“… While the Sun was Setting”: the Evening Light in the Works of F.M. Dostoevsky and Andrei Bely

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Author: Inna D. Gazheva
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Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor at the Ilarion Svientsitskyi Department of Slavic Philology, Ivan Franko National University (Lviv, Ukraine).

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Gazheva I.D. “…while the sun was setting”: the Evening Light in the Works of F.M. Dostoevsky and Andrei Bely. Dostoevsky and World Culture, Philological journal, 2020, No 1(9), pp 51-82
Issue: 2020 № 1(9)
Department: POETICS. CONTEXT
Pages: 51-82
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2020-1-51-82
UDK: 821.161.1-31.09
BBK: 83+83.3(2=411.2)+86.2
Keywords: F.M. Dostoevsky, Andrei Bely, “oblique rays of the setting sun”, interiorization, symbol, motive, young symbolism, “new prose”, double world, personification.
Abstract: The article compares the functions and implications of the motif of sunset and the image of its rays in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky and Andrei Bely. The comparison focuses on the biblical concept of unity between the elements of fire and light, and the origin of fire in the collision of the Divine light with the sinful world. It is shown that disclosing the symbolic meaning of this image in Dostoevsky’s works is impossible without considering interiorization as a feature of his depiction of the objects of the natural world, that is, their inclusion into the horizon and the words of each character. The contemplation of the rays of the setting sun by one of the characters symbolizes his meeting with the Lord and his awareness (rather, only a feeling at first) of his unworthiness. The way a character perceives the rays of sunset acts as a marker of the degree of his spiritual (un)-cleanness and the Meeting they mark is a turning point in the character’s internal biography and the development of the action of the novel. Accordingly, F.M. Dostoevsky’s motif of sunset should be ascribed to key dynamic and plot-changing motifs. This fact fundamentally distinguishes the prose of F. M. Dostoevsky from the subsequent prose of the Russian Symbolists, notably from the early prose of Andrei Bely. Firstly, the sunset here is not opposed to sunrise; secondly, it signifies the expectation of a meeting, and not the experience of the meeting itself, the expectation of a transformation of the personality that has not begun yet. As a third element, it is presented not as a personal and an element of the interiorized landscape, but as a collective experience of the characters and an element of an “objective” - more precisely, an “intersubjective” - space, since symbolic prose is characterized by the intersubjective integrity between the author’s image and the spiritual essences of the characters. Finally, twilight acts as a female personification, which gives an erotic character to the expected meeting in young symbolists’ works. Bely’s sunset does not signify a turn either in the character’s spiritual biography, either in the action of the plot. While in F.M. Dostoevsky’s works the sunset acts as a dynamic motif, in Andrei Bely both sunrise and sunset act as a static motif, not affecting the course of events developing according to a certain archetypal pattern. This is due to a new type of artistic modality and the decline of the plot in new prose, and most importantly, to the differences occurring between F. M. Dostoevsky’s and Andrei Bely’s worldview

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