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ABSTRACT
Dostoevsky is often perceived as being both gloomy and unsociable, and, indeed, there are many justifiable reasons for this view of the writer. For example, many deaths occur throughout his works but there are also many other events described which may make Dostoevsky’s readers experience fear – namely the actual discovery of fear itself. This present article attempts to challenge such a view of Dostoevsky and his creative works, by using some lexicographical data, including experimental ones, and thereby to show that the concept of ‘laughter’ in Dostoevsky's thesaurus occupies no less an important place than does the concept of ‘fear’. Moreover, these notions are often interrelated as will be shown by the overlapping of the corresponding semantic fields in the textual space of two of Dostoevsky's major novels, namely in Crime and Punishment and in The Demons.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Dostoevsky, The Diary of 1863–1864, 173.
2 Dostoevsky, Notes on Russian Literature, 59.
3 Mann, Dostoevsky – but in Moderation, 327–45.
4 Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics; Karasyov, About Dostoevsky's Symbols; Vinogradov, Poetics of Russian Literature; Likhatchov, Laughter as a Worldview; Nazirov, Dostoevsky's Creative Principles.
5 Dostoevsky, Letters, 42.
6 Dostoevsky, Demons, 272.
7 Shaikevich, Andriushchenko, and Rebetskaia, Distributive Statistical Analysis, 441–624.
8 Dostoevsky, The Idiot, 343–4.
9 Dostoevsky, Demons, 222.
10 Dostoevsky, Notes on Russian Literature, 59.
11 Dostoevsky, The Idiot, 294–5.
12 Karaulov and Ginzburg, Homo Ridens, 161–3.
13 Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, 93.
14 Ibid., 340.
15 Dictionary of Dostoevsky’s Language: Idioglossary. Vol. V (Letters Po–S).
16 Ibid., 872–4.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Dostoevsky, Notes from the House of the Dead, 48; Crime and Punishment, 86; The Idiot, 458; A Raw Youth, 262.
20 Dostoevsky, Netochka Nezvanova, 251; The Idiot, 287.
21 Dostoevsky, Notes from the House of the Dead, 147.
22 Dostoevsky, A Raw Youth, 285.
23 Dostoevsky, The Demons, 93, 94, 167, 472.
24 Dostoevsky, Netochka Nezvanova, 245; At Tikhon's, 16; The Brothers Karamazov, 166.
25 Dostoevsky, The Gambler, 297; Crime and Punishment, 213; Letters, 100.
26 The analysis was done using the texts of: Dostoevsky, The Complete Works.
27 Dictionary of Dostoevsky’s Language: Idioglossary.