The Poetics of Life Affirmation

Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov Art, Creativity, and Spirituality

Edited by PREDRAG CICOVACKI MARIA GRANIK

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Table of Contents

EDITORS' NOTE INTRODUCTION

I. I.II.2I.3 I.4

STORIES AND DIALOGUES Julian W. Connolly, Confession in The Brothers Karamazov Horst-Jurgen Gerigk, Dialogue and Pseudo-Dialogue Deborah A. Martinsen, The Devil Incarnate Robin Feuer Miller, Divine Conversations

II. NEW CONNECTIONS II. I Robert Belknap, The Trial of Mitya KaramazovII.2 Diane Oenning Thompson, Islamic Motifs:

Poetic Transformations of Historical Events

III. ETHICS IN LITERATURE III.I Ruben Apressyan, The Practices of MercyIII.2 Paul J. Contino, Incarnational Realism

and the Case for Casuistry: Dmitry Karamazov's Escape III.3 Maria Granik, The Politics of Love

IV. THE AFFIRMATION OF LIFE IV. I Evgenia V. Cherk:asova, The Poetics of Life AffirmationIV.2 Predrag Cicovacki, Dostoevsky's Uncommon Worldview:

An Alternative Ethics, or an Alternative to Ethics? IV .3 Jacques Catteau,

From the Great Sinner to the Grand Inquisitor

V. THE LEGACY OF THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOVV.1 Predrag Cicovacki's Interview with Joseph Frank

INDEX

7 9

13 13 29 45 73

91 91

101

115 115

131 159

173 173

187

205

217 217

229

IV. THE AFFIRMATION OF LIFE

IV.1 Poetics o f Life Affirmation

Evgenia V. Cherkasova

A universally recognized expert on the unfathomable depths of the human heart, that "battleground where God and the Devil struggle for mastery," Fyodor Dostoevsky often provoked ambiguous reactions to his powerful work. Such litera1y giants as Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Nabokov mocked Dostoevsky's preoccupation with the gloomy and the distorted, while Maxim Gorley openly accused him of a perverted obsession with sadism and senseless suffering. In contrast, Lev Shestov deeply admired Dostoevsky's extraordinary insight into the "truth of tragedy" but, along with many other critics, scoffed at the novelist's "clumsy" attempts to cover it up with doctrinaire "moralizing" of his positive characters. Outdated and far-fetched in many respects, Shestov's criticism nonetheless reflects many readers' belief that Dostoevsky's depiction of goodness lacks energy, depth, and intellectual insight so clearly pronounced in his portrayal of the dark side of humanity.

Dostoevsky's "positive" vision, however, is much more subtle and complex than a mere preaching of virtue. It is his poetics of life affirmation that reveals the real power of this vision. "The living life" (zhivaya zhizn ') is one of the novelist's favorite motifs, intricately woven in the fabric of all post-Siberian novels. The philosophical and spiritual connotations of this powerful motif are manifold: "the living life" brings together energy and empathy, Eros and Ethos, nature and deity. The life-affirming responses of Dostoevsky's characters range from unbridled sensuality to religious ecstasy, from brute "Karamazovism" to humble active love, from passionate intellectualism to the rediscovery of nature's splendor. This life-philosophy, while referring to the elemental and the primordial in human nature at the same time has very strong ethical, aesthetic, and religious overtones.

174 Evgenia V. Cherkasova

Over-rationalization, moral indifference, duplicity, and vanity are associated with a person's lack of appreciation for life. At the same time, love of life is practically synonymous with virtue, authenticity, beauty, and spiritual regener;ition.

This essay examin s Dostoevsky's evocative life-philosophy and its ethical implications. First, let us take a look at "philosophy of life" in general: if life is opposed to theory than what is "philosophy of life"? Would not it be a self-contradictory construction of the mind?

I.

In exploring philosophy of life - or what the German tradition aptly calls Lebensphilosophie - we inevitably find ourselves in the borderland between philosophy and literature. The genealogy of life-philosophy can be traced from Goethe to Schelling and Nietzsche in Germany, from Hugo and Balzac to Bergson in France, and from Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Solovyov to Pasternak in Russia. This is not just because "life" is as much a literary as a philosophical theme. As a worldview, Lebensphilosophie, with its emphasis on intuition rather than rational abstractions, with its reliance on lived experience rather than theoretical understanding, calls for an artistic, not analytical, means to express itself.

How can one describe life philosophically, "life" which could mean anything and everything? Life-philosophy, like life itself, thrives on shades of meaning and ambiguities. Even though "life" cannot be nailed down as a philosophical concept it can be depicted artistically. What may seem as an empty exercise to a strictly analytic thinker proves to be a perpetual fascination and great challenge for a philosopher-poet. Thus, in his diary Franz Kafka makes an unusually optimistic remark: "Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come." 1

The Diaries o f Franz Kcifka 1910-1923, ed. Max Brod and Joseph Kresh, trans. Martin Greenberg (New York: Schocken Books, 1976); October 18, 1921, entry 396.

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Poetics of Life Affinnation 175

For centuries, artists and philosophers of life have been in search for that "right word" which would capture the very movement of life, its inner dynamic, its ambiguity and innuendo. Even when "life" is used almost as a technical tenn by zealous interpreters - as with Nietzsche's life-principle, Bergson's elan vital, or Dostoevsky's "living life" - it continues to resist strict designations and definitions. Irreducible to abstractions of reason, Lebensphilosophie suggests its own rules and its own lexis. What is left is the writer as seer and hearer of life, and poetic language as the means to express his visions and auditions.

Dostoevsky's corpus contains a distinctive version oflife-philosophy sensitive to both harmonies and discords of human existence. This worldview draws from the novelist's extraordinary experiences of life and death, happiness and loss, as well as his unprecedented openness to the abyss oflife, where "all contradictions live together."

II.

One of the earliest written expressions of Dostoevsky's praise of life-force can be found in a note to his brother from the prison cell of Peter and Paul fortress on the day of his mock execution. In this letter Dostoevsky relates his terrifying yet triumphant near-death experience:

Brother! I haven't lost heart, I haven't despaired. Life is life everywhere; life is within ourselves, and not in the exterior. Next to me there will be people and to be a human being among people and remain a human always, in the midst of all possible misfortunes, to keep one's heart and not despair - this is life, this is the goal of life. I have realized this. This idea permeated my flesh and blood ... I still have a heart and the same flesh and blood, which can love, suffering, desire and

. remember, and that, after all is life! On voit le soleil! ... Life is a gift, life is happiness; every minute can be an eternity ofhappiness.2

In Dostoevsky's post-Siberian novels this spontaneous, profoundly personal communion with life gradually takes fonn of an all-encompassing existentialist worldview. Beginning with Notes from

·2 Letter to Mikhail Dostoevsky of December 22, 1849; PSS XVIII.I, 162, 164. Translation of these passages is mine.

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Underground, the "living life" unfolds as an artistic-ethical perspective based on an intricate psycho-biological imagery. In the underground we encounter an intellectually agitated loner who praises life, but is himself terrified by its persistent claims. In the second part of the book, we witness the underground man's .fatal confrontation with the "living life" expressed through Liza's selflessness and compassion. . But so "unaccustomed to life" as the anti-hero is, he drives it away forever by pressing a five-ruble bill in Liza's hand. After her departure, the underground man "races headlong after her," allegedly in order to "weep in repentance, to kiss her feet, to beg forgiveness ... "3 Needless to say, all these prospects turn out to be just an echo of the artificial, "bookish" romanticism on which he grew up.

Upon returning to his room, the underground man occupies himself by constructing theoretical justifications for his monstrosities. In order to stifle "the living pain in his heart," he quickly develops a theory of the purifying power of insult which is supposed to elevate Liza, "however vile the dirt that awaits her." As an intellectual, the anti-hero can certainly conjure up a pragmatic theory of purification through suffering; yet no theory, however elaborate, can help him to deal with the suffering of his heart. Interestingly, it is at this moment of genuine pain that he. offers the reader nothing less than vivid expose of the power of the living life. His accusations are keen as usual and poignantly describe his terror in the face of life:

[A]t times we feel a sort ofloathing for real "living life," and thereforecannot bear to be reminded of it. For we've reached a point where we regard real "living life" as almost a labor, almost a service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book. .. Take a closer look! We don't even know where the living lives now, or what it is, or what it'scalled! ... It's a burden for us even to be men - men with real, our own bodies and blood; we're ashamed of it, we consider it a disgrace, and keep trying to be some unprecedented omni-men. We're stillborn, and have long ceased to be born of living fathers, and we like this more and more. We're acquiring a taste for it. Soon we'll contrive to be born somehow from an idea. 4

Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Classics, 1993), 128. Ibid., 129-130.

Poetics of Life Affirmation 177

In these tragic words, we unmistakably hear Dostoevsky's own voice and his adamant diagnosis of his society and his century. The novelist considered estrangement from life one of the most dangerous diseases of his time. The underground man, who for twenty years cultivated "bookishness" and detachment from life, is clearly an expert on the issue. But what does the anti-hero know about the healing powers of the living l i fe- "a labor" of which he cannot bear to be reminded?

Indeed, the underground attack on everything artificial · and congealed remains just that - an attack of the intellect on itself. In the underground, lived experience is transformed into a slogan, and life -into a doctrine of life. But Dostoevsky's own personal struggle that took place backstage contrasts sharply with the underground chronicle. The novelist was precisely one of those "extinct" persons of flesh and blood, o;ver whom his anti-hero is grieving: he treasured his ideals because he discovered them through truly living his life, not by fabricating them as his heroes often do. The period when Dostoevsky was working on the Notes from Underground was darkened by the death of the two people closest to him - his wife Maria and, three months later, his brother Mikhail. "I suddenly found myself alone and simply terrified," Dostoevsky recounts a year later:

My entire life at one stroke broke into two. In one half, which I had lived through, was everything I had lived for, and in the other, still unknown half everything was strange and new, and there was not a single heart that could replace those two. Literally - I had nothing left for which to live ...

What remains from all the reserve of strength and energy in my soul is something troubled and disturbed, something close to despair. Worry, bitterness, a completely cold industriousness, the most abnormal state for me ... And yet it still seems to me that I am just now preparing to live. Funny, isn't it? The vitality of a cat.5

Dostoevsky has nothing to live for, but he rises up from the ashes of his wretched being and reclaims his life. Meanwhile his anti-hero excels at

Letter to A. Vrangel of May 31 and April 14, 1865; PSS XXVIIl.2, 116, 120. Quoted in Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Stir o f Liberation 1860-1865(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 369-370.

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stifling the impulses of life and retreats further and further into his "corner."

Dostoevsky's own life, full of real pain and compassion, suffering and overcoming, refracts in his multiple literary projects, one of which was his attempt to depict characters who consciously renounce life. This project commences with the cry from the underground. And it is by virtue of his extraordinary vitality as well as his ability to recognize the lack of life that Dostoevsky was able to hear the cry and narrate a fascinating underground story. In the words of the underground man's imaginary opponent:

You thirst for life, yet you yourself resolve life's questions with a logical tangle. And how importunate, how impudent your escapades, yet at the same time how frightened you are ... You may indeed have happened to suffer, but you do not have the least respect for your suffering. There is truth in you, too, but no integrity; out of the pettiest vanity you take your truth and display it, disgrace it, in the market place. 6

This merciless self-reproach captures the essence of the underground man's predicament. Unless he is genuinely involved in "life's questions," unless he embodies his knowledge and his truth, the anti-hero is destined to remain "still-born." For Dostoevsky, as for other existentialists and philosophers of life, the only truth that matters is the embodied, existential truth which is sustained in the living individual's committed, heart-felt relation to it. In order to be able to live with himself and with others - not just speculate about life - the underground man needs to start taking his own lived experiences seriously.

Yet Dostoevsky would not be himself if he did not allow this very truth to be subverted. The underground man remarks snidely: "To be sure, I myself have just made up all these words of yours. This, too, is from underground."7 Before we know it, the seemingly genuine, living words about truth and integrity are dropped like lifeless fossils. Dostoevsky allows this to happen intentionally in order to show that the darkened heart cannot be brought back to life by bloodless moralizing. Spiritual and moral liberation is not something the underground man could consciously achieve, even if he wanted to.

6 Notes from the Underground, 38. 7 Ibid., 38.


This anti-hero, a King Midas of the underground, touches the living, and they are immediately petrified. He does this first to his inner life: his disabling self-reflection stiffens his feelings, intentions, desires, and even his suffering. He whose inner being becomes an object of endless intellectual scrutiny, doubt, and mockery deprives it of its vital energy.

In subsequent novels Dostoevsky moves beyond the problematic of self-negating consciousness. As his philosophy of life deepens, his "anti-heroes" are no longer paradoxalists; they are actual harbingers of death - sadists, murderers, rapists. At the same time, the ethic of his positive characters is to a large extent based on life affirmation and

' openness to its elemental energies. The allegorical link between moral corruption and feeling of suffocation, darkness, noise, and lack of space is an integral part of this life-ethics. Likewise, moral regeneration is linked with the lively images of clear water, fresh air, light, and tranquility.• Both biologically and spiritually, a human being emerges as a conduit for mysterious life-giving forces, which sustain his vital connections to his loved ones, the world, the earth, and all nature.

This worldview also reflects one of the distinctive features of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, namely, its focus on the preservation of the unity of nature and grace. 8 According to the Orthodox patristic teaching, a human being coming to God does not relinquish nature because, "God is the reality that sustains both humanity and nature." This theme is not only embedded in Dostoevsky's life-philosophy, but it is carried further to suggest that if the person renounces his belonging to the earth, other people, and nature, his heart "grows dim" and inevitably becomes susceptible to evil. At the same time, the opposite movement, toward openness to the "living life," exhibits an immense spiritual power to heal the sores of the heart. Let us recall the detective's advice to Raskolnikov: "Don't be too clever about it, just give yourself directly to life, without reasoning; don't worry - it will carry you straight to the shore and set you on your feet. "9

It takes Raskolnikov a long time to appreciate this prophetic saying.

Sergei Hackel, "The Religious Dimension: Vision or Evasion? Zosima's Discourse in The Brothers Karamazov," in New Essays on Dostoevsky, ed. Malcolm V. Jones and Garth M. Terry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 146. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, translated and annotated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 460.

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He who "kills life" by committing a murder has to go through a grandiose torment before he can "come back to life." Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov simultaneously resists "the living life" and is drawn to its salutary sources; step by step, diffidently, his sense of belonging is restored. Currents of life, which he tries to ignore, often reach him through irresistibly physical encounters; when the little girl Polechka spontaneously hugs and kisses Raskolnikov, he feels "as if he were on the moon and came back to people." "What happened?" asks Dostoevsky in the Notebook for Crime and Punishment. He answers: "Nothing more than a sense of life. It is possible to live, then, live the same life as others live, live for others and with others."1

0 This and numerous other flashes of life gradually lead Raskolnikov through the murk of his cultivated separation to the very end where he suddenly · finds himself at Sonya's feet, his heart overflowing with love. They are raised from the "dead" and "the heart of each [holds] infinite sources of life for the heart of the other."11 As the narrator concludes, "life took place of dialectics."

III.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky devotes much attention to the notion of life in a still broader context. A human being's unique receptivity to the living life evolves on different levels - personal and communal, religious and secular. Sven Linner in his study of the novel claims that Dostoevsky assigns a key position to·the notion of life in the Brothers Karamazov and that "no other notion in the novel has a comparable function; this applies even to words such as God, the people, the Church, love, etc. 'Life' is to a greater extent than any of these tem1S a fundamental element in the structure of the novel. "12

Indeed, virtually all major characters contribute their voices to the

10 Translation of this passage is mine, from the Moscow edition of the Notebooks to Crime and Punishment in Dostoevsky, Prestuplenie i nakazanie (Moscow: Nauka, 1970), 619n.

11 Crime and Punishment, 549. 12 Sven Linner, Starets Zosima in the Brothers Karamazov: A Study in the

Mimesis o f Virtue (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1975), 184.


"hymn" of life orchestrated by the novelist. In Book Six, devoted to the life and teaching of "the Russian monk," we find a series of highly symbolic stories recounting radical personal conversions from cynicism and alienation to love and forgiveness based on the new appreciation of the fullness of life. These stories form an integral part of elder Zosima' s

, religious message which passionately upholds the love of "all of God's creation." The teaching resonates in Alyosha's elated heart when he, alone in the woods and devastated by the infamous "smell of corruption" at the elder' s funeral, cries and kisses the earth and eventually discovers spiritual strength in the grandeur of Life. The passage describing this mystical moment is one of the most poetic, emotionally nuanced depictions of nature in Dostoevsky's oeuvre:

Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon, the still-dim Milley Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn flowers in the flower beds near the house had fallen asleep until morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens. The mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars (362; XIV, 328).

The nocturnal harmony of the silent earth and the stars reveals to Alyosha that his indignation on behalf of his beloved elder and his impulsive rebellion against the order of things defeat the very ideals he holds dear. Alyosha realizes that neither Zosima's spiritual legacy, nor his message of active love, can be served by exasperated demands for justice. In this moving episode, life's magnificence reflects the inner truth of Zosima' s teaching about universal forgiveness, love, and "touching of other worlds."

Beauty, tranquility, and innocence unquestionably play an important role in Dostoevsky's poetics of life affinnation; but life also manifests itself in a stormy, Dionysian element. This boisterous dimension of life and humanity is embodied by Alyosha's older brother Dmitry. Endowed with an explosive temperament, unruly passions, "insect sensuality," and a tender, loving heart, Dmitry describes himself as a true "Karamazov," referring to an indiscriminate thirst for life, adventure, and amorous exploits. His tumultuous existence is driven by irreconcilable contradictions, as he himself puts it in the unparalleled


"confession of the passionate heart": "Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that gannent in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be" (107; XIV, 99).

Joyful appreciation of life sustains Dmitry through many hardships, many of which are of his own making. As his story unfolds, we witness a radical transformation of raw vitality into a subtle awareness of one's responsibility for one's actions and intentions. At the end of the novel, inspired by the mystical vision of the "suffering babe," Dmitiy freely accepts punishment for the crime he did not commit. While under investigation, Dmitry responds from prison with the euphoric: "I am! In a thousand torments - I am; writhing under torture - but I am. Locked up in a tower, but still I exist, I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, still I know it is. And the whole of life is there - in knowing that the sun is" (592; XV, 31 ).

Dmitry's hymn to the sun captures Dostoevsky's own hard-earned prison revelation: life is a divine gift which should be treasured under any circumstances. The spirit of life is infinitely more precious than so-called "logic" or "dialectic." Western philosophy proper began with the Socratic aphorism which asserts that "the unexamined life is not worth living." In Dostoevsky's works we witness its dramatic reversal: the "unlived" life is not worth examining. This theme is the pinnacle of the famous dialogue in Book Five between Alyosha and his brother Ivan, a philosopher-dilettante. Ivan confesses:

There is still an awful lot of centripetal force on our planet, Alyosha, I want to live, and I do live, even if it be against logic. Though I do not believe in the order of things, still the sticky little leaves that come out in the spring are dear to me, the blue sky is dear to me, some people are dear to me ... Such things you love not with your mind, not with logic, but with your insides, your guts, you love your first young strength (230; XIV, 209-210).

It is in this declaration that Alyosha hears a signal of I van's future redemption: "I'm tenibly glad that you want so much to live. I think that everyone should love life before everything else in the world." "Love life more than its meaning?" asks Ivan. "Certainly," Alyosha answers: "love it before logic, as you say, certainly before logic, and


only then will I also understand its meaning" (231; XIV, 210). Alyosha adds joyfully that, because oflvan's love oflife, "half of his

work is done." When Ivan inquires about the second half, the younger brother answers with the mysterious: "Resurrecting your dead, who may never have died." It is European sages - philosophers, scientists, mystics - that Ivan calls his "precious dead." He wants to go to Europe to weep over their graves in commemoration of their "ardent past life, passionate faith in their deeds, their. truth, their struggle, their science." Resunecting the dead would mean for Ivan to revive the vital connection with their faith, their spirit, their truth; and reclaim the living legacy of the European civilization, infuse old ideas with new energy and passion for truth, a dream which clearly reflects Dostoevsky's own vision of Russia's role in spiritual "resunection" of the "land of holy wonders."

Ivan's verbal disclosure, as well as Alyosha's response to it, reveals the essential organic-ethical-religious bond between love and life, passion and vitality. By virtue of its ability to love, the human heart becomes an inexhaustible source of life; and because of its organic attunement to the living life and God's world, the heart is capable of loving. Alyosha senses that the beginning of Ivan's salvation is his love of life. This reflects Dostoevsky's life-long conviction: personal redemption is always manifested in love, whereas hell is the inability to love, brought by humans upon themselves when they reject "God and life."

In contrast to the rationalist and utilitarian moral theories, Dostoevsky's ethics focuses on vital, active love free from both social conditioning and the constraints of rationality. While the rationalists insist that ethics must be detached from nature, the human body, and emotions, Dostoevsky's moral imperative refers to the entire person in the midst of the "living life." It is important to note that the novelist does not oppose reason as such. Instead, he rejects the hegemony of detached reasoning - or what he calls the "three-dimensional, Euclidean mind" - which tends to reduce all the paradoxes and controversies of human existence to the laws of necessity and universality.

For Dostoevsky, an ethical decision must be blessed by the loving heart; otherwise, it is a mere idea, however "sensible," intellectually sophisticated, or tempting it may be. Heartless ideas breed hatred, cynicism, and misanthropy. The novelist is also concerned with the


impact of moral indifference and reason's ability to move "beyond good and evil": indeed, what if reason takes the side of evil? What if evil is done for the sake of good?

Where reasons for -good and reasons for evil clash, the ultimate verdict can only come from the heart. Recall Raskolnikov' s rational speculations that justify the murder of the "ugly old hag." Raskolnikov' s mind is feverishly conjuring up philosophical theories of spiritual superiority, intellectual domination, and practical benefaction of humankind. Meanwhile, his heart is lacerated with pain caused by his "transgression." Not until he goes through all the spiritual torment does he become free from the "deadly temptation." In The Brothers Karamazov we encounter another "benefactor of mankind," the infamous Grand Inquisitor, who constructs brilliant arguments in favor of totalitarian rule of the chosen few over the millions of the "weak and pitiful." The Inquisitor's sinister rationality seems to prevail; yet at the end of his speech, Christ responds with a silent kiss which "glows in the Inquisitor's heart." As a symbol of unconditional love and compassionate acknowledgement of the old man's suffering, Christ's silent gesture speaks directly to Inquisitor's suppressed humanity and puts into question the alleged truth of his arguments.

Meanwhile, on the margins of the poema about the Grand Inquisitor, Ivan Karamazov tries to persuade Alyosha that the eternal questions of good and evil and of the meaning of human existence are "unsuitable to a Euclidean mind, an earthly mind, created with a concept of only three dimensions" (235; XIV, 214). Advising Alyosha to stay away from thinking about "the offensive comedy of human contradictions," Ivan himself is deeply engaged in it. He is tormented, but not because his "Euclidean mind" finds his rebellion against God's creation self-contradictory. The pain comes from his heart, which is capable of superior spiritual torment and cannot live in peace with the destructive conclusions of his mind.

Zosima's prophetic words capture Ivan's predicament by pointing out the emptiness of his "dialectical" arguments and social diatribes: "for the time being you, too, are toying, out of despair, with your magazine articles and drawing-room discussions, without believing in your own dialectics and smirking at them with your heart aching inside you .... But thank the Creator that he has given you a lofty heart, capable of being tormented by such torment" (70; XIV, 65). Yet up to the very


end of the novel Ivan chooses not to listen to his heart, whose "child-like convictions" do not make sense in the "three-dimensional" world of his mind.

Ivan's "dialectics" indeed proves that on merely empirical or logical ground an attempt to justify the world and the necessity of moral choice is futile. Bat Dostoevsky's philosophy o f life is designed to address these very questions. Elder Zosima, whose very name suggests the connection with "life" (it derives from the Greek zosimos - "living") famously says that when it comes to questions of faith, the meaning of suffering, and human existence, "one cannot prove anything, but it is possible to be convinced." It is only in the process of living one's life, empathizing with others, being involved in their problems that a person can hope to become convinced. In short, such conviction comes from active vital love. Zosima speaks: "Love all of God's creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. I f you love each thing you will perceive the mystery of God in things" (318-319; XIV, 289).

Of course, Dostoevsky does not just respond to arguments with sermons. To address Ivan's "dialectical" rebellion, he calls upon the hagiographic tradition of recounting a life (zhitie). Zosima's word is zhitiinoe slovo - a word that arises from the depth of his life. Both literally and allegorically, Zosima's speech bears witness to his life and the lives of those who helped him to become "convinced": his dying brother Markel, his meek servant, and the "mysterious visitor." The reader receives the word from Alyosha, Zosima's "dear, quiet boy," who does not merely record the teaching of the starets, but bears witness to his love. This is precisely what makes Zosima's words justified in an "inner sense" 13 - they are the living words of love, the testimony of the elder' s heart.

Zosima urges his followers to recognize love as a precious gift from God. Like all divine gifts, love also requires hard work and perseverance. As a spiritual junction of divine grace and human striving, active love is the highest expression of what it means to be human and fully alive. In Zosima' s teaching, "life" emerges as a unifying motif that joins the palpable, vitalistic rhythms of existence and its spiritual melody.

13 Letter to Pobedonostsev of August 24, 1879; PSS XXX.1, 122.


Throughout his post-Siberian novels, Dostoevsky's life-philosophy addresses a pressing concern with humanity's tragic, self-imposed alienation from its vital spiritual sources; it also calls for a harmonious, loving communion of humanity, nature, and deity. It is this all-encompassing vision of liff, the artistic celebration of its power to counter self-defeating pride and alienation that forms the core of the novelist's response to the devastating cynicism of his tormented anti-heroes.

The Poetics of Life Affirmation

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