The burden of vision: Dostoevsky's spiritual art - Softcover

Panichas, George A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802816711 ISBN 13: 9780802816719

Publisher: W. B. Eerdmans, 1977

Synopsis

George A. Panichas’ essays on Dostoevsky’s art and thought have gained wide praise for their critical power and insight. The Burden of Vision, culminating twenty years of studying, teaching, and writing on Dostoevsky, Professor Panichas devotes himself to a careful assessment of the religious themes and meanings of Dostoevsky’s major novels: Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils, A Raw Youth, and The Brothers Karamazou. Throughout, Professor Panichas sees Dostoevsky’s religious imagination in its radical, prophetic, and eschatological dimensions. “Dostoevsky’s novels push the reader into the relentless complexity of moral war in which no human emotion is spared and no intricacy is reduced.” Focusing on the pervasive spiritual consciousness at work in Dostoevsky’s art, Panichas views the Russian author not as a religious doctrinaire, but as a visionary whose “five great novels constitute a sequential meditation on man’s human and superhuman destiny.” “Dr. Panichas’ book is a major event in a long history of critical literature on Dostoevsky. It follows, in its own way, the tradition of such religiously inspired and profound critics as N. Berdyaev, V. Ivanov and Romano Guardini. It is the best from the pen of an American author, comparable only to G. Steiner’s ‘Tolstoy or Dost0evsky’. Both Panichas’ understanding of Orthodox Christian mysticism and his subtle critical gift have enabled him to reach that point of intellectual empathy with Dostoevsky which has eluded most secular-minded critics.” SERGEI LEVITZKY Emeritus, Georgetown University GEORGE A. PANICHAS holds the Ph.D. from Nottingham University, England, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of the United Kingdom. Among his numerous writings is The Reverent Discipline: Essays in Literary Criticism and Culture (1974). Since 1962 he has been professor of English at the University of Maryland at College Park, and since 1984, editor of the quarterly Modern Age.

About this title

About the Author

George A. Panichas is professor emeritus of English at the University of Maryland and editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review. Among his numerous writings are The Reverent Discipline: Essays in Literary Criticism and Culture and The Courage of Judgment: Essays in Criticism, Culture and Society.

Review

"The volume is aptly named Dostoevsky's Spiritual Art . It is the product of more than twenty years of Panichas's teachning and writing about Dostoevsky's oeuvre. In focusing upon the relationship between literature and religion the author recognizes that he is swimming against the current of contemporary liberalism that "resists any standards that make for moral centrality and spiritual tradition... One cannot put this book down without experiencing the desire to reread some of Dostoevsky's great novels."

—Metaphysics

"A brief review cannot do justice to the profundity, erudition, and spiritual as well as moral candor displayed in George Panichas's treatise... Panichas's style combines lucidity, subtlety, and immediacy with a convincing eloquence which derives its force from a vision of undeniable truth... Hopefully, Panichas's work will receive the widest possible circulation among academic specialists, literary critics, and educated readers."

—Heinrich A. Stammler, Slavic Review

"One cannot put this book down without experiencing the desire to read some of Dostoevesky's great novels. As Panichas makes clear, Crime and Punishment and the Brothers karamazov are part of the Western literary canon."

—FCS Quarterly

"[T]he deep erudition in these pages is alive with a sympathy and a sensitivity--at times even a passion--that bespeak a real sharing in the author's prophetic vision. As few works of criticism do, this is a book that deserves its place on the same shelf with the inspired fiction it examines."

—Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

"Dr. Panichas' book on Dostoevsky is, indeed, a new milestone in the immense body of literature on the Russian genius."

—Sergei Levitzky, Novoye Russkoye Slovo (Russian Daily)  

Edition details

• Publisher: W. B. Eerdmans
• Publication date: 1977
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802816711
• ISBN 13: 9780802816719
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216