Word and image in Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov': From an analysis of the dialectic in the novel to an interpretation of Dostoevsky's confrontation with Hans Holbein the Younger's 'The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb'

In this thesis, a dialectical approach that responds to the dialectic in The Brothers Karamazov is developed. This dialectical approach is inspired by and situates itself in relation to Mikhail Bakhtin's Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, Theodor W. Adorno's Negative Dialectics, and Max Horkheimer's and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. Throughout the thesis, the relationships between the dialectic of belief, the dialectic of enlightenment, modern representation, word and image are explored. In the first chapter, "Word," an analysis of the aesthetic form the dialectic assumes in the novel leads to an elucidation of the dialectics of realist representation. In the second chapter, "Image," the dialectic of belief is related to the problem of divine representation. There is a comparative emphasis between Dostoevsky's dialectic and dialectics in the German philosophical tradition and, more specifically, between Dostoevsky's images and Hans Holbein the Younger's painting The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb.