Toncho Zhechev The Novel of the Institute of Literature
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Summary/Abstract
Subject: Литературни изследванияKeywords: романът, Института, литература
Averintsev's article Towards Interpreting the Symbolism of the Myth about Oedipus analyzes not what Sophocles has done with the mythological plot, but rather what he has found in this plot as already existing. The author's task is to make clear the meaningful relations which were the tragedy's semantic canvas and which Sophocles had to operate with. Therefore, the article does not discuss problems concerning the tragedy's artistic aspects. Moreover, Averintsev consciously investigates the mythological symbolism only inside the Greco-Roman world and quotes parallels within the Antiquity - from Homer to Proclus. According to him, the main task of the history of culture is to scrutinize the new interpretations of meanings but yet it is necessary to know what actually has been interpreted. Subsequently, he does not focus on the connotations of the tragedy itself but of the myth about Oedipus.
The article examines the unfinished final chapter of Tzvetan Stoyanov’s “The Genius and His Mentor” in light of a recent claim according to which Smerdyakov is not the actual perpetrator of the murder in “The Brothers Karamazov.” How will our understanding of Dostoevsky’s incomplete novel change – if at all – in the case that it turns out that its plot incorporates not only a judicial error but also a cunning trap for its readers, that is, an intended readerly error? Stoyanov’s analysis, which is also a dramatic “novel about the novel,” brings the problem of doubles in Dostoevsky’s work and the splitting in the psychoanalytic sense of the word (Spaltung) to the forefront. At the same time, it constantly renews the question, “Who killed our father?”
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