Notes from Underground & The Grand Inquisitor

Dostoevsky's influence on the modern literary mind is unrivalled in its scope and vitality. Nowhere does his art appear in so quintessential a form as in Notes from Underground , certainly one of the most revolutionary and original works in world literature; nowhere is his thought presented with such authority as in "The Grand Inquisitor," an episode of central importance taken from his last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov . In both these vital works Dostoevsky confronts the reader with the tragic grandeur of man, indeed, with a whole philosophy of tragedy: the tragedy of the individual and freedom, the tragedy of the historical process, the tragedy of universal evil.

Relevant works included by Chernyshevsky, Schedrin and Dostoevsky.