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(2007) Studies in East European Thought 59 (1-2).
Unorthodox confession, orthodox conscience
aesthetic authority in the underground
Sharon Allen
pp. 65-85
Dostoevskij's underground parody of confession paradoxically recovers an Orthodox morality by constructing an unorthodox model of authority and authorship. The authenticity and authority of underground discourse are both contingent on self-conscious parody, which also mediates Orthodox community or sobornost'. This essay critically reconsiders ethical, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of the self-conscious interpolation of literary and religious discourses in Dostoevskij's Notes from Underground. Arguing with and against Bakhtinian readings, it re-examines the underground narrator's secularized, Romanticized sensibilities, cynical critique of humanism, sacrilegious modes of laughter, usurpation of authority, internalization of dialogue, literary stylization and parody, aesthetic and moral self-critique, and, finally, insistence on "a new word."
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11212-007-9018-7
Full citation:
Allen, S. (2007). Unorthodox confession, orthodox conscience: aesthetic authority in the underground. Studies in East European Thought 59 (1-2), pp. 65-85.
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