Dostoevsky’s novels as classic tragedies

Abstract

Friedrich Nietzsche’s treatise “Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik” (1872) has, with the symbolist poet and critic Vyacheslav Ivanov as an important intermediary, exerted a strong influence on Dostoevsky scholarship which can be traced up to this day. The present short paper discusses some aspects of this tradition of interpretation.