Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2025 season is here. The 2024 archive is here. This episode, the sixth in a sequence on modern western world literature, concerns the first half of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. We consider the novel’s context in Russian religious, cultural, and literary history alongside the author’s biography; then we investigate its dialogic, interior, and oneiric literary techniques, spanning sentimentalism, realism, and modernism, and its themes, including alcoholism, sexual exploitation, the nature of crime, the instability of the self, and the deficiencies of modern western worldviews like materialism, socialism, and the worship of great men. The first 27 minutes, including an argument against the received idea that Dostoevsky is a writer for adolescents, are free; a paid subscription will grant you access to the rest—and to The Invisible College’s ever-expanding archive of episodes on the classics. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall:
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