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6Достоевский и мировая культура. Филологический журнал. 2022. № 2 (18) Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 2 (18), 2022.
Краткое сообщение / Short Communication
https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-2-237-240
https://elibrary.ru/QKPWVB
© 2022. Ольга Меерсон Джорджтаунский университет, Вашингтон, США
Реплика к статье И.В. Львовой «Мотивы Достоевского в рассказе У. Фолкнера "Завтра"»
© 2022. Olga A. Meerson Georgetown University, Washington, USA
A Reply to Irina Lvova's Article "Dostoevsky's Motifs in William Faulkner's Short Story Tomorrow"
Информация об авторе: Ольга Анатольевна Меерсон, PhD, Колумбийский университет, профессор русского языка и литературы на кафедре славистики, Джорджтаунский университет, ул. 3700 О, 20057 г. Вашингтон, округ Колумбия, США.
E-mail: Meersonо@Georgetown.edu
Аннотация: В материале предлагается небольшое размышление по поводу статьи И.В. Львовой «Мотивы Достоевского в рассказе У. Фолкнера "Завтра"», опубликованной в журнале «Достоевский и мировая культура. Филологический журнал». 2022. № 2 (1S) С. 227-236. Автор отмечает незамеченную Львовой аллюзию на Символ веры, что несколько корректирует соотношение концепций Фолкнера и Достоевского.
Ключевые слова: Достоевский, Фолкнер.
Для цитирования: Меерсон О.А. Реплика к статье И.В. Львовой «Мотивы Достоевского в рассказе У. Фолкнера "Завтра"» // Достоевский и мировая культура. Филологический журнал. 2022. № 2 (1S). C. 237-240. https://doi. org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-2-237-240
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Information about the author: Olga A. Meerson, PhD in Slavic Studies/ Russian Literature, Columbia University, NYC, Professor, Department of Slavic Languages, Georgetown University, 3700 O St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20057, USA.
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: The paper contains a short reflection on the article by Irina Lvova "Dostoevsky's Motifs in Faulkner's Short Story Tomorrow", published in the journal Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 2 (18), 2022, pp. 227-236. The author points out an allusion to the Creed, unnoticed by Lvova, that partially corrects the correlation between the conceptions of Faulkner and Dostoevsky.
Keywords: Dostoevsky, Faulkner.
For citation: Meerson, O.A. "A Reply to Irina Lvova's Article 'Dostoevsky's Motifs in William Faulkner's Short Story Tomorrow'" Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 2 (18), 2022, pp. 237-240. (In Russ.) https://doi. org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-2-237-240
A conceptual clarification may strengthen the author's own thesis. Early on, the author talks about the conflict between true justice and external law, as present in purely human and social conventions and codifications. The context there, however, suggests that Faulkner allegedly uses this motif to replace the Dostoevskian motif of conscience as the sole judge of the protagonist. Consequently, when the author does mention what Faulkner owes to Dostoevsky in the story [Львова, 2022, с. 231], it looks like this motif is purely Faulknerian, while in Dostoevsky, the difference between being hunted by law versus being haunted by one's conscience, is unrelated to the opposition between law vs. justice, in the Faulkner.
Actually, however, these two pairs of differing motifs, of law vs. justice — versus law vs. personal conscience, are inextricably linked in Dostoevsky's own work. Justice, in the objective world, equals conscience, in the subjective one, while both of these actually differ from the external, systematic, and regulatory, state law. Crimes need to be classified as such, by the human law, but they differ from sins, both known to justice — not human but absolute and Divine — and recognized, intuitively, by human conscience, within the sinner's heart. Razumikhin is horrified by Raskolnikov's article, not by Raskolnikov as a person, when he says, «кровь по совести разрешаешь»; "you sanction bloodshed by conscience" [Достоевский, 1972-1990, т. 6, с. 202] — a permissiveness much more horrible than judging leniently according to the purely human law. The link, or even equation, between justice, objectively, and the sinner's con-
О. Меерсон. Реплика к статье И.В. Львовой «Мотивы Достоевского в рассказе У. Фолкнера "Завтра"»
science, subjectively, when facing the law, is very Dostoevskian, so one can hardly be a replacement of the one by the other in Faulkner.
The author, though apt about Macbeth, misses another textual allusion, definitely important for both Faulkner and his predecessor, Dos-toevsky: "...the sum of any human experience ... He was born, he suffered and he died"; «Итог человеческой жизни. Он родился, от страдал, он умер» [Faulkner, 1949, p. 88].
The author here faithfully cites Faulkner but not Faulkner's source — the Nicene Creed's summary of Christ, as the Son of Man's, life on earth — "born (begotten = yewnQevxa = рождена, in Church Slavonic — О.М.), [not made] ... and suffered death, and was buried ..."; «рожденна, [несотворенна] ... и страдавша, и погребена ...». Why is it important to note that source? Because otherwise, Faulkner sounds like a much secularized version of Dostoevsky, while in reality, the intertextual echo of the Nicene Creed, in the Faulkner quote itself, conjures up what Berdiaev wrote, in the aftermath of Dostoevsky's view of the human being — that what makes humans human is Christ, the Son of Man. But if the author accounts for this echo, of the human in the Divine, to paraphrase Vladimir Solovyov, the article would bring Faulkner's notions much closer to Dostoevsky's own Christian views, and thus would seriously challenge the author's initial view of Faulkner's philosophy as purely stoic, or secular existentialist, or, if Christian, Calvinist-deterministic, at best [Львова, 2022, с. 233-234]. If, however, one accounts for what is truly Christian about Faulkner's differentiation between law and justice, the point will fit the author's own conclusion that, at the end of the day, no matter how different the patterns of characterization are in each writer's work, they share what truly matters to each. This point is very valid but all the "intermediate' distinctions between the motifs and philosophies of each writer must be clarified. It seems that, in those points, the two writers are much closer than the article states, unless the author directly addresses the breach between the secular, philosophical approach to justice, and the Christian understanding of it as a function recognized by human conscience. It seems that the opposition between absolute justice and secular, social jurisprudence, actually brings Faulkner closer to Dostoevsky, not moving him away from what Dostoevsky would consider to be the paramount Christian ethics.
Список литературы
1. Достоевский, 1972-1990 — Достоевский Ф.М. Полн. собр. соч.: в 30 т. Л.: Наука, 1972-1990.
2. Львова, 2022 — Львова И.В. Мотивы Достоевского в рассказе У. Фолкнера «Завтра» // Достоевский и мировая культура. Филологический журнал. 2022. № 2 (18). С. 227-236.
3. Faulkner, 1949 — Faulkner W. Tomorrow // Knight's Gambit. London: Chatto & Windus, 1949. pp. 77-96.
References
1. Dostoevskii, F.M. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 30 tomakh [Complete Works: in 30 vols]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1972-1990. (In Russ.)
2. L'vova, I.V. "Motivy Dostoevskogo v rasskaze U. Folknera 'Zavtra'" ["Dostoevsky's Motifs in William Faulkner's Short Story Tomorrow"]. Dostoevskii imirovaiakul'tura. Filologicheskiizhurnal, no. 2 (18), 2022, pp. 227-236. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2022-2-237-240
3. Faulkner, William. "Tomorrow." Knights Gambit, London, Chatto & Windus, 1949, pp. 77-96. (In English)
Статья поступила в редакцию: 19.10.2021 Одобрена после рецензирования: 03.01.2021 Принята к публикации: 24.01.2021 Дата публикации: 25.06.2022
The article was submitted: 19 Oct. 2021 Approved after reviewing: 03 Jan. 2021 Accepted for publication: 24 Jan. 2021 Date of publication: 25 Jun. 2022
