Kafka and Dostoyevsky

In this study of Kafka's encounter with Dostoyevsky, literary historiography is embedded within the task of interpretation. In a series of detailed readings of Kafka's works from "The Judgment" to "The Trial" and other works from late 1914, a narrative unfolds of Dostoyevsky being used both as a guide and a foil. Kafka's appropriations of the Dostoyevskian world are traced from the sympatheic emulations of the "poor folk" Dostoyevsky to problematical and parodic refractions of Dostoyevsky's religious universe.;Dostoyevsky's biography features as prominently here as his literary work, and it is contended that Kafka's response is driven not only by sympathy and empathy but also, and increasingly, by a dissenting critique of Dostoyevskian idealism. Drawing on contemporary sources and recent scholarly work, including the historical-critical edition of "The Trial", this study insists on the socio-political aspect of Kafka's fiction and examines the tensions in Kafka's work between religious and secular perspectives.