Dostoevsky and Poe: Conceptions of the Fantastic

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Dostoevsky and Poe: Conceptions of the Fantastic

Content

Introduction

1. History of Studies on Poe and Dostoevsky

1.1 A Few Words on Vremya

1.2 The Question of Influence

2. Specifics of the Fantastic in Dostoevsky and Poe

2.1 Dostoevsky found Poe's use of the fantastic "capricious" because Poe

2.2 Dostoevsky, Poe, and Fantastic Realism

3. The Problem of Psychological Analysis in Dostoevsky and Poe

4. Alienation, the Perverse, and Utopia

5. The ridiculous uniformity of behavior among the denizens of Rotterdam is striking

6. Doubles in Poe and Dostoevsky

7. Final Considerations: The Fantastic Landscape, Rational Madness, and Parody

Conclusions

Bibliography

Introduction

In 1861, three short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe--"The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," and "The Devil in the Belfry"--as well as Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, were all published in Dostoevsky's literary journal, Vremya (Time). Dostoevsky wrote an introduction to Poe's three short stories, published in Volume I of his journal, in which he discussed Poe's art, highlighting certain elements that apparently particularly intrigued him. Several critical articles have been written about the similarity of Dostoevsky and Poe's artistic style and also to the question of Poe's possible influence on Dostoevsky. All of the existing critical work that we could find on the given topic in both the Russian and English language will be analyzed here, with the exception of a new book--По, Бодлер, Достоевский: Блеск и нищета национального гения--which was published shortly before the completion of this study and will be included in the next elaboration of our investigation.

Most of these critical studies use as their basis Dostoevsky's introduction to Poe's three short stories. Interestingly, only one instance of critical reflection has been found regarding Dostoevsky's publication of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym in Volume II of Vremya in 1861. Perhaps this is due to the facts that Dostoevsky did not write an introduction to this work and there are not such obvious parallels between Poe's novel and Dostoevsky's writing subsequent to 1861, as is the case with Poe's three tales. Nonetheless, we have attempted to supply some critical analysis to this question, believing that Poe's only novel reflects many of the same characteristics of artistic style that Dostoevsky highlighted in his introduction to Poe's three short stories.

As the title of this study--"Dostoevsky and Poe: Conceptions of the Fantastic"--suggests, its primary concern will revolve around the fantastic genre and the specific treatments that Dostoevsky and Poe apply to this genre. Encompassed by, and related to, this generic question are other moments of similarity between Poe and Dostoevsky, related to matters of psychology as well as social and political issues contemporaneous to the two authors. Particular focus will be given to such of these elements that suggest the possibility of Dostoevsky's being influenced by Poe.

The major questions that this study seeks to address are as follows: Why did Dostoevsky pick these specific three tales of Poe to be published in his very first tome of Vremya, and why did he choose to publish Poe's only novel in his second tome of the same journal? Did Poe influence Dostoevsky, and, if yes, in what particular ways and to what extent?

1. History of Studies on Poe and Dostoevsky

The question of Dostoevsky's kinship to Edgar Allan Poe, as well as Poe's possible influence on the great Russian writer, is first treated to extended critical analysis, as far we have been able to ascertain, by L. P. Grossman in 1918. In this book, which analyzes Dostoevsky's literary influences, just over four pages are dedicated specifically to a study of Dostoevsky's relationship to the American author. L. P. Grossman offers a penetrating analysis of this literary relationship, and we lead off our study with a summary of it because he identifies many of the topics that later researchers will return to and that will inform our investigation. Moreover, it remains one of the most insightful studies ever conducted on our theme, despite being the oldest. Only in 1942 would the problem be taken up by a critic working in US academia--Vladimir Astrov. Since 1918, the question has been discussed in some dozen articles and books, with seven articles dedicated specifically to Dostoevsky's relation to Poe. In addition, as mentioned previously, a new book dedicated to the topic will be released in spring of 2017, По, Бодлер, Достоевский: Блеск и нищета национального гения, which will be analyzed in the next iteration of the current study.

Because L. P. Grossman and Astrov provided the first two analyses on our topic and defineed many of questions and moments of correspondence between our two writers that would be taken up by subsequent critics, we will summarize their research in the following chapter. After thus framing many of the general directions and thematic investigations that the rest of this study will follow, we then briefly discuss the medium in which Dostoevsky published and wrote about Poe, his literary journal Vremya (Time), followed by a brief investigation of the fantastic genre and then by analyses of the most important themes occurring in Dostoevsky and Poe's works.

L. P. Grossman begins his article with some highly relevant statements: "Бытъ можетъ, изъ вс?хъ писателей, когда либо прочианныхъ Достоевскимъ, самымъ родственнымъ ему оказался Эдгаръ По. Американскiй новеллистъ раскылъ передъ нимъ школу ужаса, отм?тившую р?зкими чертами его поздн?йшую манеру. Только съ начала 60-хъ годовъ, когда Достоевскiй познакомился съ разсказами По, въ его творчеств? начинают? сгущаться характерныя черты острогипнотизирующаго ужаса." Гроссман, Л.П. Библиотека Достоевского. Одесса, 1919, 115.

L. P. Grossman thus finds not only an extraordinary kinship between our two authors, but also notes Poe's influence on Dostoevsky, particularly in regard to horror. On the one hand, L. P. Grossman convinces us that there is abundant material for investigation, but on the other, his statements suggest that it may be difficult to separate a similarity from actual influence. Nonetheless, the fact that both Poe and Dostoevsky's brands of terror are almost always treated in a fantastic manner, as suggested by L.P. Grossman's mention of "hypnotizing horror," gives us reason to hope that the conceptual framework of this investigation--that is, an analysis of the fantastic as treated by both writers--is a fertile ground, and perhaps the most fertile ground, for exploring the question of Poe's influence on Dostoevsky.

L. P. Grossman claims that Poe's life of suffering and tragedy caused him to write with "hysterical tension" and "sick imagination," which is also commonly met with in Dostoevsky's prose. In L. P. Grossman's remarks we see evidence that Grossman was probably exposed to the exaggerated and misleading accounts of Poe, originally propagated by R. W. Griswold and in turn glorified by Baudelaire (and other subsequent biographers of Poe), whose translations were the versions of Poe that first reached Russia and that were commonly believed, largely until Quinn's definitive biography of Poe published in 1941. Be that as it may, according to Grossman, psychologically pathological passion and crime and an eternal inclination to descriptions of the perversion of human nature and all sorts of strange deviations from normal morality are all normal elements of Poe's work. Grossman considers that the skillful description of hallucinations and nervous fits, madness and nightmares, and cleverly realistic ways of explaining the appearance of ghosts, as well as the constant exacerbation of the subconscious, culminating in the effect of piercing terror, undoubtedly brings Poe very close to the creation of Smerdyakov.

But Grossman notes more than simply an obsession for the dark themes of terror and psychological illness in Poe; it is Poe's perspicacious penetration into the psychology of terror and his skill at communicating such states on the page, as well as his constant pull toward extremes and toward the limits of consciousness, that mark Poe as a kindred spirit to Dostoevsky: "Авторъ "Лигейи" разсмотр?лъ въ челов?к? ту таинственную тягу къ природной извращенности, которая постоянно заставляетъ его превращаться въ злод?я и палаца. Его типичные герои предвтавляютъ собою см?съ титаническаго и больного, воплащая ту раскольниковую жажду подвига, которая разростается на опасной почв? бол?зненно взвинченной воли и искупается полнымъ упадкомъ нервной д?ятельности. Вся жизнъ ихъ сплетается изъ ц?пи необыкновенныхъ событiй, фатальныхъ совпаденiй и загадочныхъ случайностей." Гроссман, Л.П. Библиотека Достоевского. Одесса, 1919, С. 116.

There is a great deal of material that is highly relevant to the present study within these two sentences of Grossman's. First, that both Poe and Dostoevsky were obsessed with the mysterious perversities that lead people to commit crimes and turn them evil marks an important point of thematic continuity between the two writers, and one that becomes more readily apparent after Dostoevsky published Poe in Vremya in 1861. Second, and less evident, is Grossman's observation that both Poe and Dostoevsky's characters are driven toward the superhuman, the impossible, the transcendent; however, this impulse often leads them to mental and spiritual illness and propels them to murder. L. P. Grossman is not the only critic that we will examine that makes a direct connection between Raskolnikov and Poe's tormented characters.

There is a plethora of examples of Poe's narrator's being driven compulsively to the superhuman while finding madness instead, and indeed we need look no further to find a prime example of this than the very first lines of the first story of Poe's that Dostoevsky published: "TRUE!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story." Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. London: Penguin Books, 1982. P. 303.

Finally, L. P. Grossman notes that such characters experience life as full of "extraordinary events, fatal coincidence and mysterious accidents" Гроссман, Л.П. Библиотека Достоевского. Одесса, 1919. С. 116. --with this, we are firmly within the realm of the fantastic, as will be explored below. Examples of this characteristic of Poe's art are equally plentiful, and once again, it suffices to peruse the stories of Poe that Dostoevsky published in Vremya to find such an example. From "The Black Cat" we read, "My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified--have tortured--have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror--to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place--some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects." Poe, 223.

Grossman also highlights the importance of the fact that Dostoevsky printed three of Poe's tales and his only novel in the very first two volumes of his journal Vremya. He notes that "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" are particularly typical of Poe's oeuvre: "Въ обоихъ разсказахъ р?зкими штихами нам?чена психологiя преступника, запутавшегося въ своихъ угрызенiяхъ и укрывательствахъ до полнаго безумiя и непроиавольнаго сознанiя своей вины. Это блестящiе подготовительные этюды и эскизные образцы къ будущей психологiи Раскольникова. Непреодолимая власть преступленiя надъ сов?стью совершившаго его и в?чная тяга убiйцы къ заколдованному кругу своей неминуемой гибели--весь этотъ жуткiй фатализмъ, толкающiй хитр?йшаго преступника къ неизб?жному наказанiю, очерченъ Эдгаромъ По съ необыкновенною сжатостью и силою. Перечитывая эти маленькiе разсказы, въ которыхъ испов?ди убiйцъ граничатъ съ бредомъ пом?шанныхъ, чувствуешь невольно, какое сильн?йшее впечатл?нiе они должны были произвести на будущаго автора "Преступленiя и Наказанiя" Гроссман, Л.П. Библиотека Достоевского. Одесса, 1919, С. 117.

Grossman further notes that the scene from "The Tell-Tale Heart," in which the doomed old man feels the murderous narrator lurking in the absolute darkness, quiet, and stillness in the room in which for many hours the narrator has been holding his breath, is reflected in a passage from The Eternal Husband (1870). The climactic moment in Poe's tale is recreated in Dostoevsky's novel when Pavel Pavlovitch, silent and motionless, hovers ominously over Velchaninov in the darkness of Velchaninov's chamber, apparently considering killing him.

Grossman also turns his attention to Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, remarking that it is "full of horrors, fantastic adventures, and monstrous crimes, and the rarest cases of spiritual pathology." Grossman also mentions the tortured physical and mental states of the characters in this novel. He ends his section on Poe with the following thoughts:

"Достоевскому несомн?нно была близка и эта точность въ бузумiи и тщательная фиксацiя всего смутнаго, гнетущаго и воображаемаго, что не перестаетъ носиться вокругъ психически больныъ организацiй. Въ переведенныхъ "Временемъ" страницахъ Эдгара По с особенною силою сказалась одна изъ характерн?йшихъ черть его дарованiя-столь свойственная писанiямъ Достоевскаго-мучительность. Въ напечатанномъ во "Времени" разсказ? По "Сердце-Обличитель" есть одна страничка, какъ бы представляющая экстрактъ Достоевскаго. Порочность, какъ непоб?димая потребность челов?ческой натуры, жажда самоистязанiя, взаимныхъ пытокъ любви и жестокости и тиганическое сознанiе своей божественной мощи въ безпред?льности осуществленнаго зла-вотъ ц?лая серiя темныхъи мучительныхъ проблемъ, въ тайну которыхъ до конца не переставалъ жадно всматриваться Достоевскiй." Ibid., 118.

In his article, "Dostoievsky on Edgar Allan Poe," appearing in American Literature in 1942, Vladimir Astrov addresses what was at that time a gap in Russian (and American) literature studies--namely, of course, Poe's similarity to, and possible influence on, Dostoevsky. His article thereby marks the beginning of the study of Poe and Dostoevsky in US academia.

Interestingly, Astrov seems to have been unaware of L. P. Grossman's 1918 observations on this topic in Библиотека Достоевского (Dostoevsky's Library), since he writes, "Strangely enough, Dostoievsky's remarks on Poe [in his "Introduction to Three Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe"], so far as I can learn, have escaped the attention of Poe scholars, and of Dostoievsky scholars as well." Astrov, Vladimir. “Dostoievsky on Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature, 14 (1942), 70. But as we have seen, L. P. Grossman did indeed analyze Dostoevsky's comments on Poe.

Astrov, just as subsequent scholars would, focused on two primary elements of influence: Poe's "psychological subtlety and his fantastic realism (or realistic fantasticalness)," which "are intrinsically akin to the Russian mind." Astrov, citing Dostoevsky's introduction to Poe's three short stories, notes that it is hardly surprising that Dostoevsky was interested in Poe, the latter being preoccupied by irrational human behavior as well as the "morbid and bizarre in human life." Interestingly, Astrov, while mentioning Dostoevsky's comparison of Poe and Hoffmann, while also acknowledging not only the Russian writer, but also the American's indebtedness to the great German romanticist, states: "Dostoievsky was more akin to Poe than to Hoffmann, or rather to the idealized conception of Hoffmann as set forth in Dostoievsky's article on Poe. All his lifetime Dostoievsky craved the artistic power to embody the ideal and the beautiful, to present "positive types" (to use his own language), but he yearned in vain. He was one of the greatest analysts of the spiritual crisis of his time; he was not the revealer of new and higher ideals." Astrov, Vladimir. “Dostoievsky on Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature, 14 (1942), 71.

Astrov discusses "St. Petersburg Dreams in Verse and in Prose" (that very work that Frank claims marks the beginning of Dostoevsky's discovery of "fantastic realism") as a revealing autobiographical piece that portrays the Russian novelist's artistic development. Astrov focuses on Dostoevsky's description of his prison term in Siberia as a journey to the moon as likely a reference to Poe's "The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall." (The Russian novelist also mentions this short story of Poe's in his introduction in Vremya, which he wrote at roughly the same time as "Petersburg Dreams," thus he was undoubtedly familiar with it.)

Astrov, turning his attention to Crime and Punishment, also remarks that it would be interesting to examine the scene in Crime and Punishment (1866) in which Raskolnikov was stalking his victim from behind the victim's door, and the relation it bears to a very similar scene in "The Tell-Tale Heart." Furthermore, Astrov notes the resemblance between Dostoevsky's Porfiry Petrovich and Poe's Monsieur Dupin, who use similar methods to solve crimes. Furthermore, "Svidrigailov's representation of Eternity as a Russian bathroom `blackened by smoke, with spiders in every corner,' or his vexation over his deceased wife who appeared to him, but `talked nonsense,' are of the same kind of realistic fantasticalness which Poe used in so masterly a fashion." Ibid., 72.

Astrov also goes on to compare Poe and Dostoevsky's use of mental and nervous illness in order to create and explain fantastic phenomena. He quotes from Crime and Punishment the following: "People will tell you, `You are ill: hence, what appears to you is nothing but a vision, the results of delirium.' But this is not logical reasoning. I admit that apparitions only happen to the sick; but that proves that, in order to see them, one must be sick, and not that they are not in existence. A healthy manis, above all, a material man But let him get ill, let his normal physical organization get out of order, then, forthwith becomes manifest the possibility of another world." Ibid.

Astrov then quotes from the very opening of "The Tell-Tale Heart": "True! --nervous--very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. Now, then, am I mad?" Ibid., 73.

To this quote we could add another from Poe's "Eleonora": "Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence--whether much that is glorious--whether all that is profound--does not spring from disease of thought." Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, 649. Indeed, we will return to the idea of intellect as disease in relation to consciousness as understood by the Underground Man, who Harap quotes: "I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, ever sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease." Harap, Louis. “Poe and Dostoevsky: A Case of Affinities.” Weapons of Criticism: Marxism in America and the Literary Tradition, 279.

Our investigation thus far has revealed many of the principal themes that will occupy the rest of this study. Importantly, it has already been made evident that these themes (the psychology of madness, extraordinary events and coincidences, hallucinations, etc.) are intricately connected to the genre of the fantastic. Furthermore, we already have begun to compile a shortlist of works written by Dostoevsky that bear the stamp of Poe's influence--Crime and Punishment, The Eternal Husband, The Brothers Karamazov--that we will continue to expand.

Another question that has already arisen is Dostoevsky's comparison of Poe with E. T. A. Hoffmann. This topic will continue to occupy us, particularly because the juxtaposition of these authors is intimately connected to considerations of the fantastic genre. According to Todorov's definition of the fantastic--"The fantastic is nothing but a prolonged hesitation between a natural explanation of events and a supernatural one" --Hoffmann's works often fall outside the limits of the fantastic and into tales of the supernatural. Todorov, Tzvetan. Genres in Discourse, translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 95. Thus with Astrov's claim that Dostoevsky is in fact closer to Poe, despite his idolization of Hoffmann (as other critics will confirm, as shown later in this study),we are beginning to define the boundaries of the fantastic genre. Furthermore, we have already gleaned an inkling that Dostoevsky's interest in Poe corresponded to a crucial period of his own artistic development.

We end this chapter with a poignant and topical final observation from Astrov: "At any rate, Dostoievsky's article shows how deeply impressed he was by Poe. In creative minds, impressions of that kind easily stir productive impulses that are slumbering in the depths Astrov, Vladimir. “Dostoievsky on Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature, 14 (1942), 71.

1.1 A Few Words on Vremya

It is now worth directing our attention briefly to the journal Vremya in which Dostoevsky published three of Poe's tales in Tome I of Vremya in 1861--"The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," "The Devil in the Belfry"--as well as Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, in Tome II, also in 1861. Fyodor Dostoevsky, replying in a letter to his brother Mikhail's proposal to establish a literary magazine, writes the following: "Most important: a literary feuilleton, a critical review of the journalsenmity toward the mutual back-scratching now so widespread, more energy, fire, sharpness of mind, firmness--that's what we need now! I have written down and sketched out several literary essays along these lines: for instance, on contemporary poets, on the statistical tendency in literature, on the uselessness of uselessness of tendencies in art--essays written heatedly and even cuttingly, but, most important, readably." Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, edited by Mary Petrusewicz. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009, 275.Mikhail and Fyodor Dostoevsky's magazine was first published in March of 1861 and printed until 1863.

Joseph Frank offers a relevant observation, which he uses as an introduction to his section of Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time dedicated to Dostoevsky's interest in Poe. "Part of Time's considerable success was attributable to Dostoevsky's flair for providing his readers with exciting literary sustenance from a great range of sources. At the same time, what he chose to print bears the inevitable mark of his own preoccupations, and his editorial comments often foreshadow his later works or illuminate the manner in which everything he reads became grist for his creative mill." Ibid., 302.

V. S. Nachaeva, in her book "Журнал М. М. и Ф. М. Достоевских "Время", 1861-1863," published in 1972, briefly mentions Poe's three short stories published in Vremya and quotes from Dostoevsky's introduction to them. Nechaeva highlights the importance of the fact that the publication of Poe's tales was accompanied by an introduction explaining the reasons for their publication, in contrast to the translations appearing in Vremya of lesser works, from the point of view of artistic merit and the ideas expressed in them. Nechaeva highlights the "conditional" nature of the fantastic that Dostoevsky attributed to Poe, a treatment of the fantastic that, as Dostoevsky notes, remains "completely true to reality." Нечаева В. С. Журнал М. М. и Ф. М. Достоевских «Время». 1861-1863. М., 1972, С. 239. Nechaeva continues, quoting from and summarizing Dostoevsky's "Introduction to Three Stories by Edgar Allan Poe" as follows: "Именно для Ф. М. Достоевского кажется нам характерной высокая оценка "поражающей верности," с которой Э. По "рассказывает о состоянии души человека," поставленного "в самое исключительное внешнее или психологическое положение," а также "силы подробностей," заставляющей читателя верить в событие или образ, нарисованный автором." Нечаева В. С. Журнал М. М. и Ф. М. Достоевских «Время». 1861-1863. М., 1972, С. 239.

Nechaeva also focuses on Dostoevsky's comparison of the materialist Poe with Hoffmann the idealist and mentions the publication of Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym in Volume III of Vremya in 1861. Curiously enough, of the all the critics who have addressed the question of Poe and Dostoevsky that we are aware of, only L. P. Grossman has done any analysis of the possible reasons for the publication of Poe's only novel in Dostoevsky's journal or of any influence it might have had on Dostoevsky.

Frank dedicates about two pages of his authoritative biography Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (2009) to Dostoevsky's writing on and reception and printing of Poe. He frames his thoughts on Poe with the following telling words: "Part of Time's considerable success was attributable to Dostoevsky's flair for providing his readers with exciting literary sustenance from a great range of sources. At the same time, what he chose to print bears the inevitable mark of his own preoccupations, and his editorial comments often foreshadow his later works or illuminate the manner in which everything he read became grist for his creative mill." Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, 302.

With that, Frank begins his analysis, stating that Dostoevsky's preface to the publication of Poe's three stories, as well as the stories themselves, are closely connected with his writing in the years afterward. From the preface, Frank singles out Dostoevsky's assessment of Poe's power of imagination and detail, as well as his convincing verisimilitude. Frank also highlights the fact that Dostoevsky took Poe to be a typical American because of the material nature of his fantastic style, in contrast to Baudelaire, who saw Poe as a tragic hero struggling against an oppressive bourgeois American society.

Frank claims that all of Poe's stories printed in Vremya bear relation to Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment, including "The Devil in the Belfry," which Frank characterizes as "hardly more than a broad comic anecdote--is an allegory of the intrusion of the irrational into an orderly world that has always run in accordance with its immutable laws." Ibid., 302. We recall that Burnett wrote in 1981 that no critic had adequately explained Dostoevsky's inclusion of one of Poe's burlesques for inclusion in the three tales printed in Vremya--the other two being more serious horror tales, followed in the next volume of Vremya by Poe's only novel. Frank suggests a very plausible reason here, and indeed we have used it as a basis for our elaboration on this topic as presented later in this study.

Nonetheless, Frank expresses the opinion that "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" "contain features that can be linked even more concretely with Dostoevsky's artistic future." Ibid., 302. Among these features Frank mentions how both tales have first-person narrators who are overcome by guilt and betray themselves, which demonstrates the "irresistible pressure of the irrational to thwart the best-laid and most cunning calculations of the rational mind." Ibid., 303. From "The Black Cat" Frank also emphasizes the narrator's sadism toward his supposedly beloved cat and his elaboration of "the spirit of perverseness" given as explanation. After quoting the passage question at length, Frank surmises that "This passage may surely be seen as one of the sources leading to the philosophical-psychological dialectic of the first part of Notes from Underground." Ibid.

Frank also addresses the question of Dostoevsky's opinion about Poe's status in relation to Hoffmann, noting that he preferred the latter because Hoffmann describes a supernatural world that permeates the mundane world to such an extent that it's as if the German romanticist himself believed in its existence. Moreover, Hoffmann was a better "poet," since he aspires toward the ideal in his work. However, there is a caveat, and it is worth our while to quote the conclusion of Frank's thoughts on Poe's influence on Dostoevsky in their entirety:

"Dostoevsky's own best post-Siberian creations attempt to strike a balance between the two writers, rivaling Poe for vividness and verisimilitude but never losing Hoffman's sense of the unearthly and the transcendent as a controlling force in human life."

Thus Dostoevsky tried to be both a writer like Poe and a poet like Hoffmann; for him these two aspects of literature should never be separated. Indeed, the necessity of keeping the two united was an issue very much on his mind precisely at this moment, and it was one that continued to preoccupy his thinking about art and life. For the most important function of art, he believed, was "to inspire man by providing him with an ideal of transcendence toward which he could eternally aspire." Ibid., 304.

1.2 The Question of Influence

With the outlines of the Dostoevsky-Poe question already becoming visible, and with the context within which the whole question arises--Dostoevsky's publishing of Poe in Vremya--having been briefly elucidated, we are ready to delve deeper into an analysis of Poe's possible influence on the great Russian novelist.

Returning briefly to L.P. Grossman's Dostoevsky's Library, we discover compelling evidence that there is ample material to examine in relation to Poe's influence on Dostoevsky.

The Russian critic divides Dostoevsky's literary influences into three categories. The first category, comprises those authors, such as Cervantes and Schiller, who contributed to Dostoevsky's growth as a writer but whose exact influence on his work is difficult to pinpoint. "въ атмосфер? однихъ авторовъ, какъ въ родной и благотворной для собственнаго духовнаго роста Достоевскiй охотно прбывалъ для вдыханiа нужных ему воздушныхъ токовъ. Эд?съ н?тъ возможности точне учестъ фактическiа отраженiя и можно лишь изучать этихъ родственныхъ писателей, какъ среду, способствовавшую его творческомъ росту." (L.P. Grossman) Гроссман, Л.П. Библиотека Достоевского. Одесса, 1919, 25.

The second group of authors contributed not only to Dostoevsky's creative growth but also influenced him: "Другiе писатели способствовали не только наростанiю, но и проявленiю вовн? н?которыхъ автономно эр?ющихъ въ Достоевскомъ замысловъ. Они словно пробивали брешъ въ той кор?, которая сковывала внутреннiй приливъ его творческихъ силъ и своимъ зиждительнымъ ударомъ давали широкiй выходъ накопившемуся подземному руднику, начинавшему съ этого момента бить и играть своей собственной энергiей. Сюда относятся Пушкинъ и Гоголь, Байронъ и Лермонтовъ, Диккунсъ и Эдгаръ По." Ibid., 25..

Finally, the third group delineated by Grossman includes authors who "бросали зерна въ раскрытую и жадно ждущую оплодотворенiя почву его тиорческой натуры" and include Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, and Pushkin. The fact that L.P. Grossman includes Poe in the second category, that is, as among those authors who directly influenced Dostoevsky's creative growth in which concrete aspects of influence are discernable is thus the premise that will inform the investigations in the following chapter.

S. B. Purdy's 1967 article "Poe and Dostoyevsky" in Studies in Short Fiction addresses the question of Poe's possible influence on Dostoevsky, citing several particularly interesting moments in Dostoevsky's work that seem to reflect Poe. The short article opens with the following statement: "There is no doubt that Dostoevsky knew something about the work of Poe by 1861, if not before; but whether it is possible to talk of a Poe influence on Dostoevsky is another matter, little discussed because Gogol and E.T.A. Hoffman seem to hold the field as sources for the supernatural horror and absurdity Dostoevsky borrowed rather than originated." Purdy, S. B. “Poe and Dostoyevsky.” Studies in Short Fiction, 4 (1967), 169.. This is an important observation, because the fact that Purdy mentions "absurdity" draws our attention to a common characteristic in Poe's works--particularly those short stories he referred to as "grotesques" --that, in our opinion, has been underappreciated by the existing critical literature. Purdy also cites Astrov's idea that Dostoevsky's reference to a trip to the moon in his "St. Petersburg Dreams in Verse and Prose" (published in 1861 in Vremya) as the most specific claim that traces of Poe can be found in Dostoevsky's work.

In "Petersburg Dreams" Dostoevsky writes, "Помню, как я прощался с Амалией: я поцеловал ее хорошенькую ручку, первый раз в жизни; она поцеловала меня в лоб и как-то странно усмехнулась, так странно, так странно, что эта улыбка всю жизнь царапала мне потом сердце. И я опять как будто немного прозрел О, зачем она так засмеялась, - я бы ничего не заметил! Зачем все это так мучительно напечатлелось в моих воспоминаниях! Теперь я с мучением вспоминаю про все это, несмотря на то, что женись я на Амалии, я бы, верно, был несчастлив! Куда бы делся тогда Шиллер, свобода, ячменный кофе, и сладкие слезы, и грезы, и путешествие мое на луну Ведь я потом ездил на луну, господа." (Dostoevsky) Ф.М. Достоевский. Собр. Соч. в 15 тт. Т. 3 486.

Not only is the narrator's mention of his trip to the moon a rather fantastic and capricious embellishment--though we must add it is very in keeping with the eternally daydreaming narrator--but it also occurs during a moment that is very Poesque indeed: the narrator's painful parting with a young woman. There is also the juxtaposition of the woman's beauty with the narrator's feeling of strangeness and tortured memories, which reminds us very much of such Poe stories as "Ligeia," "Morella, "Eleonora," "Berenice," etc. (Indeed, Alexander Kaun in his article "Poe and Gogol: A Comparison," along with many other critics have commented on this singular obsession of Poe's.) We can only speculate as to whether this association may have sparked the narrator's mentioning of a trip to the moon, seemingly out of the blue, or not. In any case, "Petersburg Dreams," in which we read "Я страшный охотник до тайнну ведь я фантазер и мистик!" resonates strongly with what L. P. Gasparov and Astrov claim was thematic territory in which Poe's influence on Dostoevsky can be felt. (Dostoevsky). Ф.М. Достоевский. Собр. соч. в 15 тт. Т. 3, 484.

Of course the reference to the moon in "Petersburg Dreams" is fleeting and there exists no proof that Dostoevsky had Poe in mind while he was writing this work, whereas he does mention other authors explicitly, such as Schiller, Walter Scott, and Hoffmann. There is, nonetheless an importance in the timing of this possible reference to Poe's "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall." Both Astrov and Joseph Frank note that "Petersburg Dreams" marks a turning point in Dostoevsky's creative work and the beginning of his mature fantastic realism. Donald Fangar, in his book Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism, similarly remarks that "Petersburg Dreams" looks forward toward the future and Dostoevsky's mature creative period.

Purdy also suggests that Dostoevsky borrowed from Poe in his Uncle's Dream (1859). Interestingly, J. D. Grossman, remarks in a footnote that, "Except for the complete lack of evidence of his having seen Poe's story then or later, a case might be made for a link between Poe's humorous "The Man Who Was Used Up" and the uncle in "Djadjuљkin son" (1859), both characters being drolly and grotesquely assembled largely from synthetic parts. However, the anecdotal nature of the plot prevents the coincidence from being particularly striking." Grossman, J. D. Edgar Allan Poe in Russia: A Study in Legend and Literary Influence. Wurzburg: Jal Verlag, 1973, 224.

Nonetheless, G. Bograd will make the same case in 2010, apparently independently of Purdy, at least judging by the fact that he does not cite the latter's study. Боград Г. Оказал ли влияние Эдгар По на творчество Достоевский: Материалы и исследования. СПБ.,2010, T. 19. Purdy traces the similarities between Poe's short story and Dostoevsky's novella, including the fact that both contain a main character--Brigadier General John A.B.C. Smith in Poe and Prince K. in Dostoevsky--whose extremely fashionable appearance is absurdly maintained by various artificial body parts and mechanical devices and both have dyed striking black hair. Furthermore, in both Poe and Dostoevsky this fact is revealed by someone entering their chambers while they are in the involved process of composing their toilette. Furthermore, as Purdy points out, both characters are "used up," albeit in different ways: General Smith by war and Prince K. by amorous affairs in which he lost various body parts. Also, both characters are interested in and discuss mechanical inventions.

Purdy also notes that the "grotesque" humor of the amorous situation in Uncle's Dream, in which it is decided that Prince K will marry a young and beautiful girl, is reminiscent of Poe's "The Spectacles," (1844) in which the stories hero, one Napoleon Bonaparte Simpson--who, due to his vanity refuses to wear glasses to correct his weak sight--is tricked into a fake marriage with his great-great grandmother. We note in passing that both of these instances of apparent borrowing on Dostoevsky's part from Poe involve grotesque and absurd scenarios. Indeed of all the critics cited in this study, Purdy is the most perceptive of the similarities between Poe and Dostoevsky's use of parody.

Purdy also notes the unlikelihood that Dostoevsky's The Double (1846) was inspired by Poe's "William Wilson" (1839) as the theme of the double is highly popular in Romantic literature, including with Hoffmann, whom Dostoevsky adored and whose entire oeuvre he had read as a child, both in the original German and in translation, according to his statement in a letter to his brother Mikhail (Ф.М. Достоевский, Письма I. Под ред. И с прим. A.C. Долнина. Москва-Ленинград 1928, с. 47). Ф.М. Достоевский, Письма I. Под ред. И с прим. A.C. Долнина. Москва-Ленинград 1928, с. 47. Purdy writes, "Even if it could be proved that Dostoevsky had heard of Poe's story before 1845, there would be little justification for assuming that he borrowed the double from Poe, any more, in fact, that [sic] there is for assuming that he borrowed it from Hoffmann." Purdy, S. B. “Poe and Dostoyevsky.” Studies in Short Fiction, 4 (1967), 171.

Thus Purdy has expanded the field of Dostoevsky's texts that exhibit signs of Poe's influence, including also "Petersburg Dreams" and Uncle's Dream, She also, very importantly we believe, adds parody to the list of elements in Poe that Dostoevsky may have been attracted to in Poe's work, in addition to Poe's treatments of fantastic occurrences, psychological crises, crime, and terror. Purdy also suggests that Dostoevsky may have even borrowed certain ideas for characters, descriptions, and grotesque situations.

Purdy also raises the somewhat perplexing question of the similarity between The Double and "William Wilson." While the two stories certainly bear some similarities, there exists no evidence that Dostoevsky had read Poe prior to writing The Double. Thus, Purdy reiterates the problem of separating the artistic correlations that exist between these two authors outside of any question of influence, direct or indirect, from concrete instances of borrowing or influence.

In his book The Subconscious in Gogol' and Dostoevskij, and Its Antecedents, published in 1969, Leonard J. Kent briefly discusses Dostoevsky's interest in Poe. He cogently summarizes some of the points of similarity between the two authors: "both Poe and Dostoevskij shared a strong proclivity for the Gothic, for the hyperbolic, for madmen, for the psychological. There is about many of the works of both a denseness, a heaviness, an aura of foreboding, an unavoidable suggestion of doom, of the utter hopelessness of survival on the level of reality. For Poe, much more romantic than mystic, the imagination, sensuous fantasies amidst the musty remains of decaying civilizations, make existence possible--barely possible. For him, like Gogol, the bottomless grave yawns black, awaits. The agony of reality is no less acute in Dostoevskij, but there is an implicit optimism not found in Poe. Dostoevskij believed in the healing power of faith: mankind will somehow--it is never really explained--be regenerated, perhaps through a miracle. The members of the ant colony will cry out their individuality, crawl separately toward salvation, a crushing load on their backs. Besides, suffering for Dostoevkij is different from what it is in Poe. It has a special meaning, is charged with its own positivism because it bespeaks freedom; and freedom, hard-bought through suffering, is man's highest attainment." Kent, Keaonard J. The Subconscious in Gogol' and Dostoevskij, and Its Antecedents. The Hague: Mouton, 1969, 42.

We note that Kent successfully captured the similarities in style and preoccupation with the morbid and extreme states of consciousness between our two authors, as well as Dostoevsky's particular interpretation of human suffering as the key to freedom, which contains a certain positive character that is largely absent in Poe. However, Kent denies that Dostoevsky was influenced by Poe. In general, in his analysis of Poe Kent betrays his decided personal bias for German Romanticism: "Besides, there is little in Poe that Dostoevskij could not have found in more profound and `poetic' form in the Germans, or in the English Gothic novel, or Le roman terrifiant, or, indeed, have arrived at himself." Ibid., 42. To this Burnett's rebuttal is that, according to the Russian Formalists, for Dostoevsky his "most fertile ground for literary influence was located in the inferior, or `uncanonized', literary genres." Burnett, Leon. “Dostoevsky, Poe and the Discovery of Fantastic Realism.” F.M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881): A Centenary Collection. Ed. Leon Burnett. Oxford: Holdan Books, 1981, 61. This further suggests Poe's influence in that the fact that he was, according to Dostoevsky as well as Kent, an inferior writer to Hoffmann, makes Poe more probably a source of influence than Hoffmann, according to the Formalists, for whom, as Burnett notes, influence passes "not from father to son, but from uncle to nephew." Ibid.

It is telling that in several passages Kent expresses his personal distaste for Poe, which leads us to speculate whether he was not somewhat prone to discount Poe's importance to Dostoevsky a priori. Be that as it may, Dostoevsky too, seems to have preferred Hoffmann to Poe, as expressed, for example in his Introduction to Poe, wherein he favorably compares the German romanticist to the American. However, Astrov (see above) and Joseph Frank (see below) both stated that Dostoevsky, although he idolized Hoffmann, was in fact closer to Poe than Hoffmann in that he represented, according to Astrov, not the "ideal and beautiful," but the spiritual crises of his age; Astrov, Vladimir. “Dostoievsky on Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature, 14 (1942), 71. and according to Frank, Dostoevsky, in contrast to Hoffmann and similarly to Poe, mostly stayed within the bounds of realism.

Furthermore, Kent's denial that Poe influenced Dostoevsky is in direct opposition to that of almost every other critic cited in this study. Indeed, Kent's analysis is problematic for many reasons. As Leon Burnett pointed out (see below), Kent "employs Dostoevsky's critical comments in a reductive and slighting analysis of Poe's achievement" Burnett, Leon. “Dostoevsky, Poe and the Discovery of Fantastic Realism.” F.M. Dostoevsky (1821-1881): A Centenary Collection. Ed. Leon Burnett. Oxford: Holdan Books, 1981, 49. and in fact distorts Dostoevsky's words in his analysis of Dostoevsky's Introduction to Poe. Kent writes,

"There is nothing in any of the three Poe stories Dostoevskij mentioned that seems to have been influential in any direct way. Poe, like Radcliffe before him, `gives only the external possibility of a non-natural event". Even the supernatural is relegated to the demands of reality. Poe deals with psychological states, but, again, almost inevitably, in a conventional, romanticized way; he details what Lewis and Radcliffe only suggest. His rich imagination is yet restricted. It is more hyperbolic than it is deep." Kent, Keaonard J. The Subconscious in Gogol' and Dostoevskij, and Its Antecedents. The Hague: Mouton, 1969, 42.

Furthermore, again reflecting his prejudice for German Romanticism, Kent seems to suggest the possibility of reducing Dostoevsky's interest in Poe at least partially to the fact that Poe was influenced by Hoffmann. The very fact that Dostoevsky claims that it is incorrect to compare Poe and Hoffmann (although he proceeds to do so himself anyway) suggests that the Russian writer saw them as distinct talents.

As Burnett mentions, Kent misrepresents which stories Dostoevsky specifically mentioned in his Introduction, conflating the three short stories that Dostoevsky published in Vremya with the actual stories that Dostoevsky refers to, which are "Some Words with a Mummy," "Mesmeric Revelation," "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall," "The Balloon Hoax," "The Purloined Letter," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Gold Bug." Furthermore, several critics cited in the present study affirm that (a) Poe served as a direct influence on the Russian writer's Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov, as well as exuding a more general influence that permeated Dostoevsky's oeuvre post-1861 (i.e., his mature period); and that (b) Poe's style directly influenced Dostoevsky's discovery of fantastic realism.

Moreover, Kent quotes Dostoevsky's observation that Poe "gives only the external possibility of a non-natural event" (our emphasis) without providing the full context of the former's analysis, and seems to hone in on the word "only" and deploys it in a derogatory sense. In Dostoevsky's actual words, quoted out of context by Kent, только does not carry a negative connotation, but merely delimits Poe's use of the fantastic, a usage that mirrors Dostoevsky's own treatment of fantastic phenomena:

"Эдгар Поэ только допускает внешнюю возможность неестественного события (доказывая, впрочем, его возможность, и иногда даже чрезвычайно хитро) и, допустив это событие, во всем остальном совершенно верен действительности." (Dostoevski) Ф.М. Достоевский. Собр. соч. в 15 тт. Т. 11, С. 160.

We note in passing Dostoevsky's complementary judgment that Poe portrays apparently fantastic events, which he "always demonstrates logically" and "sometimes even with astounding skill" reflects the largely complimentary tone in which Dostoevsky describes Poe's art--in direct contrast to Kent's characterization of it--although we agree with J. D. Grossman that Dostoevsky's Introduction does not offer unconditional praise for Poe.

Furthermore, as Burnett points out, Kent's use of the word "gives only the external possibility of a non-natural event" rather than the more accurate translation of "permits only" aids him in diminishing Poe's artistic achievement by giving the false impression that Dostoevsky himself did so. Although Kent notes that Dostoevsky expressed "admiration--albeit qualified" for Poe's works, the critic seems to focus primarily on the "qualified" nature of this appreciation. By providing the full context of the Russian novelist's statement on this topic, we begin to appreciate the fact that Dostoevsky, in fact, express interest in and even admiration for Poe's unique treatment of the fantastic: "He chooses as a rule the most extravagant reality, places his hero in a most extraordinary outward or psychological situation, and, then, describes the inner state of that person with marvelous acumen and amazing realism. Moreover, there exists one characteristic that is singularly peculiar to Poe and which distinguishes him from every other writer, and that is the vigor of his imagination." Astrov, Vladimir. “Dostoievsky on Edgar Allan Poe.” American Literature, 14 (1942), 73.

We note the interesting contrast in Dostoevsky's characterization of Poe's imagination with Kent's claim that Poe's "imagination is yet restricted," as quoted above. We would suggest that Poe's imagination is not "restricted" by his adherence, even in his treatment of the fantastic to "to the demands of reality," but rather, that, following Dostoevsky's observation, Poe expresses his imagination precisely in his making extraordinary scenarios seem probable. It is indeed precisely this aspect of Poe's style, along with his use of copious details (which Kent denigrates in relation to Radcliffe and Lewis) to create this realistic effect, that most attracted Dostoevsky's attention.