The Time of Cruel Miracles: Mythopoesis in Dostoevsky and Agnon

On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a theory of literary mythopoesis and develops a method of studying mythopoetic processes on different levels of meaning in a work of literature. As a result, mythopoesis is revealed as one of the fundamental mechanisms of producing a complex of structures, while mythopoetic criticism functions as a dialogue between different cultures thus documenting the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in literature. Contents: Myth and Dialogue – Mythopoesis as Revelation – Mythopoesis as Ethics and Aesthetics – Mythopoesis as Narrative Intercultural Ethics – Mythopoesis as Journey – Mythopoesis as Scandal.