of Naive just it, what really I wanted to say is that his naive is the perspective he uses to build the critic of book, which is the society (or others characters in the book) in contrast with Myshkin natural good.Quote:
Originally Posted by bazarov
I can describe both. Cynics distrusts the motives of society, are often pessimists. Also they often used contraditory sittuations to show up the wrongs of a society, exactly like throwing a good natural man into a den of wolves and labeling him an Idiot. Cynism is related to the XIX existencialism, pessimism and nihilism, philosophical movements who found in Dostoievisky works a bridge to the XX century. Cynism is not hypocrisy or telling lies, at least I am not using the term as such.Quote:
No, Dostoevsky just showed how people and society really are. That's sad, not cynical. Maybe we could describe Gogol as cynical, but not Dostoevsky.
Heroes and anti-heroes. You are not supposed to follow, as a positive thing, the anti-heroes, but they have a lot of idealized traits. They can be charming or genial, they can be brave, but they are often leading those around them to negativity - Ahab for example? Or Hatchliff from Wuthering Heights...Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
The thing about romanticism is that at sametime they directed their lights towards to ordinary people they also aimed to a higher individualism, but it was a world that was skeptical, so the models are twisted. Therefore the idealized heroes of the past turned to be flawed as well.
There is no art without feelings, but I do not need websites: Madame Bovary is part of french realism and is full of feelings. You can have, as they have, the distance from the characters in the book, the narrator without intervention,but even that is something that Dostoievisky used, because he is exactly, alongside with Tolstoy, the top guys that teached realists how to write.Quote:
By the way, I have to tell you realism and naturalism do not involve feelings, and you can get to know more from all websites about them.
Believe me; I've read so much books from those periods that I should make those websites instead of them :)Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
Realists and naturalists shunned emotions. You need to know the truth about the two schools of writing rather than imagine them in your head as much as you like.
By the way, you blurred the point you made in the very beginning. "a hero to be followed as a model " was what you proclaimed in that post, not anti-model or whatever, so I wanted to know how we should follow Bartleby as a model? Or is it a mistake you've made accidentally?
It is better, on the whole, for you to know the truth about those two schools of writing than to imagine them as much as you like.
I think Myshkin is Christ-like, not godlike. I don't think he's indifferent, and doesn't have his own feelings. Of course he appreciated Nastaya's beauty and was romantically in love with Aglaya. But in the denouement, he puts his own feelings aside and goes with Nastasya because his capacity for agape takes precedence over his romantic love for Aglaya.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
The main thing I dispute is that Myshkin was ever "in love" with Nastasya. I think that what he felt for her was pity, agape, Christian love. On first seeing her portrait, he notices her beauty, but immediately draws our attention to her frailty:Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
"She was rather thin, perhaps, and a little pale."
and
"It's a wonderful face," said the prince, "and I feel sure that her destiny is not by any means an ordinary, uneventful one. Her face is smiling enough, but she must have suffered terribly-- hasn't she? Her eyes show it--those two bones there, the little points under her eyes, just where the cheek begins."
By saying that Myshkin loved everyone equally as Jesus taught, I'm not claiming that he is devoid of human feeling. I'm claiming that his capacity for Christian love was so great that he sacrificed his own happiness with Aglaya, who he was "in love" with.
Don't let the fact that he recognised Nastasya's beauty fool you into thinking that that's why he "loved" her.
On the contrary, I think his compassion for Nastasya exceeded his romantic love for Aglaya.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
He lapsed into mental illness because of the realisation that his efforts to save Nastasya were in vain.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
I agree that it seems unlikely that Nastasya would have committed suicide. The important point is that Myshkin believed she would, and I take that as further evidence of his compassion, rather than of his romantic love.Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
I see what you mean, and I agree that Dostoevsky was trying to show that it is impossible for one who is so ideal to exist in society. I think the message of the book is more like "it's pointless to try to be too good", so in a sense you're right.Quote:
Originally Posted by JCamilo
You are judging these events on a surface level. The fact that the prince had been happier with Aglaya than with Nastasya does not tell us that he was more in love with Aglaya. You are not God. How do you know what lay behind his mind? How can you analyze the workings of his heart step by step? You are neither the author nor the prince. I presented my views as an observer. The prince hurt Aglaya and left with Nastasya. He married her after a fortnight. She ran away with another man right before the wedding and was killed. The prince became an everlasting idiot after the night he spent with the corpse and the man who killed her.
Love works beyond our consciousness. The prince seemed to be how you described him, but you didn't see his innermost urges.
You agreed that Nastasya would not commit suicide if the prince left him. The fact that the prince was deeply convinced that she should proved the fact that the prince was utterly bewitched. Great compassion does not lead to blindness. or why didn't he think that Aglaya would do something awful when in fact she wouldn't? Why did he only consider Nastasya as the one who would face danger? Oh, you haven't told me why the prince chose the two most pretty women to fall in love with if he only had equal compassion for everyone, just like Jesus. Once he entangled himself in feelings of love, you can never compare him with Jesus or analyze him as he appeared. You have to delve deeper into his heart.
Quote:
Originally Posted by virginiawang
He was happier with Aglaya because she was not that complicated and unhappy, and that is also why he choose Nastasya instead of Aglaya - she is more in need.
You're not God or writer or Prince and so is everyone here - we are all just observers.
P.S. Tsuyoiko, excellent comments :)
As a mere observer, I see, the simple fact that he chose Nastasya rather than Aglaya speaks the truth.