Tolstoy And The Religious Culture Of His Time

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Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time

Author : Inessa Medzhibovskaya
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739140760
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time by : Inessa Medzhibovskaya

Download or read book Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time written by Inessa Medzhibovskaya and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2009-07-15 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length study on the subject in any language, Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time treats Tolstoy's experience as a massive philosophical and religious project rather than a crisis-laden tragedy. Inessa Medzhibovskaya explains the evolution of Tolstoy's religious outlook based on his ongoing dialogue with the tradition of conversion in Europe and Russia, as well as on the demands of his own heart, mind, and spirit. The author contextualizes Tolstoy's conversion, comparing his pattern of religious conversion with that of other notable religious converts-Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Luther, Pascal, Rousseau-as well with that of Tolstoy's countrymen-Pushkin, Gogol, Chaadaev, Stankevich, Belinsky, Herzen, and Dostoevsky. Stressing the importance of the religious culture of his time for Tolstoy, this study investigates the nineteenth century debates that inspired and repelled Tolstoy as he weighed arguments for or against faith in his dialogues with the culture of his time, covering widely differing fields and disciplines of experimental knowledge. The author considers German Romantic philosophy, the natural sciences, pragmatist religious solutions, theories of social progress and evolution, and the historical school of Christianity. Medzhibovskaya stresses the fact that influential intellectual currents were as important to Tolstoy as believers and nonbelievers were from and beyond his immediate environment. The author argues that, in this sense, Tolstoy's conversion emerges as deeply intertextual, and this surprising discovery should not diminish our trust in Tolstoy's sincerity during his religious evolution, which occurred both spontaneously as well as deliberately. The polyphony of discreet spiritual moments that Tolstoy created by fusing in his narratives of conversion religious and artistic realms is arguably his greatest contribution to spiritual autobiography.

Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time

Author : Inessa Medzhibovskaya
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739125338
Total Pages : 451 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time by : Inessa Medzhibovskaya

Download or read book Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time written by Inessa Medzhibovskaya and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length study on the subject in any language, Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time treats Tolstoy's experience as a massive philosophical and religious project rather than a crisis-laden tragedy. Inessa Medzhibovskaya explains the evolution of Tolstoy's religious outlook based on his ongoing dialogue with the tradition of conversion in Europe and Russia, as well as on the demands of his own heart, mind, and spirit. The author contextualizes Tolstoy's conversion, comparing his pattern of religious conversion with that of other notable religious converts-Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Luther, Pascal, Rousseau-as well with that of Tolstoy's countrymen-Pushkin, Gogol, Chaadaev, Stankevich, Belinsky, Herzen, and Dostoevsky. Stressing the importance of the religious culture of his time for Tolstoy, this study investigates the nineteenth century debates that inspired and repelled Tolstoy as he weighed arguments for or against faith in his dialogues with the culture of his time, covering widely differing fields and disciplines of experimental knowledge. The author considers German Romantic philosophy, the natural sciences, pragmatist religious solutions, theories of social progress and evolution, and the historical school of Christianity. Medzhibovskaya stresses the fact that influential intellectual currents were as important to Tolstoy as believers and nonbelievers were from and beyond his immediate environment. The author argues that, in this sense, Tolstoy's conversion emerges as deeply intertextual, and this surprising discovery should not diminish our trust in Tolstoy's sincerity during his religious evolution, which occurred both spontaneously as well as deliberately. The polyphony of discreet spiritual moments that Tolstoy created by fusing in his narratives of conversion religious and artistic realms is arguably his greatest contribution to spiritual autobiography.

Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy

Author : Donna Tussing Orwin
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139486209
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy by : Donna Tussing Orwin

Download or read book Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy written by Donna Tussing Orwin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century after Leo Tolstoy's death, the author of War and Peace is widely admired but too often thought of only with reference to his realism and moral sense. The many sides of Tolstoy revealed in these essays speak to readers with astonishing force, relevance, and complexity. In a lively, challenging style, leading scholars range over his long life, from his first work Childhood to the works of his old age like Hadji Murat, and the many genres in which he worked, from the major novels to aphorisms and short stories. The essays present fresh approaches to his central themes: love, death, religious faith and doubt, violence, the animal kingdom, and war. They also assess his reception both in his lifetime and subsequently. Setting new agendas for the study of this classic author, this volume provides a snapshot of more current scholarship on Tolstoy.

Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought

Author : Teresa Obolevitch
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0198838174
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought by : Teresa Obolevitch

Download or read book Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought written by Teresa Obolevitch and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between science and faith in Russian religious thought. Teresa Obolevitch offers a synthetic approach on the development of the problem throughout the whole history of Russian thought, starting from the medieval period and arriving in contemporary times. She considers the relationship between science and religion in the eighteenth century, the so-called academic philosophy of the 19th and 20th century, the thought of Peter Chaadaev, the Slavophiles, and in the most influential literature figures, such as Fedor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy. The volume also analyses two channels of the formation of philosophy in the context of the relationship between theology and science in Russia. The first is connected with the attempt to rationalize the truths of faith and is exemplified by Vladimir Soloviev and Nikolai Lossky; the second wtih the apophatic tradition is presented by Pavel Florensky and Semen Frank. The book then describes the relation to scientific knowledge in the thought of Lev Shestov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergius Bulgakov, and Alexei Losev as well as the original project of Russian Cosmism (on the examples of Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and Vladimir Vernadsky). Obolevitch presents the current state of the discussion on this topic by paying attention to the Neopatristic synthesis (Fr Georges Florovsky and his followers) and offers the brief comparative analyse of the relationship between science and religion from the Western and Russian perspectives.

The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought

Author : Caryl Emerson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019251640X
Total Pages : 736 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought by : Caryl Emerson

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought written by Caryl Emerson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-04 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought is an authoritative new reference and interpretive volume detailing the origins, development, and influence of one of the richest aspects of Russian cultural and intellectual life - its religious ideas. After setting the historical background and context, the Handbook follows the leading figures and movements in modern Russian religious thought through a period of immense historical upheavals, including seventy years of officially atheist communist rule and the growth of an exiled diaspora with, e.g., its journal The Way. Therefore the shape of Russian religious thought cannot be separated from long-running debates with nihilism and atheism. Important thinkers such as Losev and Bakhtin had to guard their words in an environment of religious persecution, whilst some views were shaped by prison experiences. Before the Soviet period, Russian national identity was closely linked with religion - linkages which again are being forged in the new Russia. Relevant in this connection are complex relationships with Judaism. In addition to religious thinkers such as Philaret, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Shestov, Frank, Karsavin, and Alexander Men, the Handbook also looks at the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art, film, and the novelists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Ideas, institutions, and movements discussed include the Church academies, Slavophilism and Westernism, theosis, the name-glorifying (imiaslavie) controversy, the God-seekers and God-builders, Russian religious idealism and liberalism, and the Neopatristic school. Occultism is considered, as is the role of tradition and the influence of Russian religious thought in the West.

"Who, What Am I?"

Author : Irina Paperno
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801454956
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis "Who, What Am I?" by : Irina Paperno

Download or read book "Who, What Am I?" written by Irina Paperno and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "God only knows how many diverse, captivating impressions and thoughts evoked by these impressions... pass in a single day. If it were only possible to render them in such a way that I could easily read myself and that others could read me as I do..." Such was the desire of the young Tolstoy. Although he knew that this narrative utopia—turning the totality of his life into a book—would remain unfulfilled, Tolstoy would spend the rest of his life attempting to achieve it. "Who, What Am I?" is an account of Tolstoy's lifelong attempt to find adequate ways to represent the self, to probe its limits and, ultimately, to arrive at an identity not based on the bodily self and its accumulated life experience.This book guides readers through the voluminous, highly personal nonfiction writings that Tolstoy produced from the 1850s until his death in 1910. The variety of these texts is enormous, including diaries, religious tracts, personal confessions, letters, autobiographical fragments, and the meticulous accounts of dreams. For Tolstoy, inherent in the structure of the narrative form was a conception of life that accorded linear temporal order a predominant role, and this implied finitude. He refused to accept that human life stopped with death and that the self was limited to what could be remembered and told. In short, his was a philosophical and religious quest, and he followed in the footsteps of many, from Plato and Augustine to Rousseau and Schopenhauer. In reconstructing Tolstoy's struggles, this book reflects on the problems of self and narrative as well as provides an intellectual and psychological biography of the writer.

Two Shining Souls

Author : James Cracraft
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739174509
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Two Shining Souls by : James Cracraft

Download or read book Two Shining Souls written by James Cracraft and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Two Shining Souls, Cracraft explores the decades-long encounter of Jane Addams (1860-1935), the famous American social reformer and peace activist, with Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the acclaimed Russian writer and sage. This hitherto untold story highlights the crisis in global pacifism precipitated by World War I. Never before had the quest for international peace seemed more promising; never since, in the wake of World War II, the Cold War, and the "War on Terror", has it seemed more impossible. Yet perhaps the story of these two shining souls has never needed to be told more.

Second Tolstoy

Author : Steve Hickey
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1725285355
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (252 download)

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Book Synopsis Second Tolstoy by : Steve Hickey

Download or read book Second Tolstoy written by Steve Hickey and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-11-12 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Very few if any have devoted more years to practicing and teaching others to practice the precepts of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount than Leo Tolstoy. He stands apart in the history of interpretation and has had enormous influence on others and other countries. Yet, Gandhi or others often get the glory. Tolstoy is remembered as a great writer, but his religious and philosophical works are by and large unknown or disparaged, even in scholarly Tolstoyan circles. His contribution is substantially under-appreciated and misunderstood. In Second Tolstoy: The Sermon on the Mount as Theo-tactics, Steve Hickey captures the particulars and dynamics of Tolstoy’s interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount from a deliberately sympathetic vantage point. Underlying this project is shared belief with Tolstoy that the Sermon on the Mount is liveable and to be lived. While from the vantage point of traditional orthodoxy Tolstoy got much wrong, there remains a lack of appreciation for what he got right—radical obedience to the teachings of Jesus. A new vocabulary is proposed to more precisely capture Tolstoyan lived theology, namely the political and social expressions of Tolstoyan Christianity, with the hope that these theories and practices will gain a wider consideration, understanding, and following.

Tolstoy and His Problems

Author : Inessa Medzhibovskaya
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810138824
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy and His Problems by : Inessa Medzhibovskaya

Download or read book Tolstoy and His Problems written by Inessa Medzhibovskaya and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing the relevance of Tolstoy's thought and teachings for the current day, Tolstoy and His Problems: Views from the Twenty-First Century is a collection of essays by a group of Tolstoy specialists who are leading scholars in the humanities and social sciences. In the broadest sense—with essays on a variety of issues that occupied Tolstoy, such as nihilism, mysticism, social theory, religion, Judaism, education, opera, and Shakespeare—the volume offers a fresh evaluation of Tolstoy's program to reform the ways we live, work, commune with nature and art, practice spirituality, exchange ideas and knowledge, become educated, and speak and think about history and social change.

Tolstoy and his Disciples

Author : Charlotte Alston
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857724789
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (577 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy and his Disciples by : Charlotte Alston

Download or read book Tolstoy and his Disciples written by Charlotte Alston and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last thirty years of his life, Leo Tolstoy developed a moral philosophy that embraced pacifism, vegetarianism, the renunciation of private property, and a refusal to comply with the state. The transformation in his outlook led to his excommunication by the Orthodox Church, and the breakdown of his family life. Internationally, he inspired a legion of followers who formed communities and publishing houses devoted to living and promoting the Tolstoyan life. These enterprises flourished across Europe and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and Tolstoyism influenced individuals as diverse as William Jennings Bryan and Mohandas Gandhi. In this book, Charlotte Alston provides the first in-depth historical account of this remarkable phenomenon, and provides an important re-assessment of Tolstoy's impact on the political life of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The book is unique in its treatment of Tolstoyism as an international phenomenon: it explores both the connections between these Tolstoyan groups, and their relationships with other related reform movements.

Russia in World History

Author : Choi Chatterjee
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350026433
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Russia in World History by : Choi Chatterjee

Download or read book Russia in World History written by Choi Chatterjee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia in World History uses a comparative framework to understand Russian history in a global context. The book challenges the idea of Russia as an outlier of European civilization by examining select themes in modern Russian history alongside cases drawn from the British Empire. Choi Chatterjee analyzes the concepts of nation and empire, selfhood and subjectivity, socialism and capitalism, and revolution and the world order in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In doing so she rethinks many historical narratives that bluntly posit a liberal West against a repressive, authoritarian Russia. Instead Chatterjee argues for a wider perspective which reveals that imperial practices relating to the appropriation of human and natural resources were shared across European empires, both East and West. Incorporating the stories of famous thinkers, such as Leo Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Wangari Maathai, Arundhati Roy, among others. This unique interpretation of modern Russia is knitted together from the varied lives and experiences of those individuals who challenged the status quo and promoted a different way of thinking. This is a ground-breaking book with big and provocative ideas about the history of the modern world, and will be vital reading for students of both modern Russian and world history.

Tolstoy

Author : Rosamund Bartlett
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0151014388
Total Pages : 581 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy by : Rosamund Bartlett

Download or read book Tolstoy written by Rosamund Bartlett and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2011 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born into an aristocratic family, Tolstoy had spent his life rebelling not only against conventional ideas about literature and art but also against traditional education, family life, organized religion, and the state. In this exceptional biography, Bartlett delivers an eloquent portrait of the brilliant, maddening, and contrary man who has been discovered by a new generation of readers.

Tolstoy's Political Thought

Author : Alexandre Christoyannopoulos
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000650987
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy's Political Thought by : Alexandre Christoyannopoulos

Download or read book Tolstoy's Political Thought written by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), besides writing famous novels such as War and Peace, also wrote on political issues, especially later in his life, putting forward a political philosophy which might be termed 'Christian anarchism'. This book provides a comprehensive overview of Tolstoy’s political thought. It outlines in a systematic way Tolstoy’s thought, which was originally articulated unsystematically in diverse, often informal writing, such as pamphlets, letters, and speeches, as well as books, and in his novels, where Tolstoy’s thinking is put forward implicitly through the novels’ characters. The book sets out the basic themes of Tolstoy’s political thought: his acceptance of the teachings of Jesus, his criticism of the way in which Jesus’ teachings have been relayed by the church through traditional creeds and dogma, his passionate rejection of political violence by both the state and those working for reform, his plea for a nonviolent response to violence and injustice, and his call for society to forego its institutional shackles and enact a community of peace, love, and justice. The book also includes background information on the Russia of Tolstoy’s time, including the religious context, and a discussion of how Tolstoy’s political thought has been received by his admirers, who included Gandhi, and his critics.

Siblings in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky

Author : Anna A. Berman
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810131587
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Siblings in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky by : Anna A. Berman

Download or read book Siblings in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky written by Anna A. Berman and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anna A. Berman’s book brings to light the significance of sibling relationships in the writings of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Relationships in their works have typically been studied through the lens of erotic love in the former, and intergenerational conflict in the latter. In close readings of their major novels, Berman shows how both writers portray sibling relationships as a stabilizing force that counters the unpredictable, often destructive elements of romantic entanglements and the hierarchical structure of generations. Power and interconnectedness are cast in a new light. Berman persuasively argues that both authors gradually come to consider siblinghood a model of all human relations, discerning a career arc in each that moves from the dynamics within families to a much broader vision of universal brotherhood.

On Life

Author : Leo Tolstoy
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810138050
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis On Life by : Leo Tolstoy

Download or read book On Life written by Leo Tolstoy and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1886, shortly before his fifty-eighth birthday, Leo Tolstoy was seriously injured while working in the fields of his estate. Bedridden for over two months, Tolstoy began writing a meditation on death and dying that soon developed into a philosophical treatise on life, death, love, and the overcoming of pessimism. Although begun as an account of how one man encounters and laments his death and makes this death his own, the final work, On Life, describes the optimal life in which we can all be happy despite our mortality. After its completion, On Life was suppressed by the tsars, attacked by the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, and then censored by the Stalinist regime. This critical edition is the first accurate translation of this unsung classic of Russian thought into English, based on a study of manuscript pages of Tolstoy's drafts, and the first scholarly edition of this work in any language. It includes a detailed introduction and annotations, as well as historical material, such as early drafts, documents related to the presentation of an early version at the Moscow Psychological Society, and responses to the work by philosophers, religious leaders, journalists, and ordinary readers of Tolstoy's day.

The Bond of the Furthest Apart

Author : Sharon Cameron
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022641423X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bond of the Furthest Apart by : Sharon Cameron

Download or read book The Bond of the Furthest Apart written by Sharon Cameron and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-04-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the French filmmaker Robert Bresson’s cinematography, the linkage of fragmented, dissimilar images challenges our assumption that we know either what things are in themselves or the infinite ways in which they are entangled. The “bond” of Sharon Cameron’s title refers to the astonishing connections found both within Bresson’s films and across literary works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Kafka, whose visionary rethinkings of experience are akin to Bresson’s in their resistance to all forms of abstraction and classification that segregate aspects of reality. Whether exploring Bresson’s efforts to reassess the limits of human reason and will, Dostoevsky’s subversions of Christian conventions, Tolstoy’s incompatible beliefs about death, or Kafka’s focus on creatures neither human nor animal, Cameron illuminates how the repeated juxtaposition of disparate, even antithetical, phenomena carves out new approaches to defining the essence of being, one where the very nature of fixed categories is brought into question. An innovative look at a classic French auteur and three giants of European literature, The Bond of the Furthest Apart will interest scholars of literature, film, ethics, aesthetics, and anyone drawn to an experimental venture in critical thought.

Tolstoy's War and Peace

Author : Predrag Cicovacki
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197625886
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Tolstoy's War and Peace by : Predrag Cicovacki

Download or read book Tolstoy's War and Peace written by Predrag Cicovacki and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-07 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Literature deals with the intrusion of the extraordinary into the ordinary. This intrusion may begin in a work's very first sentence, as in Kafka's The Trial: "Somebody must have made a false accusation against Joseph K., for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong." Alternatively, it may be hinted at in the first sentences and more internally oriented, as in Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground: "I am a sick man ... I am a spiteful man. No, I am not a pleasant man at all. I believe there is something wrong with my liver. However, I don't know a damn thing about my liver; neither do I know whether there is anything really wrong with me." Tolstoy avoids such dramatic openings and introduces the extraordinary into the ordinary by means of storytelling. Literature, he believes, tells us stories about experiences that take us, temporarily or permanently, out of our comfort zone, off well-trodden paths. The story can be simple or complex, funny or tragic, about a small incident or the shattering of one's world. Using an example from Tolstoy's own What is Art?, the story could be about a boy who encounters a wolf in the forest yet manages to run back to the safety of his home to tell the story to his parents, or to anyone who is willing to listen. In War and Peace, the story is about a series of brutal wars that Russia fought against France between 1805 and 1812, in which the Russian troops were pushed to the brink of defeat but eventually managed to overpower Napoleon's invading army and reestablish peace"--