Befriending the Darkness: L.M. Montgomery’s Lived Theodicy in Anne’s House of Dreams

In Anne’s House of Dreams, which Elizabeth Epperly calls Montgomery’s most philosophical novel, Montgomery delves into painful topics of loss, suicide, bad marriages, ill-timed love, poverty, and the beautiful-terrible consequences of duty. The result is a complex and nuanced consideration of faithful living in the face of unexplainable evil that functions as a lived theodicy in story form. “I reckon when the darkness is close to us it is a friend. But when we sorter push it away from us—divorce ourselves from it, so to speak, with lantern light—it becomes an enemy.” —L.M. Montgomery, Captain Jim in Anne’s House of Dreams

The The Issue of Genre Belonging of F.M. Dostoevsky's Work "The Village of Stepanchikovo"

The article discusses the issue of genre belonging of Dostoevsky's work «The Village of Stepanchikovo », provides an overview and analysis of existing points of view on the problem of genre, and suggests that this literary text represents a genre experiment of the exiled author. Genetically, the work goes back to the comedy genre. Dostoevsky certainly takes into account the individual traditions of antique, Renaissance, classic comedy, uses a matrimonial plot that is frequent for the comedy repertoire. By the type of plot, «The Village of Stepanchikovo» is close to sitcoms, comedy of intrigue and comedy of characters. At the same time, the author borrowed an unexpected denouement from the genre of tragedy, and such a plot component as twists and turns, moreover, made it a permanent element of the plot. Dostoevsky gives preference to the novel as a genre more appropriate to the peculiarities of his talent and facilitating a complete, internally contradictory depiction of the «course» of life, synthesizing its various modifications: tale of chivalry, love novel, manor, moral, family, psychological, social, philosophical novel.

Vietnamese Writer Hồ Biểu Chánh and His Adaptation of Dostoevsky's «Crime and Punishment»

Hồ Biểu Chánh (1884–1958) was a novelist, playwright, translator, scholar, who was considered as one of pioneers of modern Vietnamese novel. In his literary legacy there were many novels adapted from foreign literature, and «A Despondent Man» (Người thất chí) published in 1938 was among them. The plot of this novel was borrowed from Dostoevsky's «Crime and Punishment». This article gives some comparisons between «A Despondent Man» and «Crime and Punishment» to show how the Vietnamese writer perceived Dostoevsky's socio-psychological and socio-philosophical novel and based on its plot to create his own work in Vietnamese language.

The universal nature of human soul in David Mitchell’s literary legacy

Nowadays when the majority of themes in literature have been already explored, it is hard to find something topical and yet not studied. In this case David Mitchell’s works are the treasury of philosophical ideas covered by author’s fantasy. The novel under our investigation Cloud Atlas is a complicated work in terms of system of characters, plot development and mixture of themes. At the same time this difficulty attracts researchers from all over the globe and provides them with the enough material to study. As each part is a separate story united only by the reincarnation theme (a comet shaped birth mark). Thus, our objective is to study this binding element which reflects the author’s concept of a soul’s universal nature. Even though this concept is a corner stone in this novel, it was left poorly studied. Therefore, this research is an attempt to fill in the gap in literary criticism. In this article we determined how the author expressed this concept in the novel. Moreover, we analyzed how the theme of reincarnation in the novel imitates elements of Hinduism. Thus, we conclude that Cloud Atlas is a complex philosophical novel of the new era.

Postscript

Among the many fragmentary texts that remain as Pessoa’s literary bequest are notes for what may have been intended as a philosophical novel. Dating from 1914, the following sketch is of particular interest: I do not know who I am, what soul I have. When I speak with sincerity, I do not know with what sincerity I speak. I am variously other than a self that I do not know exists (if it is those others) … I feel multifaceted. I am like a room with innumerable fantastic mirrors that distort false reflections, a single previous reality that is not in any and is in all. As the pantheist feels as if a wave, star, and flower, I feel as if various beings. I feel myself living other lives, in myself, incompletely, as if my being participated in all men, incompletely in each, individuated by a sum of non-selves synthesized into a dummy self....

On the Role of Literary Works in the Course of Music Literature (Musicology)

In the article, the author summarizes her work experience as a teacher of music literature at the theoretical department of F. Chopin College of Music. A historically continuous interaction between literature and music is doubtless. It can be seen, namely, in T. Mann’s deliberate referring to music regularities when creating a philosophical novel and in A. Deblin’s seeing music as a sort of model for literature. Understanding contacts between literature and music of the same period contributes to enlarging students' field of interests in literature. Referring to the works by the genius authors (A. Pushkin, J.W. Goethe) and to mythology determines new perception of music. In general, music is included in a broad semantic and aesthetic context. Meanwhile, perception of literary works is also enriched thanks to their correlation with the artistic personalities of J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart. For example, one can notice how the unique personality of Mozart reveals itself in the light of the exclusively semantically concentrated Pushkin’s text. As a result, this direction contributes to achieving the goals of the musicology course at college.