The ambiguous treatment of some of Dostoevsky’s major themes was high on the menu in the first session on Thursday. Joe Andrew gave a very interesting paper on the ‘woman question’ in The Brothers Karamazov, discussing how marginalized the female characters are – in the central family grouping there are no mothers, daughters or sisters […]
All posts tagged Crime and Punishment
Women, beauty and other things
Posted by Sarah Young on June 18, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/18/women-beauty-and-other-things/
Live from Naples
I’m currently at the 14th International Dostoevsky Symposium in Naples, which started this morning. I missed the opening sessions so don’t have a great deal to report yet except to say that the surroundings in the Palazzo Du Mesnil are really rather sumptuous, and they provided us with a very fine lunch, for which I […]
Posted by Sarah Young on June 14, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/06/14/live-from-naples/
Imagining St Petersburg
I’ve finally got round to reading Solomon Volkov’s St Petersburg: A Cultural History (Simon & Schuster, 1995). I’ve felt a bit ashamed that I haven’t managed to read it before, but since I reached the half-way point I’ve changed my mind about how important it is, for me at least. It mainly deals with twentieth-century […]
Posted by Sarah Young on May 20, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/05/20/imagining-st-petersburg/
The Crystal Palace in Russian Literature (2)
I think the general assumption is that Chernyshevsky’s use of the Crystal Palace as the basis for his utopian vision riled Dostoevsky so much that he then included in the polemic against rational egoism in Notes from Underground (Russian text here). But by the time What is to be Done? was published, Dostoevsky had already visited […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 22, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/22/the-crystal-palace-in-russian-literature-2/
Sonia: another thought
William Burnham’s article, ‘The Legal Context and Contributions of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment,’ Michigan Law Review, 100.6 (2002), 1227-1248, suggests another dimension to Sonia’s role as a registered prostitute. Burnham states that while confession and eye-witness testimony were considered the most reliable forms of proof in Russia at the time, ‘the law disqualified several classes of […]
Posted by Sarah Young on February 2, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/02/02/sonia-another-thought/
Crime and Punishment: Sonia and prostitution
I’ve been thinking a lot about Crime and Punishment recently, partly because I’m teaching it on our MA course on the nineteenth-century Russian novel, partly because of the recent adaptation I saw, and partly because I’m starting to plan a new digital project on the novel (more on that anon). What has really piqued my […]
Posted by Sarah Young on January 26, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/01/26/crime-and-punishment-sonia-and-prostitution/
Crime and Punishment in a squat
Last week I went to see a production of Crime and Punishment by the Ashes and Diamonds Theatre Company at the Oubliette squat in Mayfair (their website is currently being upgraded so hopefully there will be something to see there soon). The production was a bit of a mixed bag, but overall I liked it […]
Posted by Sarah Young on January 13, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/01/13/crime-and-punishment-in-a-squat/