The Yurodivy in Art and Literature
After the 17th century the yurodivy existed more in the arts than in real life. Prominent examples are the fool in Boris Godunov, Pavel's mother and Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova (Sonya) in Crime and Punishment and Prince Myshkin in The Idiot. As mentioned in the “Eastern Christianity” section, another fool-for-Christ, Grisha, was described in Leo Tolstoy's book "Childhood. Boyhood. Youth".
Read more about this topic: Foolishness For Christ
Famous quotes containing the words art and/or literature:
“... in the fierce competition of modern society the only class left in the country possessing leisure is that of women supported in easy circumstances by husband or father, and it is to this class we must look for the maintenance of cultivated and refined tastes, for that value and pursuit of knowledge and of art for their own sakes which can alone save society from degenerating into a huge machine for making money, and gratifying the love of sensual luxury.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (18241899)
“But it is fit that the Past should be dark; though the darkness is not so much a quality of the past as of tradition. It is not a distance of time, but a distance of relation, which makes thus dusky its memorials. What is near to the heart of this generation is fair and bright still. Greece lies outspread fair and sunshiny in floods of light, for there is the sun and daylight in her literature and art. Homer does not allow us to forget that the sun shone,nor Phidias, nor the Parthenon.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)