"DON QUIXOTE" OF M. CERVANTES AND "THE IDIOT" OF F. DOSTOEVSKY: PLOT PERVERSION OF "HIGH WORDS"

According to M. Bakhtin "it is possible a dual combination of the world to the man: inside him – as his vision, and out of him – as his environment"[1] [1, 87]. The conflict between them reaches the limit in the transitional periods of history when traditional ties between the man and the world are broken, and an aloof person appears to be in a conflict of existential choice ("what to do?"), which suggests three solutions: 1) a focus on the past 2) a focus on the future and 3) a focus on the modern times. Each of them needs the ideological arguments, needs the substantiating word.

The first works of modern times, the word identify the problem in the transition period, was the epic novel of Cervantes' Don Quixote. It contains two genre varieties of words – "proverb words" and "high words". "Proverb words" accumulate collective experience, it is anonymous and reusable for frequent use mainly by a ‘adapter’, because these words equally can justify or condemn one and the same event (not accidentally a proverb is the most frequent saying of Little Judas Golovlev – the main character of the novel of M. Saltykov-Shchedrin "The Golovlyov Family"). In literature such type of a word become often a form of embodiment of plot accidents that may be referred to the reception implementation of proverbs[2]. In Cervantes' novel, for example, consistently paired episodes of governor activity of Sancho Panza and of his fall into a pit organized by the formula "a person who soared high, would fall low"[3]. Also Don Quixote’s overlong goal and Sancho Panza’s earthly concerns, determining differently oriented types of behavior of the main characters, may be summarized by a proverb "better a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", which is repeatedly mentioned by many sane characters in the novel as the council addressed to Don Quixote.

The bearer of the proverb is Sancho Panza, which is a personalized expression of the material substance of life. His rolled in experience and in constant appeal to the world, round, as his flesh and daily bread, like a shield and the natural cycle saying (proverb) is necessary for orientation in reality, for prediction or summarization of events that happen with him.

As for the "high words", their content is related to the universal ideal, to that living idea that cannot be neither conceptually abstracted, nor practically executed, which is reflected in the symbolic polysemanticism of its carrier – Don Quixote – the personification of spiritual substance of life.

In general, the relationship between "prpverb" and "high" words expressing the "earth" and the "heaven" in human attraction correspondingly, are formed in such a way that their initial opposition replaced by mutual correction. This occurs as the plot reeducation of Don Quixote by the "bottom" (the episode of the mill, and others.), and of Sancho Panza by the "top" (episode of tossing on a blanket, etc.).

"High words" expressed in the form of a sermon genre. Its main value lies in the formulation of the plot plan, though it not always takes the corresponding exposure position in the text of the novel. The typical sermon is an announcement all over the world about the high responsibilities and intentions that accompany each successive exit of Don Quixote of La Mancha. Moreover, in these sermons of the character is admittedly contained genre vision of this plan associated both with the romance and the pastoral idyll, which are so different in their plot temperament.

However, despite the inherent sermon narrative possibilities, "high words" it is the only form of presentation of Don Quixote’s idea-plan, which after passing through a series of trials and transformations, appears to be clearly failed. The proof of this thought will be the main subject to all the following arguments, which for the convenience will be distributed between two likely culprits failed attempt to implement the idea of plot – "outlook" Don Quixote and his "entourage".

Consciousness of Don Quixote is extremely detachment in relation to regulated existence, to the generally accepted rules of thinking and living behavior. This characteristic of the semiotic provincial naivety, qualifies as the surrounding madness, makes personal freedom Don Quixote in voluntary reincarnations. His not grounded and accentuated consciousness[4] becomes the subject of the author's research, and in this regard, a genre designation of Cervantes' novel is in anticipation of the consequences that may arise because of the person who has lost his sense of reality, that is evidenced both by a space (Cave of Montesinos) and temporary (The Golden age, the era of knights) disorientation of a character. Even if this consciousness is fraught with high intent, it is dangerous for its carrier (the meeting with the Toledo merchants) and for others ("protection" of Andreas), and in this sense, the "Don Quixote" novel becomes the warning not only for its contemporaries, but also for future generations.  

Let’s refer to the knightly variation of "high words." Generally chivalrous attributes works seems only the packaging, designed to deceive the naive reader: external, obvious subsistence of Don Quixote associated with the romance and the other, inner side (subsistence) – with the author's most important task. Moreover, in addition to the usual opinion that Don Quixote was a victim of the book Illusions, we will express more seems to be fair: he deliberately chooses the role of novel knight and thus provokes others, as well as the reader, to perceive him as a madman. In the words of Don Quixote, turning to Sancho Panza, "the smartest person of a comedy is the clown, because who wants to pass for a fool should not be foolish" [8, vol. 2, 27]. And it becomes clear only when everybody believed in his book madness due to piling up of his not reasonable actions. We can recall many facts of false insanity of Don Quixote, but limit ourselves to some. Thus, he writes two messages at once: the first is the one "who can neither read nor write," [8, vol. 1, 180], the message couched in epistolary style, borrowed from the romances ("the one who was wounded by the edge of separation… wish you, the sweetest Dulcinea del Toboso ... " [8, vol. 1, 182]), and the other message addressed to his niece with the request to "give the bearer of this first donkey bills, my squire Sancho Panza, three foals out of five, whom I had left in my estate ... " [8, vol. 1, 183]. In addition to this evidence of misunderstanding by Don Quixote of the conditional character of romance stylistic conventions, we recall another fact proving his ability to reflect on his own abnormality. He says Sancho Panza, "your mind does not seem to me much healthier than my own one" [8, vol. 1, 183].

Thus, the diagnosis of consciousness Don Quixote as "naive" would, in fact, the naivety; as resourceful madness allows the possibility of achieving his goals, which are listed below.

One of the repeatedly announced and required demonstrative behavior motives is a motif of self-affirmation ("to gain fame and honor for yourself" [8, vol. 1, 147]). The last of the hidalgo wanted to be the first among the knights. To the announced, but paired with a different motif on its nature motif we can refer the motif of moral self-preservation in that "upside-down" reality, which is a constant subject of Don Quixote’s critical condemnation because of its non-compliance with the notion of the proper existence: "About myself I can say that since I has become a knight-errant, I am brave, kind, generous, well-bred, generous, courteous, boldness, gentle, patient and I bear like a lamb a captivity, severities, and witchcraft" [8, vol. 1, 380][5].

In addition to these, manifesting in knight word, Don Quixote's intentions, there is some veiled sence, conditioned by the author's intention, which is clearly excessive as compared with the assumption of parody Cervantes genre canon of courtly romance. However, Don Quixote recognizes this intention in himself not at once, but in the process of his sobering up from the book illusions. This intention connected with the author’s understanding of the content of contemporary reality, of that "environment", which was the subject of Don Quixote’s responsibility, responsibility for its transformation.

Knight Don Quixote illusion suggests that the world is inhabited by heroes and anti-heroes, that truth and falsehood are distinguishable in their idealized excess, that evil is personified and it can be punished in an open fight, etc. The author infects his character by this illusion in order to oppose it with the reality, which the great provincial of La Mancha saw in all plastically completed and therefore perceived more abnormal forms.

The world appeared to Don Quixote entirely carnivalized: characters under umbrellas, loose overalls, bandages, masks, etc .; darkness and road dust, creating a visual aberration; mummery in all forms – theater and puppet shows, drawings, etc., the constant changing, artificial objects (wooden horse, etc.) – all these metaphorical symptoms indicate atmosphere of lies, that poisoned, or, use a word of Don Quixote, "bewitched" himself. That is why character’s efforts directed at the uncovering, unwrapping the world, at making it eventually manifest to itself, and thus at contributing to the enlightenment of the truth of non-conformity to the ideal, the carrier and the preacher of which is Don Quixote, in spite of his own perceived enchantment. Here is a sample of the likely consequences of high duties, which Don Quixote could lay ton  himself: "if the naked truth reached the ears of the rulers, the truth not dressed in clothes of flattery, we would have another times, and the past centuries in comparison with our times would have perceived as an iron age as well as our century would have seemed to us as a golden one" [8, vol. 2, 22]. And Don Quixote fights with this duality of the world in an adequate way – by means of his own duality[6].

But it gradually becomes clear for Don Quixote that intervention in any cases of individual life is useless and even harmful, because such cases are only the private displays of total and therefore anonymous world lies, which not only upsets all his undertakings, but also tries to forcibly assimilate Cervantes’ character in order to announce him just a buffoon, just one of the partners of “universal hypocrisy” (A. Gramschi). Thus, the environment of Don Quixote imposes him its own rules, though initially their observance by the character depended only on his free choice. For example, duke couple provokes Don Quixote and his squire to participate in a theatre action for the scenario of romance, because, as a novel character says, "the use of Don Quixote’s sanity cannot be compared with the pleasure from his madness" [8, vol. 2, 391]. Moreover, Don Quixote uses his own ingenious way of achieving his goals. So Samson Carrasco, disguised himself as a knight, challenges the main character to a tournament in order to return him to La Mancha after defeating. S. Bocharov wrote about it: "The image of the world, the novel of Don Quixote’s consciousness by the efforts of mystifies is realized, assumes the material form" [2, 101].

However, Don Quixote is not only aware of mystified attitude to himself, but he also demonstrates to others the understanding of their intent, that is represented in a number of episodes connected with unmasking by the character of certain events (for example, he takes actors playing the story of his own adventures, just as actors, in comparison with the opposite episode puppet theater, which he chopped in chips). Not by chance the second book of the novel is mainly devoted to the struggle of Don Quixote with a false representation of him and his purposes, prevailing in the public mind after reading by the contemporaries of the first book of the novel, which, by the way, Don Quixote calls "foolish" [8, T. 2, 354] .

On the whole, summing up the preliminary results of its experience, Don Quixote tells to Sancho Panza about "a comedy, which is the cycle of our life" [8, v. 2, 74]. Owing to this fact, firstly, the periodically appearing in the novel motif of pastoral idyll does not receive the plot realization, the proof of which (at the end of the second book) is the imaginary realization of Arcadia, when the main character trampled down by flock of sheep (by the way, this episode is symmetrical to the similar episode from the first book), which, however, did not prevent him again the returning to the idea of ​​pastoral life at the end of the whole epopee. Secondly, many of the episodes of the novel are duplicated in order to demonstrate the plot retardation, though, in spite of their semantic opposition, they are called to testify will come sobering hero of the novel (chivalrous) illusion, which will end by the returning of Don Quixote in La Mancha and to himself, to Alonso Kehana, gaining him rest and death.

The death of the main character can also be interpreted ambiguously. First, it means the plot futility of novelistic illusion, and in this sense Don Quixote is a naive victim of history, he is a person out of place, like Oblomov ("Oblomov" of I. Goncharov) and Prince Bolkonsky ("War and Peace" of Lev Tolstoy), for example. But this understanding of the plot denouement does not exhaust the meaning of the Don Quixote’s death, because, secondly, it is a sign of liberation of a character of misconceptions about him of contemporaries of the Spanish writer, to which Cervantes classifies the characters of his own book. To explain this, let us turn to premonitory episode of Don Quixote’s returning and death. In the imaginary Arcadia, he, of course, aware that all this is a hoax, but playing up to its organizers, thereby he responds by lies to the lies, and his pronouncing of high speech before dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses audience obviously has the character of a double deception. Not by chance after the remark of Sancho Panza at the end of his speech – "is there after all in the whole world such a person, who dare to declare and swear that my lord is mad?" – Don Quixote with uncharacteristic failure to pedagogical tact ends the servant abruptly, calling him all sorts of unflattering words, which resemble the genre style of vilification (psogos). What it is: the suppression of attempts to protect it in a way that rather looks like an insult? an insult to the beloved disciple, who didn’t understand the resourceful antiphrasis of his teacher – the irony in a serious wrapper? response to the destruction by Sancho Panza the game situation for the edification of the audience? etc. Every named or undisclosed, but probable motif is possible here. In our opinion, the reaction of Don Quixote is twofold: it is directed both to Sancho Panza, thwarted his master to cheat the cheating, and to the audience, and the author essence of it is to neutralize the claim of social conceit and to legalize the sanity of Don Quixote, thus allow to this self-conceit to usurp the secret of his image, about which, says the character himself[7], and that, in contrast to the closed-plot spatial existence of the character, continues to live in time, and therefore, gives rise to numerous interpretations and to the periodic repetition of its carrier in various image similarities.

In addition, this mortification of the flesh of Don Quixote is an important fact for the future reader. In the course of the plot of the novel the behavior of the main character becomes intentionally and increasingly unpredictable. This, of course, whenever violates the inertia of the reader’s expectations, especially in those cases when the outside hoax Don Quixote meets by his own hoax, as was already mentioned in the episode of the "fake Arcadia" [8, vol. 2, 348]. There is, as already mentioned, a doubling of fraud, which in the long term leads to an effect of the set opposite each other mirrors, turning reality into "bad infinity" (Hegel) of an illusion, the reader can easy lose the initial noble intention of        Don Quixote. And in order to save his receptive life, to lead him out of the compacting context of fraud, the author kills his necessarily lying character.

But let’s return to the main subject of the conversation. Unlike "chivalrous" and "proverbs" words, only one plot was not realized in the novel – it was "high", sublimated the ideological energy of Cervantes, author's word. Having uttered by Don Quixote, but facing the novel contemporaries of the writer, it was exposed by this contemporaries to the same procedure of hoax as the Don Quixote’s act, namely the usurpation by "chivalrous" word. As an example of which can serve a description by Sancho Panza in excessive style of romance his imaginary meeting with Dulcinea – the author’s symbol of transfigured by means of imagination rough life. But if chivalrous "cover" of the author's words was destroyed by the contemporaries, and the metaphor of it is repeated burning of books read by Don Quixote, the original meaning of the words of the author, on the contrary, was replicated in the printing press [8, vol. 2, 375]. In this regard, the death of the main character and the burning of books become typologically similar ingenious methods (through the sacrifice of their flesh) of the release of Don Quixote and the author’s sense from the novel reader, succumbed to a total lie and had become the personified participator. So, in such a way, finding the temporal existence, the meaning of author’s words continues to influence to a future projective reader.

In general, the experience of the story verification of "high words", held in the Cervantes novel, convinces us that any attempt, that is not only immediate, but even vicarious, of the implementation of meaning of such words is bound to be distorted. Therefore, only the word itself is the only possible form to preserve the sense, this word provides to this sense the self-sufficient integrity and dignity, and therefore – the ability to influence on the reader.

This is confirmed by the results of the test scene of "high words" in F. Dostoyevsky's novel "The Idiot"[8]. This is the words of the Gospel, the opposition in the work of a nihilistic, declared itself in the 60s. Nineteenth century. As a symptomatic phenomenon of a transition, nihilistic word in the comparison with the New Testament one is anti-traditionalist in its content, oppositional in its character and destructive in its destination. Didactic meaning of its impact on the readers consisted primarily in the liberation of the contemporary from that, without which, in the opinion of the sixties, he could live, and in improving that, without which he could not exist. In this regard, we can recall the biblical parable of the "prodigal son", the plot of which is made up of two complementary but opposite in content motives – leaving home, that is a metaphor of tradition, and returning home. In the ideological installation of nihilists provided only the first, whereas the returning of Bazarov to the ancestral home remained without repentance[9].

Dostoevsky exposes the nihilistic word to careful plot study. The most revealing in this respect is the novel "Crime and Punishment." In the "Idiot" it is verbalized in a farewell confession of dying Hippolytus and thanks to this it reaffirms its fable (and historical) futility. Its content, passion and genre style as a whole have the character of invective with a typical for it installation for its monologue right and completeness of speech statements. It dialogically focused on participation in the ideological dispute with the New Testament word, which is metaphorical and which cannot have adequate rhetorical explication, which is expressed in speech figuration of the Gospel and in its polyphonic structure[10].

Not by chance, that the New Testament word in the novel, unlike the nihilistic one, is perceived by a reader as a "silent" word, and it confirmed, in particular, that Dostoevsky’s novel contains less, in comparison with the "Don Quixote", preaching, although Myshkin speaks of his ability to "teach" [3, 51]. They only occasionally erupt, though often at the wrong circumstances, that is why they are perceived by listeners as somewhat eccentric, and it is recognized by the prince Myshkin: "There are such ideas, there are such high ideas, about which I should not start talking, because I shall certainly make everybody laugh" [3, p. 283]. The "default" of New Testament word is connected with its esoteric nature and every quoting the Gospel text by "scribes", which include, for example, Lebedev, leads to its profane reading and, therefore, to a violation of his living wholeness. Finally, this "default" is explainable by the fact that the "lofty words" of New Testament contain the responsibility for its possible realization, and in this case directly associated with it verbal word can play the role of a so-called guide, following which is fraught with opposite to "lofty words" effects (for example, with crusades). Therefore, the reader needs to overcome the associative "break" between the "high" and the literal word to understand all the motivation of Prince Myshkin’s plot actions. But let's start with the content of his "mental outlook".

Prince’s consciousness, as Don Quixote’s one, is also aloof, and this is due to not only his original children's perception of life[11], but also to the fact that he, as Chatsky, coming from abroad, already finds the established reality in which any story can evolve determine the vital context of the scenario, as a preparing by Totsky and general Yepanchin story of courtship of Nastasya Filippovna. This estrangement evinces itself in numerous acts of the prince, which are clearly violate public ritual, for example, he sits down next to a lackey, as Don Quixote to Sancho Panza and goatherds; does not respond to the insult, and "the one who misses a slap and will not cause a duel, according to Hippolytus, is the rascal" [3, 112], and so on. But his "typos" in the actions, his discrepancy between the intention and the gesture, of what he says [3, 258], and so on. are justified by the presence in his mind the long-distance objectives, the achievement of which was his "idea-passion" and the practical implementation of which is also perceived by others as an abnormality (for example, the distribution of money after the receiving an inheritance).

The primary purpose of the story activity of Prince is the intention to change the Russian world by love, as it was proofed by him in the story of Mary (Magdalene) in Switzerland, where he nurtured many utopian "searchlights" becomes a plausible plot algorithm, according to which could happen the story of Barashkova. But, despite the dissimilarity in the character and in the behavior of the Prince and Don Quixote with his "crusade" from La Mancha, all further Myshkin’s efforts are futile, as warns the hero an episode of Nastasia Filippovna’s birthday, turning at the end of the novel the day of death, scene, typologically similar in its value with a plot protection of cowherd boy Andreas from "Don Quixote". In this regard, both episodes correlated with ideologically prepared by  Raskolnikov murder, despite all the differences in the motives that guide these characters (besides Don Quixote and Raskolnikov draw together thanks to the fact that they both as practitioners ideologues make "war" with the world).

But let’s return to the episode with Nastasya Filippovna. He plays the role of the starting point in plot conflict between the "mental outlook" of the main character and his "surroundings", the conflict, which manifests itself in a number of spatially localized scandals, most often occurring in public places, such as in the living room, in the garden for walks and so on., as in the novel of Cervantes, for example, at the inn or in the castle. But this is just the demonstrative side of the conflict, the essence of it is this. Gradually, prince Myshkin’s illusions regarding the implementation of fable programs which are laid in the Gospel words and based on compassion for the man, weakened because of the oncoming understanding by him prince the nature of hostile reality, capable of destroying the "human in man" (Dostoevsky), and in this context the phrase of Hippolytus – "men are created to torment each other " [3, 328] is already perceived by a reader as a recital one. Because of this understanding the plot plan of the prince gradually narrows, he focuses on the fate of Nastasia Filippovna, as a hidalgo – on the image of Dulcinea. Moreover, under the influence of circumstances, his behavior like a behavior of Don Quixote becoming less proactive and more sacrificial. This is due to the understanding of Myshkin, like the conceivability of Don Quixote, that the resolution of individual conflicts in life, which is the only "casual" manifestation of total injustice, may not change the world, and this truth is particularly evident in the background intercalated stories about philanthropic actions, one of which, by the way, was done by the prince opponent – Hippolyte,

But on the other hand, Myshkin, like Don Quixote and Raskolnikov, is mistaken in the fact that the overall focused and even personified in the unit[12], but not to intervene in a particular situation for his means to give up the campaign for the "humiliated and insulted" and agree to Hamlet's reflection. Therefore, the self-sacrifice of "prince-Christ" (Dostoevsky) is voluntary by its nature, as well as the death of Don Quixote, in contrast, for example, from the triggered by surrounding Hamlet's death, and this puts Myshkin’s protest against the reality, which is by its performance doesn’t similar to the "riot of Raskolnikov". However, the plot final of the prince is a sign of the historical doom of the representative of the traditional world-making in the transition period, just as surely as the death of Don Quixote and Andrei Bolkonsky. Finally, we cannot ignore the metaphysical meaning of this epilogue, consisting in the eternal "external" loss of the ideal, in this case, the Gospel ideal, in a lawsuit with the reality that also has to do with Don Quixote.

But in addition to these built on top of each other gradations of senses of the novel epilogue, there is another meaning associated with the content of Dostoevsky modern reality[13]. On arrival in the Russian prince found himself in a world where, according to the words of the general Yepanchin’s wife, "everything is upside down" [3, 237]. To such "upside down" phenomena we can refer such "distortion of ideas and concepts", about which Myshkin tells [3, 279], nihilism (Kolya: "we all denounce" [3, 113]), the relations between people, based "on the extent and contract "(Lebedev) [3, 167], and so on. This "upside down" world perceived as such in comparison with the gospel essence the prince, it typologically similar to that total lie faced by Don Quixote. So, it is no accident that the truth in the novel makes its way rarely, though at the boundaries of the familiar reality, for example, in the game between novel characters, according to which they agreed to tell each other the most "bad" their actions [3, 120], or in the "border situation" between life and death in the confession of doomed Hippolytus [3, 232]. This explains the meaning of the plot behavior of the prince and his speeches, which consists to draw reality to the basics of human society that preaches the Gospel word, which requires from a person simplification and becoming "like children", because "in order to attain perfection, we must first of many do not understand", as the prince says [3, 458]. This idea was clearly in opposition to the nihilistic arrogance, and death of too late matured Hippolytus, who exclaimed one day, "we are not children" [3, 227], became in the context of the novel the author’s warning (and not only to contemporaries) about the likely consequences that can bring the logic of the "upside down" reality. Moreover, in contrast to the words of the nihilists, claiming the immediate collective performance (remember the "commune" of the sixties[14]), the Gospel word addressed to each person individually, and based on compassion, which, according to the prince, "is the main and perhaps the only law of all mankind being"[3, 192].

Finally, in the circumstances of "upside down" world Myshkin cannot avoid the danger of being used by surrounding characters, for example, by general Yepanchin, to whom "God sent" the prince in order to distract his wife’s attention from pearls intended to Nastasya Filippovna; or by Lebedev, detected by naive shrewdness of Myshkin the thief who stole his 40 rubles, and so on. But more important is another thing. "Upside down" reality can not only adapt the prince, but to distort his lofty thoughts, doom him to buffoonery (so general Yepanchin offers to put the prince arrived in St. Petersburg in Ivolgins’ house, where Ferdyshchenko lived, who was according the very general, "a greasy clown"; and so Aglaia "for hours on end ... got laughed at prince and drew him almost in a jester" [3, 430], etc.). That is why Myshkin has a desire to disappear, "leave it all here and to go back where I came from, somewhere far away in the wilderness", but otherwise he "would certainly be lured into this world forever, and this world become his fate" [3, 256]. This is so steady in many works of world literature, in particular in the "Cossacks", "Father Sergius", "Living Corpse" and others of Lev Tolstoy, in "Oblomov" by I. Goncharov, the motif of disappearance, of course, becomes typologically similar with the motif of pastoral Arcadia in "Don Quixote" – it also appears in understanding by the heroes of the futility of their altruistic intentions and of the need for their own moral self-preservation. And in this sense, the sacrificial denouement of the novel looks like a preservative for protection the ideal from the encroachments of surrounding reality. It has the receptive meaning as well. As is known, the denouement exhausts the plot story of a hero, and thereby temporarily neutralizes the conflict between the "outlook" and the "environment", which in this case belongs to the repetitive and therefore eternally relevant conflicts. But the plot of the novel is narrower that the prince’s plans, and therefore, returning him to the initial situation of "disease", Dostoevsky, like Cervantes who killed his hero, thereby keeps for the reader these alive and relevant plans, makes them their heritage. And the assurance of the possible implementation of the Gospel word in the future is the fact that in many of the characters of the novel (Ghana Ivolgin, Aglaia, general Yepanchin’s wife, Keller, even Hippolytus), as the prince discovered, there was something of a child.

Thus, of all the relevant in both novels speech genres it is just the "high words" doomed to plot inconsistency, and the only genre form of translation of their meaning remains a sermon, which is addressed not so much to modern but to prospective reader that provides a periodic capacity of its diachronic probations.