남아프리카 작가의 저당잡힌 상상력과 윤리적 책무 -도스또옙스키의 『악령』을 다시 쓴 J. M. 쿳시의 『페테르부르크의 대가』에 관하여 = South African Writer`s Mortgaged Imagination and Ethical Responsibility: A Study of Coetzee`s The Master of Petersburg Re-Writing Dostoevsky`s The Possessed

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

J. M. Coetzee`S The Master of Petersburg occupies a Unique Place in his literary canon, unique in the sense that the writer does not seem to address the colonial and post-colonial issues with which his other works are preoccupied. Instead, Coetzee chooses to dramatize the ethics involved in his writing profession and makes the novel a serious meditation, as Stephen Watson notes, of the diabolism that can lie at the heart of the creative process itself. Coetzee does so not only by re-writing Dostoevsky`s The Possessed, Stavrogin`s Confession In particular but also by appropriating and distorting Dostoevsky`s life. This paper explores what Coetzee tries to achieve by writing this novel, a heavily intertextual fictional work in which he contextualizes the non-South African novel in South African terms. Ultimately, this paper argues that what Irving Howe once said of Life and Times of Michael K can apply to The Master of Petersburg as well: the real significance of Coetzee`s writing lies in an apparent move beyond politics to universal themes of art or morality.