M. M. Bakhtin contra Vyach. Ivanov. The Myth of the new Aeschylus in the вook “Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics”

Vyacheslav Ivanov interpreted Dostoevsky’s prose by means of Nietzsche’s myth about the new Aeschylus. He believed that the novels of the great writer rose to the highest form of art — ancient Greek tragedy. But the evident comic elements in Dostoevsky’s prose cast doubt on the Ivanov’s conclusions. This drawback, discovered by L. V. Pumpyansky, prompted M. M. Bakhtin to propose his own version of the myth of the new Aeschylus. That is why in the book “Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics” the writer is likened to “Goethe’s Prometheus”. This image, like other components of the “aeschylean” myth, goes back to Nietzsche’s book “The Birth of Tragedy”. Bakhtin’s distinctive feature is that he easily refused outdated artistic forms. Bakhtin believed that Dostoevsky’s prose is closely connected with a sacred act, which is based on the myth of the tearing apart of Dionysus. But this is no longer a tragedy, as Ivanov and Nietzsche believed, but a menippea, combining completely heterogeneous elements, including a comic element.