Abstract

Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy throughout most of his life, although debate continues on exactly what kind of affliction he had. Nonetheless, the disease finds its way into several of his major fictions, and nowhere is an epileptic character more developed than in The Idiot. This essay gives the affliction a voice; it studies how epilepsy becomes embodied in both Prince Myshkin and his dark double, Parfyon Rogozhin and how they are, in their contrary impulses of universal harmony and absolute desire, dual aspects of the Russian soul.

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