The Idiot

The Idiot is a novel by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, serialized in 1868 to 1869, centered on Prince Lev Myshkin, a man of exceptional kindness and honesty returning to Russia from Swiss treatment for epilepsy, whom other characters repeatedly perceive as simple-minded because his goodness seems out of place in worldly Petersburg society. Myshkin becomes entangled with the proud, self-destructive Nastasya Filippovna and the wealthy Aglaya Yepanchin, and his attempt to act with pure compassion toward both women, alongside the violent, possessive merchant Rogozhin, drives the novel toward tragedy. Dostoevsky conceived the book explicitly as an attempt to portray a wholly good man, modeled partly on Christ and Don Quixote, set against a Russian society he depicted as materialistic and morally compromised. Widely read as one of Dostoevsky's four late masterworks alongside Crime and Punishment, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot is especially notable for drawing on the author's own epilepsy in Myshkin's characterization and for its unresolved tension between saintliness and social destruction.