Dostoevsky as Performer Essay -- Russian Literature Christianity Relig

Dostoevsky as PerformerStorytelling and reading aloud played a valuable division in young Fyodors life, influencing his own later successful writing endeavors as well as his performance of literature. His nanny and wet nurse introduced the Dostoevsky children to folklore and lives of the saints by the stories they told. Nanny Alyona Frolovna told the children stories of ancient Russia, of Saint Sergey of Moscow subduing a bear by the power of his holiness, of heroes and legends and folk tales, Christianity and Russian myth intertwined the stories were so vivid and scare that the children had trouble sleeping (Gunn 10). During the winter their former wet nurses would make a ceremonial visit to the Dostoevsky family, staying two or three days and using up the afternoons telling stories. Such is the power of the spoken word that these women, according to Leonid Grossman, arouse the boys interest in the oral poetry of his people and at the identical time fostered the development of that beautiful language--freeflowing, emotionally charged, profoundly Russian and unforgettably expressive--in which, in time, his worldfamous books would be written (10). Joseph Frank attributes these storytellers tales of the saints with feeding Dostoevskys unshakable curse that the soul of the Russian peasant was imbued with the Christian ethos of love and selfsacrifice (1976, 49). The Dostoevsky children were also socialize and educated with oral readings by their parents, especially during the long evenings of the Russian winter. As the family gathered in the parlor, the physician father would read aloud forrader dinner when he was not occupied with his patients, and the children often went to sleep with the sizeable of one of th... ...Indianapolis and New York BobbsMerrill, 1975. Gunn, Judith. Dostoyevsky Dreamer and Prophet. Oxford Lion, 1990. Hingley, Ronald. Dostoyevsky His Life and Work. London Paul Elek, 1978. Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Writers Life. Tran s. Siri Hustvedt and David McDuff. New York Viking, 1987. Levin, Iurii. Dostoevskii and Shakespeare. Dostoevskii and Britain. Ed. W.J. Leatherbarrow. Oxford and Providence, RI Berg, 1995. 3981. Magarshack, David. Dostoevsky. New York Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1963. Miller, Robin Feuer. Dostoevskii and the Tale of Terror. Dostoevskii and Britain. Ed. W.J. Leatherbarrow. Oxford and Providence, RI Berg, 1995. 13958. Mochulsky, Konstantin. Dostoevsky His Life and Work. Trans. Michael A. Minihan. Princeton, NJ Princeton UP, 1967. Seduro, Vladimir. Dostoyevski in Russian Literary Criticism