“And Here You Have a Bug Crawling...” (Some Observations On “Dostoevsky’s Entomology”)

Abstract

The article is devoted to an overview of entomological imagery (spiders, ants, cockroaches, flies, etc.) in Dostoevsky’s literary and journalistic texts. The author focuses on the difference between the autological and metalogical (comparison, metaphor, symbol) use of images of insects and traces their frequency and artistic specifics in different periods of the writer’s work. The sharp increase in the number of entomological images since 1860s is related to the formation of a new artistic anthropology in Dostoevsky based on his convict experience. Special attention is paid in the article to the entomological image of bugs, which has not attracted large attention from the researchers of the writer’s artistic world.

Keywords

• dostoevsky
• entomological images
• metaphor
• symbol
• comparison
• insect
• spider
• anthill
• cockroach
• bug
• voluptuousness
• millennium