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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Tolstoy the man, whose awe-inspiring personality haunts us still, poses an enormous obstacle to those who wish to write about his work. One frequently encounters interpretations of the novels, plays, and short stories based on Tolstoy's aims in creating them and on what his consciously held values were or are believed to have been. Unfortunately for anyone who attempts this kind of evaluation, Tolstoy, one of the most complex and baffling men who ever lived, is notorious for his self-contradictions. Although we have some good biographies, Tolstoy deserves the attention of a scholar—probably not a literary critic—with a sophisticated view of human personality and the relationship between the individual and society, who will write an analytical account of his problems comparable to Erik Erikson's widely admired Young Man Luther.
1. Erik, Erikson, Young Man Luther (New York, 1958).Google Scholar
2. Volume and page numbers after quotations from Tolstoy refer to the following edition : Tolstoy, L. N., Sobranie sochinenii v dvadtsati tomakh, ed. Akopova, N. N. et al. (Moscow, 1960-65).Google Scholar
3. See the author's “Notes on Spatial Form in Tolstoy,” Sezvanee Review, 78, no. 3 (Summer 1970) : 517-30.
4. Joseph, Frank, “Spatial Form in Modern Literature,” Sezvanee Review, 53 (1945) : 221–40, 433-56, 643-53Google Scholar; a revised and expanded version of the essay is included in Frank's book The Widening Gyre (New Brunswick, 1963).
5. Joseph Frank, “Spatial Form in Modern Literature,” p. 232.
6. See, for example, Ralph Matlaw's astute comments on repetition, such as this one about Prince Andrei : “Some of the moments that he considers the best of his life and others that are among the most important—in all these he stands framed by a window or a door, not in the freedom of earth and sky.” Matlaw, Ralph E., “Introduction,” Tolstoy : A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, 1967), p. 5.Google Scholar
7. Andrew, Lytle, “The Image as Guide to Meaning in the Historical Novel,” Sewanee Review, 61 (1953) : 415.Google Scholar
8. Because of the implicit value judgment present in the words, I deliberately avoid here the use of the natural-unnatural dichotomy, which might seem preferable.
9. I plan to develop this view, which contradicts that of most scholars who have written on Tolstoy, in the separate essay that such a major issue deserves.
10. An additional linkage appears when, at the beginning of the hunt scene, Petya Rostov shouts, “Shchetny rossam vse prepony” (5 : 273), a line from the patriotic cantata by Pavel Kutuzov which was delivered at the dinner for Bagration at the English Club (5 : 26).
11. The simile used for Karataev is equally revealing : “His words and actions poured out of him as evenly, inevitably, and directly as fragrance exudes from a flower” (7 : 60; my emphasis).
12. Cf. Hagan, John's comment, “Between Tolstoy's philosophy of history and his allegiance to the Orders of Nature and God, there would seem to be an unbridgeable chasm.” “On the Craftsmanship of War and Peace,” Essays in Criticism, 13 (1963) : 29.Google Scholar
13. Viktor, Shklovsky, Material i stil’ v romane L'va Tolstogo “Voina i mir” (Moscow, 1928), p. 35.Google Scholar
14. Ivan, Turgenev, Literary Reminiscences and Autobiographical Fragments, trans, with an introduction by David Magarshack, and an essay on Turgenev by Edmund Wilson (New York, 1958), p. 19.Google Scholar
15. Andrei, Saburov, “Voina i mir” Tolstogo, L. N. : Problematika poetika (Moscow, 1959), p. 32.Google Scholar
