Saints and Devils in Literature and Tradition

Catalog description

The course approaches the figures of saints and devils as critical frameworks for analyzing how literary and religious traditions in Central and Eastern Europe define and negotiate the boundaries between good and evil, and how they conceptualize moral order and its violations. These traditions often operate through conceptual oppositions, staging a world inhabited by believers and apostates, the righteous and the sinful, ascetics and egotists, the meek and subversive spirits – figures that test the limits of virtue and corruption. By tracing how these categories are constructed and interpreted – frequently in allegorical or symbolic form – the course explores how faith, integrity, love, beauty, knowledge, and authority are articulated and debated across literary and artistic genres, religious traditions, and historical periods. In “Saints and Devils,” students engage with a range of genres from Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, and Polish literature and learn about the historical developments that have shaped the religious and mystical sensibilities of these societies. Course materials include iconography, folktales, legends, hagiographic narratives, short fiction, and one of the greatest novels of Russian literature – Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.” All readings are in English.