Talk:Demons (Dostoyevsky novel)/Archive 1

Untitled
I do not enjoy deleting others' work, so i left the diatribe on Kirilov alone. but this needs SERIOUS cleanup. this was a poorly written, subjective interpretation, not something that belongs on wiki. i dont want to be mean, but this was indulgent and weak. further, where are the other characters in this section? finally, kirilov's key line, one of the keys to the whole novel, is, "if there is no god, then i am god." this should be included as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.183.135 (talk) 13:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

D.'s views of "Left-Wing Idealists"
Do you have the edition with Stavrogins confession?

Tikhons role is a lot bigger when that chapter is taken into account.

Also im not sure Dostoevsky fealt "disgust for the left-wing idealists", He was (kind of)one himself at one point, More that they were naive etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.11.77.197 (talk)


 * That does definitely over-summarize it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.25.217.79 (talk)

Pertaining to "disgust for the left-wing idealists"- that is completely accurate. although he was involved with groups in his youth his convictions somewhat changed while in siberia. read his biography for more info.
 * This article mentions Dostoevsky's "disgust for left wing idealists," though I do believe that he was equally critical of what Pevear and Volokhonsky term "conservative stupidity," as evidenced by his portrayal of Von Lembke. Verkhovensky 20:49, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Dostoyevsky went most certainly through a religious experience of some kind in his imprisonment in Siberia (something he among other places refers to in "The Idiot"). He is not denying the ideas of socailsm because he shares von Lembke's ideas of capitalism and conservatism - actually he denies those ideas as well - rather he disgusts socialism because it in his oppinion thinks that all human needs is a question of material good. At the same time he denies the truthvalue of socialism because it is atheistic - and in his oppinion Christ is the savior of mankind ("Crime and punishment" is the story of the salvation of Raskolnikov through the Christian faith). --Mathias


 * I agree that Dostoevsky's views about Russia's idealists/nihilists/westernizers in nineteenth-century Russia are grossly oversimplified in the statement, "in this book, where Dostoevsky shows his disgust for the left-wing idealists." This needs to be expounded into something more detailed and nuanced. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 18:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Dostoevsky was indeed a left-wing idealist in his youth, but upon being arrested for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle  (it may be added that his experiences in the Petrashevsky Circle influenced his writing in The Possessed, with many characters committing acts that he too committed while in the Petrashevsky Circle such as looking for presses to print manifestos on, etc.), being put through a mock-execution, 4 years of hard labor, and 5 years of compulsory military service, Dostoevsky rejected Western ideals and found faith in the Russian Orthodox Church (albeit a conflicted one as is shown in the conflicting ideas of many of his characters throughout his later novels and several personal letters  ). In essence, Dostoevsky became a Slavophil, but the novel is so much more than a simple blank check supporting Slavophils, for while characters like Stepan Verkhovensky do find their "paradise" in belief of Christ and their roots to Russia and characters like Kiriillov and Nickolay Stavrogin are shown possibilities to step back from the brink, the novel ends with one final act of negation with the suicide of Nickolay Stavrogin. Dostoevsky included many traits of himself into his most flawed characters, such as epilepsy in Kirillov, but one that is rarely talked about is the hyperconsciousness given to many of his characters such as Nickolay Stavrogin causing them to push themselves slowly closer and eventually over the line where sanity meets some preternatural state of consciousness where insanity is irrelevant, and, perhaps, to a certain extent, this reflects Dostoevsky's inability to reconcile belief and reason, his inability to truly and fully commit to one simple ideal. Dostoevsky never took the concept of being a reactionary or socialist to mean subscribing to a set of certain political beliefs, but rather as part of the archetypal need to understand consciousness

The Title?
Should the title of this article not in fact be "Demons," given that this is how it has been translated from the Russian by two of the most well-respected translators and scholars of Dostoevsky's work? (Wouldn't it also be more consistent given that the cover shown in the article is the version translated by precisely those scholars?) --Todeswalzer 23:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The title has been translated at least three ways - The Possessed (which was, I think, the original English title), Demons, and Devils (I'm not sure about Devils vs. The Devils). I'm not sure how we are to judge between them. The Possessed is probably the best known in English, but the least accurate, and few of the most recent translations have been published under that title. Between Demons and Devils I suppose we could just count up translations. john k 00:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Change the name of this article.
I can understand the difficulties that arise in trying to find the proper title for a work that was written in a different language and translated numerous times; however, I think that of the three names (The Possessed, The Devils, and Demons), the one chosen for this article seems to me to be the least useful. In a more recent translation (by Pevear and Volokhonsky), the naming of the novel in English is discussed as follows:


 * "It would be simpler if the title were indeed The Possessed, as it was first translated into English (and into French -- a tradition to which Albert Camus contributed in his dramatization of the novel). This misrendering made it possible to speak of Dostoevsky's characters as demoniacs in some unexamined sense, which lends them a certain glamour and even exonerates them to a certain extent. We do see a number of people here behaving as if they were 'possessed.' The implications of the word are almost right, but it points in the wrong direction. And in any case it is not the title Dostoevsky gave his novel. Discovering that the Russian title Besy refers not to possessed but to possessors, we then apply this new term 'demons' to the same set of characters in the same unexamined way -- a surprising turnabout, if one thinks of it." (Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Demons. Trans. Pevear and Volokhonsky. New York: Vintage Classics, 1995. Page xiii.)

The original English title, then, has the benefit of being more widely recognizable, if only because the novel was translated under that title for so long, but has the disadvantage of being the most inaccurate of the three. "Demons," on the other hand, as mentioned above, is the most accurate but, unfortunately, the least well-known. And then we have "The Devils"... A translation which fails to capture the "possessor" connotation of "Demons" but is also not as well-known as "The Possessed" -- the worst of both worlds, it seems to me. 'I think, therefore, that the English name of the novel needs to be changed in this article (in the title anyway) either to The Possessed or to Demons''. I personally am in agreement with Pevear and Volokhonsky, and prefer the latter.''' Opinions? --Todeswalzer 05:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think The Devils is any more well known than Demons. I'd be happy with a movie to either location.  A compromise might be to have it at The Possessed, and have a lengthy section discussing the real meaning of the Russian title, and why this is a bad translation.  Alternately, we could just move it to Demons.  john k 02:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Controversy Resolved?

I've moved this article to "The Possessed (novel)," for the above reasons, but primarily because "The Possessed" was the original translation which gained the novel notoriety -- even if it is the worst translation of the three. I've also made some other important changes: see the section below. --Todeswalzer 23:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the change of the article title. While The Possessed may have been the original title, the novel is more comonly known as Demons or The Devils. Most of the English language editions currently in print use either title. And as previously stated, The Possessed isn't an accurate translation of the original Russian title. People looking for Demons will be confounded, and the article doesn't even disambiguate either title. Zero no Kamen (talk) 20:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Stavrogin the vampire?
How is it that Stavrogin resembles a vampire or is inhuman? An ideological description would be more helpful...

Verkhovensky 22:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Some important changes
I've just made some important changes to this page. I. I've moved the article to "The Possessed (novel)" from the previous location at "The Devils". Although I prefer the title Demons, the new location more accurately reflects Wikipedia's naming conventions. There shouldn't be any major technical issues with the new location. II. I've included a new section discussing the problems with translating the title as well as the merits of the new translation(s) over the original one, as per john k's worthy suggestion. (On this note, if anyone knows why some translators have rendered the title as "The Devils," I think their reasonings deserve to be included on this page as well.) III. Additionally, I've included a novel info box on the page.

When I get some more time I'll also overhaul the introduction: I don't think it properly captures the basic themes of the novel, and some of it seems to be a little bit POV (i.e. "Dostoevsky shows his disgust at the left wing idealists"). Finally, if anyone knows of any in-depth analyses of the novel, please post them on this page so they can eventually be incorporated into the article as a more extensive summary-analysis of the work (which seems conspicuously missing given the literary & philosophical importance of the novel). --Todeswalzer 23:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I've started work on a summary of this book to incorporate into this article. For those looking to improve it, I would recomend this site. - Tower7 16:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

While it's in a pretty dubious location, I think this site is worth looking at for some analysis that is more or less non-existent at present in this article.

Addition by a new user in response to the above:

The title of the novel is taken from the New Testament - to be precise, Luke 8, which Dostoyevsky cites at the beginning of the novel. English translations of the originally biblical passage sometimes use "Demons" and sometimes use "Devils". The best-known English translation of the Bible, the King James Version, uses "devils", and that is what earlier translators would have had in mind:

''27 And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. 29 (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.) 30 And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. 31 And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. 32 And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. 33 Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. 34 When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 36 They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed.''

While changing the title from The Possessed to The Devils resulted in a genuine gain in accuracy, the change from The Devils to Demons is mere stupid pedantry, and in my opinion highly to be regretted, since we already had one perfectly serviceable and accurate title. Now, alas, we have two serviceable and accurate titles, in addition to the first, inaccurate translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.28.43.161 (talk) 17:27, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Tikhon is not that important.
I wish to make this article a bit more nicer and before I started to edit things to much I just want to ask to find out who Tijon is suppose to be. The only character I can think of with a name that is near that one in my translation is Tikhon and he only appears in a couple of chapters (I wouldn't say he isn't important, I just don't think he is a main character per say) ScottM 21:34, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apart from the "Stavrogin's Confessions" chapter (which was cut from the final version of the novel), Tikhon is only mentioned once. Thus, we can assume he is not a major character.

Aditionally, I've removed the comparison to the Elder Zosima, seeing as they really have nothing in common. Tower7 02:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Demons.jpg
Image:Demons.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

I changed the whole molested a small child thing into 14 year old girl because small child doesn't really suit what happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.167.247 (talk) 15:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 00:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, the amount of data that is recently being deleted off Wikipedia, apparently because of copyright violation, is getting ridiculous. It's the cover of the book being discussed: is that not sufficient rationale? I honestly do not know what more to put than that. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 20:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * taken care of SECProto 19:56, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warning
As there seems to be a lot of to-and-fro on the article about whether there should be a spoiler warning, I think I should draw the editors' attention to Spoiler, our spoiler warning guideline.

I don't think this classic novel really qualifies for a spoiler tag in any case. Whilst for some reason our article lists a very recent translation, the novel was written by Dostoyevsky about 130 years ago and has been translated into English several times, not least by the famous Constance Garnett (1861-1946), whose 1916 translation is now out of copyright and available from Project Gutenberg. --Tony Sidaway 22:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Rarely or never -- which is it?
Regarding the line, "As a result, newer editions of the novel are rarely or never rendered under Garnett's earliest title."

You can't have something happen both rarely and never. If it *ever* happens, it's not never. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.183.60.117 (talk) 18:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Probably that should say, "rarely if ever". I'll change it. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 22:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Publication date
Both the lead and the infobox list the publication date as 1872, but the article is categorised as being published in 1867. Can someone verify which is correct? Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 11:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Liveste: I can confirm that the novel was indeed published in 1872. I'm not sure why the article is categorized in 1867, since the murder that inspired Dostoevsky to write the novel didn't even occur until late 1869. (I'll correct the category error.) -- Todeswalzer | Talk 03:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The novel was published from 1871. to 1872. in the monthly magazine for literature called " Русский вестник " ( Russian journal ). Pedja770 (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin is the main character of the novel. A complex figure, he has many anti-social traits that mark him as a manipulative psychopathic personality.
This statement seems fundementally incorrect; the source has either insterpeted the novel rather idiosyncratically or misunderstood the psyciatric terms used. (Appologies; no spell check.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.156.57.131 (talk) 15:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree fully with such a statement. On broader terms though, I am very disappointed that Nikolai Stavrogin is portrayed as such 2-dimensional figure. His suicide and other times of punishment are swept away as guilt and no explanations are offered to why he committed many of his base actions in the first place. Not once were moral masochism, sadism, or more complex motives mentioned even though a case for them can be made from Stavrogin's Confession and Conclusion alone. Guilt is played way out of proportion in the explanation, and in his final letter to Darya, while he did feel sincere guilt, he may have held a deeper motive of "leaving the cup" as Dostoevsky said in The Brothers Karamazov. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.225.254.242 (talk) 20:55, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

In the paragraph about Captain Lebyadkin, it is stated that "Stavrogin has him killed by Fedka along with his sister.". That is just a vahue judgement. No where in the novel Stavrogin accepts that he "has them killed". The nearest thing to this idea is the scene, the day after Lebyadkin's death. When Stavrogin tells Liza that he "knew" something's gonna happen to them but didn't "arrest" it. In other parts of the book it is Pyotr who is known responsible for this murder -though indirectly-. And we can also see that he actually explains to Nikolai about what happened and what his expectations and plans have been. So, I believe in this post "Stavorgin" should be changed to "Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky" as the responsible of the Captin and his sister's death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.110.125.229 (talk) 08:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Characters
I am trying to rewrite the Characters section. It seems to me to be too long, pretty badly written, and almost completely unsourced. I started with Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky, but it is not much better, particularly in relation to sourcing. For example, if Stavrogin is to be described as a sociopath or a manipulative personality there probably should be a source for it.

Some of the character descriptions could probably just be removed. I am going to start with Tikhon and Shigalev. They are relatively minor characters and their importance to the novel is addressed in other sections, Tikhon in the section on the censored chapter and Shigalev in Ideologies. More important characters like Julia von Lembke and Andrey Antonovich are not covered in the Characters section and are hardly mentioned in the article. Harold the Sheep (talk) 03:11, 28 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I've replaced some of the simplistic and unsourced psycho-pathological explanations for Stavrogin (e.g. sociopathy, guilt) with character description based in the novel itself. One of the defining qualities of sociopathy is the absence of conscience, which cannot really be said to be true in Stavrogin's case. Harold the Sheep (talk) 22:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Existentialism
I'm removing the section entitled 'Existentialism'. There are a lot of problems with it. A coherent and sourced discussion of the novel's relationship to existentialism might be a good thing, but that's not what it is at the moment. Harold the Sheep (talk) 08:32, 14 April 2015 (UTC)