Learning to Look. The Meaning of the Unseen Icon in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot

Dostoevsky’s The Idiot is often approached as a failed masterpiece. The unseen presence of “text” or “word” icons, however, challenges this assumption. A reading of the novel on the “iconic” level demonstrates the possibility of spiritual renewal through the image of the Mother of God as represented textually in Dormition and Do Not Lament Me, Mother icon types. For Dostoevsky, verbal icons retain their transformative function for his characters as well as for his readers. Through verbal icons, Dostoevsky explores the role of the artist, the possibility of the literary text as a source of spiritual transformation, and the nature of the nineteenth-century Russian cultural mindset.