Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, And The Search For Influence

Although Walker Percy Named Many Influences On His Work And Critics Have Zeroed In On Kierkegaard In Particular, No One Has Considered His Intentional Influence: The Nineteenthcentury Russian Novelist Fyodor DostoevskyIn AStudy That Revives And Complicates Notions Of Adaptation And Influence, Jessica Hooten Wilson Details The Long Career Of Walker Percy. walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, And The Search For Influence demonstratesthrough Close Reading Of Both Writers' Works, Examination Of Archival Materials, And Biographical Criticismnot Only How Pervasive And Inescapable Dostoevsky's Influence Was But Also How Necessary It Was To The Distinctive Strengths Of Percy's Fiction  From Dostoevsky, Percy Learned How To Captivate His Nonchristian Readership With Fiction Saturated By AChristian Vision Of RealityNot Only Was His Method Of Imitation In Line With This Christian Faith But Also The Aesthetic Mode And Very Content Of His Narratives Centered On His Knowledge Of ChristThe Influence Of Dostoevsky On Percy, Then, Becomes Significant As AModern Case Study For Showing The Illusion Of Artistic Autonomy And Longheld, Romantic Assumptions About Artistic OriginalityUltimately, Wilson Suggests, Only By Studying The Good That Came Before Can One Translate It In ANew Voice For The Here And Now 
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