A Psychological Analysis of an Anti-Psychological Novel: Reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment with Vygotskian Spectacles

Marques P.N.

doi:10.17759/langt.2020070103

Language and Text - №3 / 2020 | Перейти к описанию

Previous issue (2020. Vol. 7, no. 2)

Language and Text

Publisher: Moscow State University of Psychology and Education

ISSN (online): 2312-2757

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/langt

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Started in 2014

Published quarterly

Free of fees
Open Access Journal

RU In Russian

Language and Text
2020. Vol. 7, no. 1, 40–48
doi:10.17759/langt.2020070103
ISSN: 2312-2757 (online)

A Psychological Analysis of an Anti-Psychological Novel: Reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment with Vygotskian Spectacles ¹¹⁹

Marques P.N.
PhD, post-doctoral fellow, University of São Paulo, Sao Paolo, Brazil
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7111-6372
e-mail: priscilanm@gmail.com

PDF (ENG)

The present paper discusses Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment as a novel that pushes the boundaries of psychological analysis in literature. Following L. S. Vygotsky’s approach to psychology of art, the commentary intends to delve into the structure of the novel to find the unique psychological perspective that is embedded in it. The analysis focuses on the opposition between fragmentation and unity in the novel’s structure and character portrayal, as well as on the epilogue as a moment in the narrative that fully unveils the anti-psychological nature of this literary work. The depiction of a deeper reality that cannot be grasped by a linear biographical-scientific understanding of personality is simultaneously the core of the novel’s anti-psychologism and its unique psychology, one that encompasses a metaphysical and spiritual realm in which epiphany finds its meaning. Lastly, we hope that this analytic and sensible effort can somehow contribute to enriching the contact with Dostoevsky’s literature, an experience that is in itself irreplaceable.

Keywords: Psychology of Art, 19th Century Russian Literature, L. S. Vygotsky, F. M. Dostoevsky, Close Reading

Column: World Literature. Textual Criticism

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/langt.2020070103

Russia’s contribution to world prose literature in the 19th century has been unmistakably categorized under the label of Realism. However, it has been often argued that this tradition provided a unique type of realistic literature, not to be mistaken for the scientism and positivism of French realism.

For Reference

Marques P.N. A Psychological Analysis of an Anti-Psychological Novel: Reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment with Vygotskian Spectacles [Elektronnyi resurs]. Âzyk i tekst = Language and Text, 2020. Vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 40–48. doi:10.17759/langt.2020070103.

This paper is based on two research projects funded by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP 07/52450-9 and FAPESP 2015/17830-1).

Vygotsky L.S. Analiz esteticheskoi reaktsii: Tragediia o Gamlete, printse Datskom U. Shekspira i Psikhologiia iskusstva [Analysis of the aesthetic reaction: The tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, by W. Shakespeare, and Psychology of Art], 2001. Moscow: Labirint, 477 p. (In Russ.).
Dergacheva I.V. Obrazy Italii v khudozhestvennom nasledii Dostoevskogo [Images of Italy in the artistic heritage of Dostoevsky]. Yazyk i tekst=Language and text, 2019. Vol. 6, no, 4, pp. 16–23. DOI:10.17759/langt.2019060403. (In Russ.).
Adorno T. Notes to Literature, 1991. New York: Columbia University Press, 350 p.
Bakhtin M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 1984. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 384 p.
Dauner L. Raskolnikov in search of a soul. Modern Fiction Studies, 1958. Vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 199-210. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/26277179 (Accessed 19.12.2019).
De Vogüé E.M. Le Roman Russe, 1886. Paris: Librairie Plon, 351 p.
Dostoevsky F.M. Crime and Punishment, 1989. London: W.W. Norton & Company, 704 p.
Frye N. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, 1975. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 383 p.
Kehl M.R. Um romance: Crime e castigo, a vingança deslocada [A Novel: Crime and Punishment, a displaced revenge], Ressentimento [Resentment]. 2004. São Paulo: Casa do Psicólogo, pp. 159-172.
Lukácks G. The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-Philosophical Essay on the Forms of Great Epic Literature, 1971. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 160 p.
Marques, P.N. Polifonia e Emoções: um estudo sobre a construção da subjetividade em Crime e castigo de Dostoiévski [Polyphony and Emotions: A Study of the Construction of Subjectivity in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment]. Thesis (Master’s Degree in Russian Culture and Literature), 2010. São Paulo: University of São Paulo, 324 p.
Ortega y Gasset J. Dostojewsky y Proust. In Obras Completas Tomo III, 1942. Barcelona: Penguin Random House, pp. 890-893.
Rahv P. Dostoevsky in “Crime and Punishment”. Partisan Review, 1960. Vol. 27. № 3. pp. 393-425.
Rosenshield G. Crime and Punishment: The techniques of the omniscient author, 1978. Lisse: The Peter Ridder Press, 138 p.
Schnaiderman B. Dostoiévski Prosa Poesia [Dostoevsky Prose Poetry], 1982. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 153 p.
Schnaiderman B. Dostoiévski: a ficção como pensamento [Dostoesky: Fiction as Thought]. In Novaes A. Artepensamento [Art-thought], 1994. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, pp. 241-248
Terras V. Reading Dostoevsky, 1998. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 184 p.
Thaden B.Z. Bakhtin, Dostoevsky, and the Status of the “I”. Dostoevsky Studies. 1987. № 8. pp. 199-207.
Todorov T. Genres in Discourse, 1990. New York: Cambridge University Press, 148 p.
Wellek R. Bakhtin’s View of Dostoevsky: “Poliphony” and “Carnivalesque”. Dostoevsky Studies. 1980. № 1. pp. 31-41.

PlumX