Estética do limiar

a experiência da morte em O Idiota (1868) de Fiódor Dostoiévski

Abstract

This article investigates the experience of death in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot (1868), from a Bakhtinian perspective that sees an aesthetics of the threshold in his novels. The objective is to demonstrate how the imminence of death structures the author's religious anthropology, forcing a reformulation of faith based on a tragic and apophatic Christianity. Methodologically, the study combines Dostoevskian critical literature (Frank, Guardini, Pareyson, Berdiaev) with conceptual axes such as the threshold and unfinalizability in Bakhtin, the crisis of kenosis and the theme of forgiveness in Kristeva, and finally, infinite responsibility for the other in Lévinas. The analysis covers three moments: the description of the condemnation, which establishes in Prince Myshkin an eschatological apprehension of time and a logic of compassion; the anti-icon of Holbein's painting of the dead Christ, which stages the modern theological crisis; and the final confrontation between nihilism and tragic compassion between the figures of Hippolit and Myshkin. The article concludes that the prince's apparent failure does not represent a failure of the ideal, but the notion of an unfinalizability of good in the world.