The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky's crowning achievement, is a tale of patricide & family rivalry that embodies the moral & spiritual dissolution of an entire society (Russia in the 1870s). It created a national furor comparable only to the excitement stirred by the publication, in 1866, of Crime & Punishment. To Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov captured the quintessence of Russian character in all its exaltation, compassion, & profligacy. Significantly,...

A man must endure relentless physical and mental punishments as retribution for his act of murder.

Selected critical interpretations of Dostoyevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment."

Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-law student, kills an old pawnbroker and her sister, perhaps for money, perhaps to prove a theory about being above the law. He comes to police attention through normal procedures (he was the victim's client), but his outbursts make him the prime suspect of the clever Porfiry. Meanwhile, life swirls around Raskolnikov: his mother and sister come to the city followed by two older men seeking his sister's hand; he meets...

Russian literature of the 19th century is among the richest, most profound, and most human traditions in the world. This course explores this tradition by focusing on four giants: Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. Their works had an enormous impact on Russian understanding of the human condition. And, just as importantly, these works have been one of Russia's most significant exports: Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,...

"Co-Winner of the Etkind Prize, European University at St. Petersburg" "Awards for Frank's Dostoevsky Volumes: National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography 1984 - Los Angeles Times Book Prize - 2 James Russell Lowell Prizes - 2 Christian Gauss Awards" Joseph Frank is professor emeritus of Slavic and comparative literature at Stanford and Princeton. The five volumes of his Dostoevsky biography, published between 1976 and 2002, won...