Self-study
P1
During Dostoyevsky's time there were two significant and opposing directions in Russian literary criticism. ███ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███ █ █████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █ ███ ████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███
Background Positions ·
1. High art; 2. radical
One view of art was that it was above the everyday. Another view of art was that it had to be politically useful.
Dostoyevsky's View ·
Fantasy and reality are not in principle distinct (contra radical view)
Not sure what this means, but I suspect this may be the main point and the rest of the passage will flesh this out.
P2
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Radical View ·
Art must depict reality as is
Critique ·
"Reality" is subjective
Reality is shaped by subjective experience. The writer's job is to blend reality and fantasy.
P3
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Radical View ·
Art must serve politics
Critique ·
Art must stand or fall on its own merits
Literature has to be well written.
P4
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Radical View ·
Art must be useful
Critique ·
How can we know what will be useful?
It's not possible to predict in what ways art may be useful.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Spotlight
26.
Given the information in the ████████ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ █████ █████ ██ ███████████
a
Only works of ██████████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ █████ █ ██████████ █████████ █████
b
Only works of ██████████ ████ █████ █ ██████████ █████████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ██ ████ ████████
Dostoyevsky disagrees. He doesn’t think a political purpose is necessary in order for a work to be artistic.
c
Works of literature ████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ██████ ███████ ██ █████ █ ██████████ █████████ █████
A work of art could fail to be well written for other reasons. We have no reason to think Dostoyevsky believes all works that aren’t well written serve political views.
d
A work of ██████████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████████ █████████ █████
Not supported, because Dostoyevsky doesn’t believe that all works that serve political views are not well written. Whether a work is well written depends on whether the writer has successfully expressed his thoughts in characters and images.
e
A work of ██████████ ████ ██████ █ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████
Not supported, because Dostoyevsky doesn’t believe that all works that serve political views are not well written. Whether a work is well written depends on whether the writer has successfully expressed his thoughts in characters and images. (Notice that this is the contrapositive of (D). Since (D) and (E) mean the same thing, neither of them can be correct, because otherwise there would be two correct answers.)