Tatyana A. Kasatkina

“Digression in Praise of the Ass” by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot

In his early youth, Dostoevsky recognized a single life purpose for himself: to comprehend the mystery of man and the mystery of God. Such a life’s task inevitably presupposed an engagement with the books of the European esoteric tradition and, consequently, their functional presence in the writer’s works. In particula...