Writer's Choice Home Product Information Site Map Search Contact Us
Glencoe Online
Literature Library Writer's Choice  
 

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Generally considered Dostoyevsky's masterpiece, this novel, published in 1880, was his final literary work. The lives of Fyodor Karamazov and his three adult sons form a complex web of love, hate, jealousy, guilt, and eventually murder. Against this intense and often sordid background, the novel masterfully presents Russian life in the nineteenth century and explores the theme of what constitutes true faith.

Related Readings

Holy Sonnet 14—poem by John Donne

The Journey of the Magi—poem by T. S. Eliot

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London—poem by Dylan Thomas

Another Life—poem by Derek Walcott

Intrusion—poem by Denise Levertov

from Cambodia: Back to Sierra Leone?—informative nonfiction by Robert Kaplan

Once More to the Lake—personal essay by E.B. White

Luke 4:1–13, 2; Thessalonians 2:6–12; John 12:24–26—sacred texts

Study Guide (PDF)