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69 Chapter Four The Corridor of Mirrors in The Idiot KRA S IVO E AND P REK RASN O E: TWO CONCEPTIONS OF BEAUTY As publicist and editor of Vremia, in his polemics with the literary journals Russkii vestnik, Sovremennik, and Otechestvennye zapiski, Dostoevsky had a strong aesthetic platform, making confident, sanguine, straightforward judgments : “Beauty is inherent in everything healthy, everything living most fully, and it is an essential need of the human organism. It is harmony, the guarantee of peace, it embodies the ideals of man and mankind.”1 In his response to the socially minded critics who proclaimed the uselessness of pure art in general and Pushkin’s poetry in particular, Dostoevsky advocated the benefit (pol’za) of beauty: “Beauty is useful because it is beauty, because in mankind there is an eternal need for beauty and for its highest ideal. If a nation preserves the ideal of beauty and the need for it, then there is a need for health, a norm, and this is a guarantee of the highest development of this nation.”2 In Dostoevsky’s fictional world, however, the notion of beauty is multifaceted . Dostoevsky’s approach to beauty is dialectical not only because he presents various aesthetic viewpoints and opinions, including those that may be contrary to his own, but also because in real life, as an object of our perception and reflection, beauty does not exist in isolation; it is inseparable from other spheres of life, which have their own polarities and challenges. This chapter considers beauty in its complex relation to three adjacent notions —(1) goodness, which reveals the opposition between physical beauty and moral beauty, (2) charm (prelest’), which endows beauty with both inspirational and destructive powers, and (3) passion, an emotion that can be viewed in positive or in negative terms. The famous expression “Beauty will save the world,” often referred to as Dostoevsky’s personal creed and prophecy, remains double-edged and double-voiced in The Idiot. Neither the author of the novel nor his characters ever formulate this idea in an affirmative way (as in another famous formulation , “Everything is permitted if God does not exist,” from The Broth- Chapter Four 70 ers Karamazov). It is jotted down by a secondary character, Ippolit, in the form of a question addressed to Prince Myshkin: “Is it true, Prince, that you once said ‘beauty’ would save the world? Gentlemen ,” he cried loudly to them all, “the prince insists that beauty will save the world! And I insist that he has such playful thoughts because he is in love now. Gentlemen, the prince is in love; as soon as he came in today, I was convinced of it. Don’t blush, Prince, or I’ll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya told me what you said.” (382) Ippolit’s question hangs in midair. Myshkin neither supports the idea of beauty’s redemptive potential nor objects to it. Earlier in the novel, he explains his reservations: “Beauty is difficult to judge; I am not prepared yet. Beauty is a riddle” (77). In the drafts to the novel, the phrase “Beauty will save the world” is followed by an enigmatic note, “Two kinds of beauty” (dva obrazchika krasoty ), allowing a multiplicity of readings—this statement can imply the dichotomy of ideal and earthly beauty, or it can allude to beauty’s redemptive and destructive powers.3 In his foundational monograph Dostoevsky’s Quest for Form, Robert Louis Jackson views the “two kinds of beauty” not as objectively posited but as subjectively experienced: “To Dostoevsky it is not beauty that is ambivalent , but man who experiences two kinds of beauty—not only the true, higher beauty, but also a low order of aesthetic sensation.”4 Jackson observes that writer’s understanding of beauty is reminiscent of the ancient Greek canon. As is clear from Dostoevsky’s essay “Mr. —bov and the Question of Art” (1861), Jackson maintains, the aesthetic ideal for Dostoevsky was the sublime beauty of the Apollo of Belvedere, Venus of Milo, and Venus of Medici.5 At the same time, Jackson stresses, Dostoevsky’s aesthetics is based on the Orthodox concept of image (obraz) and therefore is inherently Christian : “The icon, particularly the iconographic representation of the Madonna , appears in Dostoevsky’s artistic universe as a religious-aesthetic symbol of great importance—a literal image of beauty toward which man turns in reverence and longing.”6 He concludes that “the Platonic and Christian ideals of...

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