De-aesthetization of the Syllable and Sacralization of the Word in F. M. Dostoevsky’s Novel “Poor People”

The article offers an understanding of F. M. Dostoevsky’s first novel in the context of a new aesthetic created by the writer, the essence of which is expressed in the deliberate de-aestheticization of the narrative, producing the illusion of artlessness and tongue-tie. The subject of Dostoevsky’s artistic play in “Poor People” also turns out to be fine literature in its sentimental and romantic interpretation, the axiology of which is being decanonized. The long-standing “maidenhood,” daydreaming that is divorced from the fundamental foundations of the life of the novel’s main character are the author’s evaluative metaphor of the once influential style. Rataziev’s “delicious” literature, the commercial product of a clever cynical writer represents even greater degradation of the romantic, satirically depicted in Dostoevsky’s novel. Dostoevsky conducts his dialogue with Pushkin and Gogol in the framework of artistic rivalry. The author combines the worlds of Gogol and Pushkin in “Poor Folk,” balancing the illusory and the real. The humane and philanthropic tendency or the social theme, which the writer’s lifetime critics saw in the novel, is transformed by Dostoevsky into a metaphysical issue, which will contribute to the development of Christian realism in the writer’s future work. In the context of socialist utopias, “Poor folk” appear as their artistic negation: paradise on earth is impossible, and Dostoevsky is only searching for ways to find it in the human heart. A saving thought arises: man is the Light for man.