SLAV Lecture

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

cordially invites you to a talk given by

                                                                  

Kirsten Lodge

Columbia University

“A Man of the Nineteenth Century”:
Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Undergroundand Decadent Romanticism

Monday, February 7, 2011

4:00–5:15 pm

                   State Room West, IMU

ALL ARE INVITED!

Why does the underground man suggest that he is a typical “man of the nineteenth century”? What did this mean for Dostoevsky?  The talk offers a response to these questions by situating the work within the context of “decadent romanticism,” a distinct brand of romanticism that emerged in France after 1830.  A reading of the work is presented based on an examination of two key motifs: the sickness of the underground man and the image of Cleopatra sticking pins into her servant girls for her own sadistic pleasure.  Also discussed are the reception of Dostoevsky's work in France when it was belatedly translated in the 1880s and its connection to fin-de-siècle decadence and symbolism.