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Abstract:

The article is devoted to an overview of entomological imagery (spiders, ants, cockroaches, flies, etc.) in Dostoevsky’s literary and journalistic texts. The author focuses on the difference between the autological and metalogical (i.e., comparison, metaphor, symbol) use of insect imagery and traces their frequency and artistic specificity in different periods of the writer’s work. The sharp increase in the number of entomological images since the 1860s is related to the formation of a new artistic anthropology in Dostoevsky, based on his convict experience. Special attention is paid in this article to the entomological image of bugs, which has not attracted much attention from scholars of Dostoevsky’s artistic world.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, entomological images, metaphor, symbol, comparison, insect, spider, anthill, cockroach, bug, voluptuousness, millennium.