I.A. Bunin and F.M. Dostoevsky: Some Reflections on Poetics

Abstract

Ivan Bunin’s works have long been considered in the broad context of Russian and world literature. An original modern author, he inherited traditions and created new models in poetics. Among the writers whose heritage Bunin refers to, Fyodor Dostoevsky seems most alien and divergent to him as a result of the striking incompatibility of their literary languages. An outstanding master of style, Bunin contradicts Dostoevsky’s novels with their stream-of-consciousness, mental candor, searching for God and truth, and, let us be honest, with all their evident neglect of the aesthetic part of the text. Bunin also exposes a deep abyss in a human soul, but his fine style is a real proof for the recognition of new symbols and philosophy. Closer penetration into the texts of Bunin leads to almost unexpected discoveries. The Petersburg image of Dostoevsky inter alia affects the “Paris text” of Bunin. Already in his pre-revolutionary works the village as locus amoenus (in the broadest sense as nature or manor) opposes the locus horribilis of the metropolis in “Dostoyevsky style,” with all its civilizational gains and losses ( Looped Ears ). Bunin brings many strokes outlined by his predecessor to its logical conclusion, first of all Godlessness, a total abandonment of a human soul in a megalopolis. Being organically included in Bunin’s literary work, Dostoevsky is his direct predecessor in the verbalization of urban landscapes ( Un petit accident ). Bunin turns toward Dostoevsky and if not consciously then typologically relies on his traditions. The most elusive side of Bunin’s nature, the thinker, becomes evident due to a small comparative analysis of two strikingly dissimilar poetics.