Master Of Realism And Man Of Truth Essay, Research Paper

Master of Realism and Man of Truth

Who can forget Greta Garbo’s performance of a lifetime as a woman torn between two lovers and a son in MGM’s 1935 Anna Karenina? This breathtaking movie is based upon a novel by Leo Tolstoy. Shakespeare and Homer are two of the greatest writers of all times. One Russian author ranks right up there with those two legends: Leo Tolstoy. After completing nine major novels, three major essays, five major novellas, and three major dramas, this realist is known for his innovative literary style. The events of his life, his literary works,the criticism of those works, and the effects of his works make Leo Tolstoy the most prominent Russian author, today.

On 9 September, 1828 (28 August according to the calendar used at the time), God blessed Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoi and Princess Marya Nikalaevna Volkonskaya witht their fourth son, Leo, in a small village near Moscow. Leo Tolstoy had three older brothers and one younger sister: Nikolai, Sergei, Dmitri, and Marya. Tolstoy’s mother died shortly after the death of her daughter in 1830. Just seven years later, Tolstoy’s father died, also. These deaths left Tolstoy orphaned at age nine. Some relatives, believed to be aunts, raised Tolstoy and his siblings after the death of the count. In 1844, Tolstoy began college at the University of Kazon. In 1847, he left the oUniversity saying that he had lost faith in prayer. In 1851, Tolstoy joined his brother Nikolai in the Caucasus. One year later, he joined the army and fought the Cossacks alongside his eldest brother. In 1854, he was named an officer, and he served in the Crimean War until 1856. Tolstoy married Sofya Andreevna Behrs in 1862. The happy couple had thirteen children. After a dispute with his wife, Tolstoy left home at age eighty-two and died on 20 November, 1910 at a Russian railroad station, Astapavo. Tolstoy was very fond of reading. One interenet article posted a list of books that affected Tolstoy’s life:

“The Gospel According to Matthew” (immense)

Sterne’s “Sentimenatl Voyage” (very great)

Rousseau’s “Confessions” (immense)

“Emile” (immense)

“La Nouvelle Heloise” (very great)

Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” (very great)

Schiller’s “The Robbers” (very great)

Gogol’s “The Overcoat” (great)

“Ivan Ivanovich” (great)

“Nevsky Prospect” (great)

“Vii” (immense)

“Dead Souls” (very great)

Turgenev’s “A Sportsman’s Sketches” (very great)

Druzhnin’s “Pauline Saks” (very great)

Grigorovich’s “Anton Goremyka” (very great)

Dicken’s “David Copperfield” (immense)

Lermontov’s “A Hero of Our Times” (very graet)

Prescott’s “Conquest of Mexico” (great).

According to Compton’s Encyclopedia (1998), Jean Jacques Rousseau was a major factor in Tolstoy’s “rebellious attitude and . . . moral, social, and educational beliefs.”

Leo Tolstoy composed twenty principal literary works. Compton’s (1998) expresses, “Tolstoy recreated many of the scenes of his childhood in his writings. [He] used and described his army experiences in many of his stories and novels.” Tolstoy based his first novel, Detstvo or Childhood, on his own memories (Compton’s 1998). There are two other books in the trilogy that reflects Tolstoy’s early life: Otrochestvo or Boyhood and Yunost or Youth. His next work was a novel entitled Semeinoe schaste or Family Happiness. After his ecounters with the Cossacks in the Napoleonic wars, Tolstoy wrote Kazaki or The Cossacks. His following work was Polikushka, a novel. Voina i mir or War and Peace is a “milestone in the development of the Western novel (Compton’s 1998).” War and Peace is perhaps Tolstoy’s greatest work. It commemorates important military battles and famous historic persons, but focuses on the lives of five aristocratic families. It is a “masterpiece of realism.” Each of 559 characters has significant physical details and psychological analysis which separate him or her from every other character. The general message in this war novel is an attitude of a zestful love for life (”About Leo”). Encyclopedia.com says that War and Peace illustrates Tolstoy’s view that history proceeds to its own ends (”Tolstoy, Leo, Count” 1994).” War and Peace is not Tolstoy’s only popular work. Anna Karenina is also very popular. It is “one of the greatest modern psychological novels (”About Leo”).” It conveys Tolstoy’s reality, but shows a more artistic unity. Levin, the hero, is autobiographical in his disapproval of intellectuality and urban sophistication (”About Leo”). Ashley Duke (1911) reports that an author once said “It is easier to found an impossible religion than to write an ?Anna Karenina (p.182).’” Tolstoy created his next work during the period in which he chose to live a simple life. Ispoved or A Confession is and essay reflecting his longings for a life by a code of nonviolence, universal love and forgiveness, and simplicity. Vehiam moya vera or What I Believe is another of Tolstoy’s essays. The Death of Ivan Ilyicha or Smert Ivana Ilyicha shows the horror of sickness and mortality. It uses civilization as a “web to distract” from death. Tolstoy once expressed, ” [The Death of Ivan Ilyicha] is an account of the simple death of a simple man, told from his own point of view (”The Death”).” Vlast tmy or The Power of Darkness is a tagic drama a peasant’s lust that leads to violence. Kreitserova Sonata or The Kreutzer Sonata is a novella of loveless marriage. My personal favorite of Tolstoy’s works is Master and Man or Khozyain i rabotnik. It is a story of the spiritual conversion of a man facing death. Chto takoe iskusstvo or What is Art? Argues that artists are morally bound to create works understandable to most (”Tolstoy, Leo, Count”). Vokresenie or Resurrection is a “moral regeneration of conscience in a nobleman (”About Leo”). Khadzhi Murat or Hadji Murad is Tolstoy’s final novella. Tolstoy’s final work was Zhivoytrup or The Living Corpse, a drama wrtten in 1911. Clayton Hamilton applauds this drama, saying, “It is another Macbeth, composed in modern terms and reimagined in the mood of realism (1920).” Leo Tolstoy was a very inventive writer that based wonderful, fictional stories upon events that occured in his surrounding environment. The New Book of Knowledge (1993) concludes that Tolstoy emphasized the individual search for truth. He “created a new, realistic literary style.”

We have critics for every facet of our lives, so it is logical to assume that there are critics of Tolstoy,too. Copious researching turned up no negative criticism. Perhaps everyone loves Tolstoy. Harold Bloom praises Tolstoy because he has the two qualities Bloom deems most important in literature: originality and strangeness. P.V. Annenkov (1978) praises Tolstoy’s “strict form of expression, and in this lies the secret of the impression they make upon the reader. Fullness of expression in the characters, objects, [and] profound psychological analysis… are the fruits of a deep understanding by the wuthor of his subject matter (Annenkov p. 50-2).” Everything has a significance in a literary work by Tolstoy. Every simple gesture, unimportant mannerism, or careless word may disclose a character’s personality. Sharon K. Hall praises Tolstoy as ” one of few archetypal creative geniueses (p. 443).” Ashley Dukes (1911) praises Tolstoy for being a pure naturalist and using actions based only on natural desires and instincts. “Of all the naturalists, Tolstoy conforms most nearly to the naturalistic ideal in his plays (p.181). “Compton’s (1998) asserts that Tolstoy “captured the vastness of Russian landscape and complexity of its people.” Tolstoy is a “profound social and moral thinker, and one of the greatest writers of realistic fiction of all time (”About Leo”).”

Leo Tolstoy is one of the greatest authors of all times. Tolstoy’s social and moral ideals spread over the entire world. Tolstoy started a school, after his trips abroad, that foreshadowed the “tenets of modern progressive education (”About Leo”).” The United States Airforce Manual uses excerpts from Tolstoy’s war novels about the chaos of war, according to an unidentifiable internet source. James Huneker (1938) truly admires Tolstoy’s works. “Tolstoy the artist! When his vagaries are forgotten, when all his books are rags, when his very name shall be a vague memory, there will live the portrait of Anna Karenina .” Perhaps those books shall never deteriorate; perhaps they shall be preserved. Tolstoy’s legacy will live on as long as copies of his wonderful works remain in existence. One article agrees, “At his death he was hailed as a uniquely powerful moral force troughout the world. That force and his timeless and universal art continue to provide inspiration today (”About Leo”).” Today we study Leo Tolstoy along with Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Remarque, and Robert Frost. “[Tolstoi is the] greatest of all novelists – for what else can we call the author of War and Peace (Woolf 1925)?” Perhaps Tolstoy’s essence shall live on forever.

Annenkov. “Annenkov on ?Childohood’ and ?Boyhood.’” The Critical Heritage, edited by A. V. Knowles, 1978.

Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

Dukes, Ashley. “Tolstoy and Gorky.” Frank Palmer, 1911.

Feuer, Kathryn B. Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace, edited by Robin Feuer Miller and Donno Tussing Orwin. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,

1996.

Gustafson, Richard F. Leo Tolstoy: Resident and Stranger. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.

Hall, Sharon K.,ed. “Tolstoy” Twentieth- Century Literary Criticism. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company,1981.

Hamilton, Clayton. “Two Plays by Count Leo Tolstoy.” Holt, 1920.

Huneker, James. “Dostoievsky and Tolstoy.” Charles Scrirer’s Son, 1938.

Woolf, Virginia. “The Russian Point of View.” Harcourt, 1925.

“About Leo Tolstoy.” www.aol.users/leo/tolstoy1.com

“The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” http://hometown.aol.com/na609/index9.html

“Leo Nikolaivich Tolstoy.” www2.uscs.edu/~vareo/leo.html

“Tolstoi, Leo.” Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia. 1998.

“Tolstoy, Leo.” The New Book of Knowledge. Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated,1993.