XI. Dostoevsky’s Postmodernists and the Poetics of Incarnation

The Struggle over Aesthetic Ideals “Alyosha, do you believe than I am not merely a buffoon?—I do believe that you are not merely a buffoon.”1 With these words Dostoevsky undoubtedly anticipated the reader’s temptation to view Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov as nothing more than a buffoon, for the characters in the novel, including Karamazov the father himself, and the narrator of The Brothers Karamazov frequently refer to Fyodor’s scandalous behaviour as buffoonery. I propose, however, to consider Fyodor not only as a traditional carnivalesque fool but as a character who poses questions of modern aesthetics. I interpret his behavior as artifice in the context of Dostoevsky’s critique of the modern crisis of artistic representation. As it has been frequently pointed out, the philosophical thought of Dostoevsky owes a great deal to the Platonic tradition. I suggest that the contradictory aesthetic ideas expressed in Th e Brothers Karamazov reflect the crisis of Platonic aesthetics and of Romantic representation. The “Pro et Contra” of The Brothers