Most Beauitful Lines from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Meaning & Analysis

Table of Contents S ome lines in literature feel less written than overheard. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment is full of them. The novel is feverish, searching, and almost unbearably alive to the weight of guilt, idea, and suffering, and its most memorable passages still stop readers in their tracks more than a century and a half later. What follows is a selection of thirty of the most powerful and enduring longer passages, presented with enough context to feel their original force and enough close attention to see why they continue to work. Each quotation is kept to a substantial length (ideally eight to twelve lines), and each is followed by a Meaning section and an Analysis section that are deliberately longer than the quotation itself, so that the language can be given the space it deserves. 1. The Opening: Raskolnikov Leaves His Garret On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though …