This is a two part exercise. Both should originally be a free response that you then organize and correct before posting to the blog. These responses should be completed in the next 48 hours, and you may make use of our remaining class time to begin. Responses can be sent as a comment to this entry.
Tolstoi argues for a moral art, one that in conveying the “feelings” of author to audience serves to create community. How successful were/are his own literary and philosophical efforts in fulfilling this dream? (1000 words).
This course has been for me an experiment with greater student participation and the addition of films. Has your own knowledge and appreciation of Tolstoi’s life, works and reactions both artistic and scholarly been enhanced by that approach? Alternatively, would a more traditional model (please elaborate) have better served your needs? (500 words).
On Tolstoy’s What is Art?
On Art:
Tolstoy believes that universal art should convey thought and expression to people of all social classes, whether they are peasants or aristocrats. In that regard, he argues for two concepts he believes to be of most importance: to illustrate or promote a closer relationship with God and to focus on the emotions and vigor that intertwines all mankind together. Between these two concepts, I think Tolstoy expressed the latter more vividly than the former in his literary efforts. As we have seen throughout this semester, Tolstoy puts heavy emphasis in portraying each character’s emotional state. He highlights the emotional struggles we all go through, whether its not fitting in with society, the moral struggles against serfdom, or the balance between education and religion. Pierre, Anna, Levin, Nekhlydov, and many others all exhibit these characteristics. Pierre meandered throughout War and Peace trying to find his own identity. Pierre was a misfit in aristocratic Russia. He tried to become more benevolent after accepting Freemasonry, but people took advantage of his sympathy to fulfill their own greed. He even lost his mentor and wife, which caused him to spiral into a confused state. We all can feel compassion for his struggles. However, as what Meagan says, Tolstoy probably wanted to connect with the people who did not read War and Peace or Anna Karenina, the peasants who were the majority of the Russian population. Yes, Tolstoy did implement a desire to return to the agrarian lifestyle of farming and singing and the simplicity of life, but War and Peace focused on the struggles of different individuals and families amidst the French invasion. Anna Karenina, despite its rants about land rights, predominately focused on the tragedy befalling a woman as a consequence of her affair with Vronsky. In fact, we probably have a better connection to these novels, likely because of how wealthy our society is compared to the majority of the residents in late 19th century Russia under Nicholas I. So yes, Tolstoy did serve to create a community of intellectuals and people who loved his novels; no, he was not able to create a community of appreciating his craft for what it is.
But, is not art itself subjective? All of us have our own definition of beauty, which makes art intrinsically muddy and unclear. Everyone has their own artistic expression because everyone is unique in his or her own ways. In that regard, I disagree with Tolstoy’s idea of having a unified art. Even in Christianity, people approach their relationship with God on different bases. Whereas some feel closest with God singing songs to the heavens, others rather spend their day reading their Bible. Some pray silently to get a deeper connection with God, while others feel the need to get up from their couches and spread the good news. I think it is ludicrous to simplify Christianity into loving one another. I believe has something more meaningful than that, which is to develop a stronger relationship with the Lord through seeking His words feverishly.
After reading the Kingdom of God, I agree with Tolstoy’s sentimentality, but it differs in his explanation of art in my opinion. Since the meaning of life is to contribute to the establishment of God’s presence, we need to connect the different worlds of people together. People who are not Christian will not get some of the messages intrinsic in Christian ideology. Abstractions help. Art connects people. To understand the world, we need to visualize it away from what it appears to us. Life is fuzzy, especially from the eyes of a college student. I have no idea what I want to do in life, but can that be explained by sticking true to art in Tolstoy’s imagination? I think not. My perception of life in the future is as hazy as Monet’s Impression, Sunset. I do not have a clear image of what’s in front of me, but I know I must continue to venture further or else I won’t grow as a person. Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, as well as Hadji Murat all taught me that lesson. And in that extent,
Moreover, I think Tolstoy did achieve moral art through this overarching theme. People are imperfect, and they do make mistakes; but it’s how they recognize these mistakes with their own judgment and do something about it that makes others remember them. As Jack noted, there is warmth and humanness to Tolstoy’s work unlike most authors of the modern time period. He cannot connect with everybody, but what he has taught me (and probably to other people as well) is to value people for who they are. We can make a difference in this world if we pay attention to the world and the people around us. Yes, Tolstoy is also imperfect; he too is human. He angered us with his sexism, mockery of churches, and critique of traditions people value in their families. Yet, I believe did create an art of humanness and compassion that served to create a community, albeit not reaching his goal of unifying all mankind together. I mean, his works has endured, and of course that has to mean something. Yes, his earlier works and later works differ in terms of his view of the world, but isn’t this transformation human in nature? Life is a continuous journey of self-discovery with God and with oneself. And like how Tolstoy died seeking more answers in Christianity, we should strive in our self-exploration too. This too is an art that can be universal.
On the Course:
With regards to the class, I found the structure of this class to be unique and enjoyable. I always valued the idea of learning by teaching because it forces us to understand Tolstoy’s philosophy at a more personal level and how (as a group) we can apply what we learned to today’s day and age. I also enjoyed the student-led discussions. It is insightful to see which passages within a book people find most interesting. In that regard, I appreciated the engaging and thoughtful discussions in this class, although it could have been a little bit better if people were less hesitant in sharing their comments about the readings. It was especially interesting to see how aspects of Tolstoy’s life influenced his writing from his earlier to later works, as well as those of historical application on them too. ¬This approach really allowed me to reread these works the following days in a different scope. The format definitely gave me more confidence in sharing my insight to what I think was interesting in certain works.
However, I think that we needed more time to explore the nuances of Tolstoy’s thoughts, either in his novels or philosophical works. Our class definitely needed more than two weeks to cover Anna Karenina; if not, then a better allocation of time. In my opinion, I think there should have been a time slot in separating the main characters, and looking at the story from their specific point of views. We generalized their character traits a bit too much, and I think it would have been more valuable to analyze the passion and other emotions exuding from these people’s own perspectives. The same could be said with War and Peace as well as Resurrection. If you think movies are essential to foster our understanding of the novels, then I believe future classes should have a separate screening day, perhaps in Axinn. To be honest, I personally need total focus to cherish a movie’s aesthetic and message. In this respect, I do not exude that same passion in our classes because I often tire after discussing a novel intently for more than two hours.
Lastly, I would like to address one more problem, which is the approach to tackling Tolstoy’s philosophical works. These readings were the most challenging to me, so I did not get as much enjoyment out of them as much as I wanted to. Professor Beyer, However, what I have gotten most from these weeks is from your comments. In that regard, I think future classes must have a thirty minute introduction dedicated to introducing these works the week prior to their due dates. In doing so, I think it would have better served my needs in appreciate Tolstoy’s works at a larger extent.
Tolstoy’s definition of true is based on the viewer’s ability to empathize with the creator. I would agree that communication of feeling is an important element of artistic creation. Whether its revulsion, beauty, anger, or happiness, art tends to make us feel something. However, I do not think that it is the end all be all determining factor of whether or not something is art. Art can elicit no feeling at all when viewed out of context, or even failed to be noticed in certain situations. Imagine a dusty old painting sitting in somebody’s attic for a couple of generations, and one day a friend of the family sees it and recognizes it as the work of an old master. It gets sold, restored, and put in a famous museum, and now everybody who sees it is overwhelmed with feelings, undoubtedly the ones the painter intended for them to feel. Did the painting stop being a piece of art when it was sitting in the attic? Did its true author need to be known in order for it to be art?
Tolstoy warns us against analyzing art too closely. Of course, that is the point of the course we are taking, and for those of us who are majoring in some type of literature studies, it is the point of our entire collegiate life. It also occurs to me that the entire goal of What Is Art?, that is, to create a working definition of what art is, is an exercise of analyzing art. His argument against over analyzing art seems to be tied to his claim, which he asserts as simple fact, that art is necessarily an expression of one’s relationship with God. This view is one of many that Tolstoy expresses which is hard to deal with in a modern setting. It is very challenging to abstract Tolstoy’s message into one that we can actually work with to get to someplace meaningful. Even when Tolstoy was writing, during what you might call the pre-dawn of the Modernist era, the idea that our minds were uniformly created and set into motion by God was fading, especially in the artistic community. Impressionist painters such as Monet, Renoir, and Cezanne were moving away from depicting the world exactly as it appears (i.e., as God made it) and towards a practice of painting the world as they saw it. By Tolstoy’s definition, there could be one perfect painting of a lake, the painting of the lake which shows the lake as a manifestation of God’s love. Even in his time, people’s understanding of art was moving away from that absolutist stance, so in the present day, in which that would not be an acceptable method of criticism, it is hard to find something useful in Tolstoy’s opinion.
To put it another way, it is not simply that Tolstoy’s opinion is outdated, there are plenty of literary works that are outdated or express views no longer relatable to contemporary thinking; but rather, his opinions are have been systematically worked through already, in this case by the entire trend of artistic expression since the beginning of the 20th century. It seems that again and again Tolstoy is not simply wrong, he is outrageously wrong, with his thinking running in the opposite direction of history.
I think Tolstoy succeeds in creating art that fulfills his definitions of Moral Art. His literary work is beautiful, flowing, emotive, and commensurate with a Christian understanding of the universe. The most disturbing aspect of his literary work is, in my eyes, the fact that it came from the same man who wrote his philosophical work. It seems like the characters in Tolstoy’s novels are often struggling under the expectations of Tolstoy’s philosophy. It is almost as if Tolstoy’s characters would be far happier people if some other novelist had created them. In that sense, Tolstoy’s philosophy makes his novels less relatable. Knowing the issues that obsessed him makes it difficult to read Anna Karenina or War and Peace without looking for the infiltration of his philosophy.
However, Tolstoy does have moments of undeniable artistic mastery. Several times in Anna Karenina I found myself rereading the same sentence or two over and over again. At those times, the feeling I was experiencing could most accurately be called empathy, I felt as if he had found the name of something that I was pretty sure had a name, but could not recall. It is an amazing ability, one that should be celebrated, and it is a property that many moving, iconic works of art possess. However, it is not a quality that is necessary of art. In fact, one of my main criticisms of the two great novels would be that there is not enough of confusion, that they are overly orderly, perhaps even too meaningful. We have repeated the phrase about Tolstoy writing about life as if life could operate Microsoft Word, or whatever, a bunch of times, but the fact is that life is fucking incoherent. Levin’s brother dying does not scratch the surface of the chaos which infiltrates most everybody’s lives. I can always tell what emotion or feeling I am supposed to feel, or what emotional struggle I am supposed to recognize, and that bothers me. If we are going to redeem Tolstoy’s art on the basis of how true it is to life, we must point out that there is a definite ceiling to how true to life art can be.
Reflection on Class
I definitely want to start off by saying that I have learned a lot in this course. Part of that is simply because I read a bunch of stuff that I had not read before and, in the case of the philosophy, probably never would have read otherwise. The format of the course had its pros and cons. The student presentations always great, but none of us have anywhere near the expertise that Professor Beyer possesses. There is so much to gain from having some background knowledge regarding Russian culture and history, and there was only so much that we students could provide in that department. I enjoyed class discussions very much, especially as the semester went along. I appreciated that it felt like people only spoke when they really had something to say, which has not always been my experience at Middlebury. I always looked forward to the times when Professor Beyer would add some direction to the conversation, and I would have preferred more input from him in general. Overall, I think the course could have used a better balance of background from Professor Beyer, student presentations and student-led discussion. I also think that we could have benefitted by having a little more variety in the student presentations. We heard a lot about Tolstoy’s biography and personal life, and we could have switched it up and had students research Russian politics or culture to give a larger context for the readings. Sometimes students went ahead and did that, especially regarding the criticism section, and I thought that added a lot.
I also enjoyed not having to write papers for this class. I felt that class preparation gave me significant room to invest myself in the material. Indeed, the high demand of the reading was such that I am not really sure I would have been able to devote time to written assignments. I think prioritizing reading the maximum amount of material possible was a better use of our time than submitting essays.
I have enjoyed our movie list this semester. I thought the Russian War and Peace film was particularly helpful, given its placement in the course. Watching it so early on gave us some context in terms of the dress, decor, and architecture for the rest of the reading. In helped us visualize a lot two of the crucial settings for War and Peace and Anna Karenina; the parlor room and the battlefield.
All in all, I thought the form of this class was effective, but could have been shifted in some ways.
What is Art? Response
The central tenet of Tolstoy’s What is Art? is that art’s principal function is to transmit the feelings of the artist onto his audience. He best sums up this claim in the fifth section of the work: “Art is that human activity which consists in one man’s consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings he has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also experiencing them” (40). This notion is a compelling, albeit idealistic and perhaps sensationalistic, one. To a reader in the post-modern, post-Derridean world, Tolstoy’s ideas sound inherently faulty. It is an essay that is rich with ideas in which modern critical theorists would love to shoot holes (especially as it seems to rely on the idea of authorial intent). It is impossible to directly convey one’s experience through the infinite arbitrariness of colors on a canvas or words on a page. Emotion is expressed, evoked, and created through art, but perhaps not transmitted.
Unlike Sam, I find the theological aspects of What is Art? to be powerful and accessible, even to the modern reader. Tolstoy’s vision of Christianity is an austere one, one that, in my eyes, recalls Nietzsche’s declaration that “God is dead” more than it refutes it. I agree that his absolutism can obscure his thought, but it seems that Tolstoy allows for different understandings/definitions of God, although “every man’s relation to God is one and the same.” The association of “the good” and “God” is a beautiful one, one that rings true even in a post-modern world where the idea of God has become abstracted nearly beyond comprehension. To say that Tolstoy’s ideas on art neglect subjectivity is to neglect the larger philosophy behind What is Art?. In Tolstoy’s thought, art becomes the means to unite all beings through the spiritual spark we all share, to breach the dark voids necessitated by a world defined by individualism and subjectivity.
This Tolstoyan idea of art as “a means of union among men” is compelling and, I believe, one that can be applied to many of Tolstoy’s works. At the beginning of the semester, we discussed why we read literature. It seemed agreed that we read to counteract the human tendency to loneliness (and solipsism), and to cultivate and maintain empathy, understanding, and love for fellow humans. I think that much of Tolstoy’s talent lies in his ability to generate these feelings of community and “union among men.” In his best works, namely War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy is a deeply humanistic author, although these works are heavily informed by religion.
Though War and Peace can be read as a fictionalized account of Tolstoy’s theory of history, it affected me on an emotional level much more than it did on an intellectual one, as did Anna Karenina. There is an intense human warmness to Tolstoy’s great works that is absent from much modern (and particularly modernist) works. As noted by Henri in his response, Tolstoy is perhaps most impressive in his ability to give voice to countless different perspectives, subjectivities, and consciousnesses. We understand Tolstoy’s best characters because we briefly inhabit them, become them.
As noted by the all too human, all too flawed Pechorin in Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time, “We almost always excuse that which we understand.” In understanding characters like Levin, Anna Karenina, Vronsky, Pierre, Natasha, Andrei, even Old Prince Bolkonsky, we begin to understand both ourselves and others. Through this understanding we begin to learn forgiveness. Though modern critical and philosophical thought would call this understanding an illusion (the “problem of other minds”), it is a powerful and beneficial illusion. Tolstoy notes in What is Art? the powerful, humanizing effect of the artifice of art: “And if man lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people might be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from, and more hostile to, one another.” Tolstoy’s best art had a softening effect on me and taught me to “judge not,” and thus is very successful as measured by his criteria.
Still, Tolstoy’s later art affected me much less than his early art did, most likely due to its explicit, even pedantic, didacticism. I was moved by Levin’s final epiphany of faith (“I am united, whether I will or no, with others in one community of believers which is called the church”), because getting there was a slow and deliberate process, one that felt human. In fact, while reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina, I found myself much more sympathetic to Christianity and its teachings than I ever had before. Interestingly, I have the opposite feeling when reading Dostoevsky (though that was certainly not Dostoevsky’s intent).
Like many others in the class I was somewhat repulsed by Pozdnyshev’s cold puritanism in “The Kreutzer Sonata” and the flat sentimentality of Resurrection. What is Art? seems to cast many of his own later works as art that is not great or contributive to society. Particularly with “The Kreutzer Sonata” and Resurrection, and evident in works like the social treatise “What is to Be Done?,” Tolstoy created works that seem hateful of humanity, of the essential traits that make us human. Rather than being accessible to all, as Tolstoy insists all great art must be, he ultimately created art that is applicable and accessible to those few people with his coldly absolutist theology.
Thus, Tolstoy apparently fails (at least with some of his later work) in his vision of a moral art, one that serves to create community. I felt abstracted from, rather than connected to, Pozdnyshev, Neklyudov, and the Tolstoy who wrote “What is to Be Done?” G.K. Chesterton, the British writer and critic, gave a concise and acute criticism of Tolstoy’s later thought, addressing Tolstoy directly, “What you dislike is being a man. You are at least next door to hating humanity, for you pity humanity because it is human.” Still, it is hard to authoritatively discuss how successful Tolstoy’s literary and philosophical efforts in fulfilling the goals of art put forth in What is Art?, because there seem to be more than one Tolstoy.
Response to the Course
Overall I think the course structure was a successful way of ensuring that each student learned a great deal about the life, work, and thought of Tolstoy. I do think that the student presentations did force each presenter to learn a great deal about the topic or text on which he or she presented (the 90% retention rate of what we teach that Professor Beyer discussed on the first day of class). Still, as Sam mentioned, we are only retaining 90% of part of one week of the class. If we are going to retain 10% of what we are being taught the rest of the time, I think it would be more beneficial for the class to retain 10% of what a professor (who has spent nearly his entire life studying Russian and Russian literature) has to say than to retain 10% of what our less knowledgeable, though clearly intelligent and insightful, classmates have to say. I did, however, really enjoy the class discussions. I think the length of the class sort of necessitated a deeper level of discussion at times, even though it also sometimes led to lulls.
I did appreciate the class’s broad focus, covering a wide span of Tolstoy’s works and life. Still, I think that more time should be spent on the more central texts. That we spent two weeks on Anna Karenina and War and Peace and one week on “The Kreutzer Sonata” seems like an improper use of time in my eyes. Also, why cram three important non-fiction works and one important novella (“What is to Be Done?,” “What I Believe,” “Confessions,” and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” which Nabokov thought was one of the best works of fiction of the 19th century) into one week, and then spend an entire week on the less well regarded “The Kreutzer Sonata.” That said, I did really appreciate the number of works we covered. I think the class gave me the solid backing that I need to knowledgeably discuss Tolstoy and further my education in Russian literature in the future.
I also liked the film aspect of the course, particularly the Russian War and Peace series (I wish we watched more of it). I wish we had watched more Russian adaptations of Tolstoy’s works, as I thought War and Peace was insightful and distinctly Russian in its strange vision. I, like others in the class, thought that the bizarre modern “interpretation” of “The Kreutzer Sonata” was a waste of time, albeit an entertaining one. I have read that Tarkovsky was influenced by various Russian literary figures, Tolstoy included. If this is true, this could be an interesting, although abstract, connection to explore.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the class and think I learned a great deal. Though I have some reservations with the class’ structure, they ultimately are minor, and I think the class was successful. I also enjoyed the refreshing lack of written assignments, and I truly do not feel like I learned any less than I would have were there papers to write.
On Tolstoy and Art:
In “What Is Art?” Tolstoy argues that, first, the purpose of true art is to transmit emotion from the artist to receiver, creating a union between men; and second, that the only two emotions worth transmitting are 1) religious feeling that draws the receiver closer to either god or his fellow man or 2) the simplest human emotions that are common to all mankind. Over the course of his life and writings, Tolstoy shifts his focus from more of “the simplest human emotions” to attempting to translate religious feeling, and I believe he was much more successful at the former.
War and Peace, long rants about history aside, does a stellar job of transmitting those classic human emotions. The experience of the characters is so universal and relatable, despite the radically different context of 1800’s Russia from what modern readers know. Tolstoy’s depiction of everyday life is so quotidian, his characters are so realistic; the poignant moments of Pierre’s search for meaning, Andrei gazing at the sky, and Natasha dancing are classic for a reason: they make the reader feel across time and space. Early Tolstoy achieves what Later Tolstoy mostly philosophizes on: creating a dialogue between the author and reader, whereby each reader draws something his own out of the work and takes it out into the world.
It’s important not to lose sight of the fact, though, that as much as we love to talk about these classic works, the main people [the peasants] who Tolstoy would have loved to draw into his community through his art were probably not the ones reading War and Peace. This was the domain of the upper classes, who popularized the novel mostly because it was so radical and entertaining. The same applies to Anna Karenina: the part that resonated with most upper-class readers was not his rants on land rights and peasants, but rather the drama of an upper class woman’s affair and downfall.
These works might create community for us now; they are the reason we have congregated in RAJ for three hours each week at all. As has been pointed out, we may have not bothered with Tolstoy’s philosophical works at all if not for the artistic genius displayed in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. But I am unconvinced that they created the same effect at the time of their publishing.
His later philosophical works, on the other hand, played a crucial role in building the Tolstoyan community. As repetitive as these works may seem to us, as much as he might beat the reader over the head with the “moral” part of “moral art”, these works were extremely radical for the times. And in that period of the reign of the Orthodox Church, it was an opinion that needed to be heard. Calling these works “art” might be a stretch, but they certainly played a role in creating the Tolstoyan community; and again, as much as we might laugh at the depiction of this commune in “The Last Station”, I think that this type of living was an admirable attempt at a rebuttal to the excess and gilded nature of 19th century Russian society.
Very few authors, even respected ones, even ones whose work can be said to draw the reader into a continuous dialogue, created the same kind of community that Tolstoy did. Perhaps his great novels drew in his followers, but his philosophy allowed a kind of flourishing of pacifist and moralistic ideals that was influential in its own right. Can they be called art? I couldn’t say. By his own standards, probably not. But their influence on his community both local and worldwide (a man named Gandhi comes to mind) should not be downplayed, and such impact would not have been achieved if he stopped writing after Anna Karenina.
Tolstoy’s philosophical works may not have been very effective at transmitting his own emotions, at least in today’s world, but they were and remain important for the community they created. Maybe at the time, given the context of the Orthodox Church, they more effectively transmitted religious feeling. His literary works, on the other hand, continue to create a community through their worldwide readership, and through the fact that classes like ours exist.
By these measures, then, I believe we can say that Tolstoy effectively reached his dream. I disagree with many of my classmates on the “washed out” version of Older Tolstoy. I think his later works have value; he just had a different and less entertaining purpose at that point. Even though he lectures excessively, does not follow his own teachings, is sometimes a snob, and is pretty abhorrently sexist, I as a reader do not expect him to be a perfect man; he is still a member of his times (and as such I can forgive some of the sexism) and there is still value in his words even if he didn’t himself follow them. And what philosopher doesn’t have some wonky stuff? We as a culture have a fixation on idealizing our leaders; any flaw is considered a scandal (Martin Luther King Jr, another Tolstoy fan, comes to mind). But this does the rest of us a disservice by holding that only perfect people can write appropriate philosophy or lead nations to peace— leading all of us non-perfect people to count ourselves out when, really, we should be engaging in the fight. Tolstoy may not have created the perfect inclusive community with his sometimes-alienating works, but he certainly did better than most.
On the class:
Personally, I signed up for this class 50% because I liked Anna Karenina and wanted to read more Tolstoy, and 50% because Prof. Beyer was teaching it. As a student of the Russian language, I have very fond (and/or traumatizing) memories of being forced to stand and march around a classroom chanting “Putin is our father, Russia is our mother” on the first day under Beyer’s conducting, and I was looking forward to similar energy in this class.
While I appreciate Prof. Beyer’s attention to educational philosophy, I don’t actually think the student-run model was the best approach for this class. There is so much essential context of Russian culture and history that needs to be brought in to really understand Tolstoy in the context of his times. I admire and respect my classmates’ intellect, but do think that a trained educator with extensive knowledge of Russian literature and culture would be able to more effectively provide that background, draw us out in discussion, and challenge us to think about the works in ways that might not otherwise occur to us. Even if we retain 90% of what we teach, we are only retaining that much from half of one class over the course of the semester. The remaining time we are still gleaning 10% from our classmates’ more formulaic presentations. I appreciated the emphasis on discussion and not lecture— I think that is the best and most engaging way to do a literature class. I just think we could have gained a lot from Prof. Beyer’s direction of at least some of the discussion.
I think that as our class got more comfortable with each other, the discussions got a lot better, but that means that our more stilted discussions were at the time of Tolstoy’s largest and greatest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I find this to be sort of depressing timing and wonder if we might have gotten more out of those works if perhaps one of them had been placed at the end of the semester. I also would have appreciated a little more time on each of those novels.
I do think it would have been interesting to see something he wrote before War and Peace—a bit more of a glimpse into how the “first Tolstoy” developed as a writer. I think I might be in the minority of the class, though, of feeling like I actually got real value out of reading his later philosophical works. Some of them [Kreutzer Sonata] made me mad, some of them [Confession] really hit spots that were interesting to me. I also really liked reading “What Is To Be Done?” Problematic views of women aside, I felt like it was really relevant for me personally, as someone pursuing international development and wrestling with a lot of the issues of poverty and how to effectively help people that Tolstoy encounters, and for Middlebury students in general, as generally concerned people about the state of the world. It was also interesting to see his depiction of poverty in 1800’s Russia.
Some of the philosophical works got long, and I would have liked to spread out in particular that one week before spring break in which we had 4 readings. I think a smaller selection of his philosophical works could have served the same purpose while allowing for a bit more time on War and Peace/ Anna Karenina. But I think in general they are an important part of understanding Tolstoy’s life, the community he built, and the wide-reaching influence he had on pacifists around the world.
As for the films, while a certain amount was interesting to see the variety of ways in which fellow artists have interpreted (and/or bastardized) Tolstoy’s work, I could have left out a lot of them. The time that they took up was disproportionately high compared to the value gained from them. (In particular, next time this class is taught, please do not show the American version of Kreutzer Sonata.) The films of War and Peace, AK, and the Last Station were, in my opinion, the most valuable. For any others, I think clips would be adequate. In general, I know the professor has limited say in when their class will be held, but I think this course would be much better served by meeting twice a week and having discussion being the primary focus.
A final thing I appreciated was the lack of emphasis on literary analysis and paper writing. I usually feel like that is an exercise in making arguments out of nothing, and I also hate it. I feel like Tolstoy would hate it too, so that’s nice and in line with his works. Discussion allows us to each bring whatever experience or fresh eyes we have to the table, and I gained a lot by hearing the variety of opinions expressed in our class.
Overall, this class was worth taking simply for the works itself, few of which I would have found the time to read during the academic year otherwise. I’ve enjoyed it and feel like a slightly more well-rounded human for having read these works. But please, Professor Beyer, don’t fall into the (earlier) Tolstoyan trap of thinking you know nothing and can teach nothing. You can, and in my opinion, future classes would really value your direction. Thanks for a thought-provoking semester.
Tolstoy advocates for “moral art” \art with moral value/ and that good art should strive to turn the captive audience into a harmonious community. According to Tolstoy ‘s “What is Art?”, the only way for an artist to create such a community is by creating art that accurately reflects the artists’ true feelings and emotions. Through this sincerity, art becomes accessible and comprehensible to any and all audiences – emotionally unifying them in shared experiences. Hence, sincerity is the only way to accomplish meaningful “good” art.
Throughout the entirety of this class, we have fancied the idea of “several” or “different” Tolstoy’s. Not only does this idea capture the contradictory nature of Tolstoy himself, but it also speaks to the ways in which his various works of “art” such as War & Peace and Anna Karenina highlight the internal conflict(s) of mankind on a larger scale. The fact that Tolstoy is still highly regarded in this present day proves that a lot of his work is more than just sincerer, but a painstakingly accurate depiction of love and life. That is because despite the cultural context and setting, the emotions depicted in these great novels such as Anna Karenina and War & Peace can resonate with anyone who is human; his great novels are both accessible and stripped down to their core, are also very comprehensible. This is what ultimately makes Tolstoy’s work so relatable even hundreds of years later.
Disillusionment: In War and Peace (1869), Tolstoy constantly draws on the battle scenes to show the ways in which humans are constantly at war against something external to mask greater battle waging within each and every one of us. Throughout our entire lives we are constantly faced with different obstacles and “battles”. It is only by conquering these moments of difficulty that we can grow and get somewhere new. War & Peace very beautifully illustrates the ways in which man is constantly at war with not only himself, but his surroundings. At the beginning of the novel, the main characters hold very romantic ideals which are then challenged and ultimately crushed as a result of these ongoing “battles” (both literally and figuratively). War plays an important role in this novel, primarily because of the high levels of emotion that it conveys. The Russians were basically fighting a war against themselves; a dilemma that is highlighted in Pierre’s internal versus external struggle throughout War & Peace. The external institutions such as government and religion put the nature of humankind into question and threaten the “peace”. This dual relationship can be understood/seen as a result of people’s need for community and togetherness; so much so that when they struggle from the disorientation that comes from having all of their desires satisfied. Take for example Levin and Anna from Anna Karenina. Both end up with the love of their lives, and even bring a new life into the world; yet the two are initially struck with feelings of emptiness and get a taste of the disillusionment that haunts Pierre. Despite the front, Anna is deeply affected by the comments of her peers and struggles with the inability to present herself/exist in high society. Levin struggles with taking Kitty to the country side and finds that love is nowhere near as pure and perfect as he had once envisioned. He realizes that the only time he can feel content is when he is working the field living the peasant lifestyle. Similar to Pierre, Levin criticizes the harmful selfishness and irresponsible lifestyles of men like Stiva and Vronsky who commit adultery and live in a frivolous manner. When these two conflicting aspects of human beings are confronted with one another – the result is war. A war waged against the self: reflected in self-harm, dieting, over-working, drinking, smoking. We search for these escapes in order to avoid facing these pressing issues. But the way Kitty cares for Nikolai during his final days reminds us that the act of simply being together keeping one another company can have miraculous affects in curing the ills of isolation that afflicts all mankind.
Tolstoy really addresses some of the most pressing issues that our generation faces today. We now have the ability to divide ourselves into a million different parts and have grown unable to ever really be present in one moment. Now more than ever do we seek to form deep and meaningful connections – but we no longer know how to do so.
In this way, I think Tolstoy has succeeded in creating “moral art”, because his novels are so credible and life like that we can pull from our collective human experiences to make connections with the characters and ultimately learn valuable lessons from them. In War & Peace Tolstoy takes us through Pierre’s journey to self- discovery and teaches us to follow the teachings of Christ even despite any contravening man-made institutions/influences:
On the Course:
I decided to take this course because I had heard several accolades for Tolstoy throughout high school but I myself never got around to reading any of his work. With the new release of the Kierra Knightly film “Anna Karenina” it is needless to say that I was left in awe and completely intrigued. I had no prior knowledge of Tolstoy before taking this course, and therefore found it extremely useful to have the “Biography” and “Historical Background” of each piece and time period in Tolstoy’s life. Tolstoy was such a monumental figure both in his time and even now, which means that there is a certain kind of depth to his life that would be left unobserved had we not had the biographical aspect in each class presentation. By assigning someone the role of providing (and in some cases reiterating) the historical background behind each of Tolstoy’s work – we as a class – were better able to grasp the authors intentions with the piece; something that we would not have been able to do if we had only been assigned to read a biography on the life of Tolstoy or something of that sort. There is value in learning about the authors’ life in relation to a text because it provides us with the insight necessary to do a close read of the texts and it also better enables us to understand the “moral” or “lesson”.
Besides the biographical aspect of the class, I also found it particularly useful to incorporate multiple film screenings. By having a visual representation of the Tolstoy’s work, it felt as if the text was brought to life. As discussed earlier – lots of Tolstoy’s work incorporate his philosophical teachings and views while also tugging on our heart strings with characters such as Anna and Pierre inviting us to embark on their journey alongside them. Despite the fact that the multiple movie renditions were nowhere close to capturing the depth of emotion of/ experience that is the Kreutzer Sonata, Anna Karenina and War and Peace, I still found them extremely useful and worthwhile. The “good” or “accurate” renditions of these movies are ridiculously long (particularly the Russian versions) and I am glad we were able to watch snippets of them because I know for a fact that I would never have had the opportunity (or the time for that matter) to watch them outside of class. By giving the visual manifestations/representations of Tolstoy the necessary class time they deserve – I was better able to step away from the (often aggravating) ‘tolstoyan’ philosophy and appreciate the wonderfully written story line. The films were probably my favorite part of the night (besides snacks of course).
A suggestion I would make for next time would be to pose an opening question instead of weekly quizzes and go around the room so that everyone has the opportunity to answer the question and share their thoughts, thus rendering them more likely to speak up throughout the class. I for one, am not exactly shy – but being in a classroom setting with Russian majors and upperclassmen, I must admit that it was intimidating for me to actually speak up a lot of time. I was one of the few people who knew absolutely NOTHING about Tolstoy except that he wrote Anna Karenina and War & Peace and was a world-renowned Russian author. On the other hand, some of my peers had already read Tolstoy’s work on several occasions before this class and were thus more familiar with Tolstoy’s philosophy and writing style. In general I think the class suited students with all level of expertise, but in order to facilitate a more even handed discussion, I think posing an opening question would allow students such as myself to speak up more in class while also testing their knowledge of the reading.
I agree with Sophie that despite the heavy readings, I thoroughly enjoyed taking this course
On Moral Art
If Tolstoy’s real measure of success was whether or not he created moral art with all of his literary and philosophical works, then he would be considered a failure in his life efforts. If, however, he considered his success on a case-by-case basis and then he was remotely successful. If you look at some of his novels and pieces individually, then there were times when he created art. To certain groups, he created moral art. The other consideration I want to make is the success measured in the past vs. the measure in the present (i.e. the “were/are”) is different.
On a superficial level, it is fair to say that Tolstoy’s literary works were closer to his definition of moral art than his philosophical works were. Tolstoy said that moral art was meant to create a shared experience for readers and authors, portray aspects of the human condition, and form a community. Anna Karenina was immediately popular when it was written and released in series. High society could relate to the novel, as could peasant workers; there is even a prostitute in the novel. Nothing extraordinary happens in this novel. Moreover, real life situations and tribulations are presented. This caught the audiences’ attention because many could relate to the experiences in the novel that they could not talk about in everyday life, like adultery. In this sense, Anna Karenina was successful at relating experiences that a wide variety of people could sympathize with.
War and Peace, although not initially popular, is quite frankly, a monotonous novel. In its monotony, it succeeds at showing what the human condition is like. This novel follows characters in their daily activities and the thought processes and feelings related to everything they do. This is the real life human condition. All of the characters in the novel were realistic (which they should have been considering Tolstoy modeled them off himself and people he knew!). Characters in War and Peace displayed all sorts of feelings. There were people who were happy, depressed, jealous, anxious, guilty, etc… If Tolstoy did anything in this novel did anything, he showed human condition. He did not make life glamorous and did not make unrealistic characters.
The two novels both formed communities. Anna Karenina brought people together when it was first published. I am assuming, however, that these communities were divided and exclusive. That is to say that, an aristocrat group who liked the novel were not going to talk about it with some peasants who like the novel. Anna Karenina and War and Peace create communities in the present day though, which is why I wasn’t to distinguish between “were/are.” Since these two novels are two of the most celebrated novels today, the have undoubtedly created communities. There are many different communities that have been brought together as a result of Tolstoy. The literary reviewers read the novels together, talk about them, and shared the novels together. Book Clubs and academic classes come together to read the novels and discuss, or analyze. These are also communities that Tolstoy’s works fostered. The community aspect of the novels wasn’t as prevalent in the “were” because they were so new, and were not studied yet.
On a case-by-case basis, some of Tolstoy’s philosophical works were also successful pieces of moral art. However, since not everybody shares the same philosophical visions or ideas, there is no way for a majority of people to ever relate to them. While the numbers of relatability are not as high as his literary works, the intensity is infinitely higher. People’s philosophical beliefs are what guides their life and their choices. Obviously, these are things that they will be completely dedicated to and belief in. This is why, if one of Tolstoy’s philosophical pieces created an experience that connected Tolstoy with a particular reader, that reader’s connection would be intense. We see this as being true in the Tolstoyan movement that took place. People who read Tolstoy’s philosophical pieces and understood what he was saying dedicated their lives to following a certain Tolstoyan way of life. This connection created very strong communities that were much strong that and sort of communities created by Anna Karenina or War in Peace, but they were fewer in number. So, for some, Tolstoy’s philosophical pieces were moral art.
Looking at the past and present applicability of moral art on Tolstoy’s philosophical pieces is interesting. While it was a very selective audience who read them (partly because they were banned), it continues to be a very selective group who reads them today. The main difference is that the people who read them today do not always try to understand what Tolstoy was saying, but instead try to find some modern situation to relate it too. It is almost like these works are not applicable to today’s world and society. Most of what he says people think is incredulous because we don’t see that exact stuff today, but if you relate it to something that we do see today, you can see that some of the stuff he says isn’t so bizarre.
On the class
First of all, I do not think that this course should just focus on War and Peace and Anna Karenina. If people only wanted those novels, they could take a lit course that included them or 19th century Russian lit. This course is titled “Tolstoy” for a reason. We were meant to get the works that we could not get in a standard lit class. I do however think that there was too much reading to really get in depth with a lot of the main themes. I would propose having some sort of prerequisite for this course, like “Must have read Anna Karenina and War and Peace,” or “must have read Anna Karenina or War and Peace,” or something like that. The only problem that I worry about with that approach is, being a Russian major, I know how unpopular Russian courses are sometimes, and that would risk deterring people from the course. Something to consider though…
On that note though, this was the largest Russian class I have had at Middlebury. It was very interesting to be in a class where the majority of the students did not have any sort of Russian literature/history background. Sometimes, knowing a lot about something taints your perspective, so it was good for me to hear fresh and uncomplicated (due to not considering a whole bunch of other Russian things) thoughts.
The student presentations were good for getting the general gist of the pieces out there, but Professor Beyer’s comments were also necessary. The discussions were very long though and I would usually space out by 9:30. That being said, I think that, in general, the literature was more important than the movies. The movies that were important were War and Peace, the Last Station, and Anna Karenina. But since the others don’t have good renditions in movie form, those were unnecessary. I think it would be better off if the class met 2x/week for 2 hours and spent the first hour of each class with a presentation and the second hour doing the movie. This way, we might be watching War and Peace for a few weeks, but we could see the whole thing instead of the other, bad quality videos. I’ve had student run classes before and have always found them effective. This was no exception, just the timing thing needs to be adjusted.
In What is Art? we encounter yet another work in which Tolstoy attempts to give an answer to a question that is, at its core, unanswerable. To define art seems to me an absurd task– an exercise in futility. In many ways, Tolstoy’s essay seemed similar to me to the end of Anna Karenina, when Levin is trying to figure out the meaning of life, in that this essay seems more to be Tolstoy trying to convince himself of some complex, grand truth that turns out not to be so universally true.
I think Sophie brings up some great points in the second paragraph of her blog post, when she discusses Tolstoy’s absolutism. Throughout What is Art? Tolstoy makes some pretty sweeping assumptions and generalizations, establishing them as if they were incontrovertible logical axioms. One generalization that particularly bothered me, repeated throughout the essay, is Tolstoy’s notion that “every man’s relation to God is one and the same.” Tolstoy argues that we all know God, but merely replace God with that which is not God. I think that maybe, considering the times, we can excuse such an absolutist notion of the divine, but I even hesitate to do so. After all, it was fourteen years before this essay that Nietzsche declared, “God is dead,” so clearly, every thinker was not operating on the same religious platform as Tolstoy (not to mention the millions of people who populated the world that did not subscribe to a monotheistic, Judeo-Christian religion). Even if such an argument were incontrovertible in Tolstoy’s day, the twentieth century has blown such an idea to smithereens with the central importance modernist and post-modernist thought has placed on subjectivity.
Similarly, Tolstoy’s absolutist views on art strike me as rather outdated. I think it is quite hard for me to understand Tolstoy’s views on art because our lives are so vastly different. As a young boy, well before I had read the gospels or had developed any notion of Christ, I had seen works by Warhol, Dali, and Rothko and heard it called “art.” My ideas on what art is have been shaped by my society, and that society happens to be a lot more experimental and open compared to 1894 Russia (thank God).
Tolstoy argues that supreme, good art has been that which has stood the test of time– art that has been understood by people of all classes across history. Yet what Tolstoy ignores is the social power structures that have ensured that those texts have been understood and read again and again. The New and Old Testament, the Vedas, and the story of Buddha (all of which Tolstoy mention) haven’t necessarily been inherently comprehensible to everyone ever. Rather, history has worked out so these that these texts have become central to society and they have come to define us, so we know them well and frequently think about them. Taking Introduction to Biblical Literature this semester with Professor Yarborough, I have been reading the Bible really for the first time and I’ve got to say, while that book does contain some eternal stories that communicate a clear moral message and unite mankind and conform to Tolstoy’s definition of art, it also contains some pretty bewildering, morally depraved stuff (Lot’s daughters come to mind). Similarly if the Vedas and Buddha’s story are so universally understood, why do people devote their entire lives to understanding them? It seems to me that it is often these “eternal” religious texts that are the most perplexing. Randle McMurphy (“One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” protagonist) seems a lot more understandable to me than a guy like Abraham, who is ready to kill his son for some jealous, angry spirit. If the bulk of humanity were to decide to worship McMurphy for the next two thousand years, I am pretty sure all people, regardless of class, would have a pretty good understanding of the dude and assume that his message was some universal, inherent truth and that all good art would preach his message.
Despite these complaints, I did find some compelling arguments in this essay (most of them towards the beginning). I particularly liked the ideas that art is the communication of emotion and that it is through art that we establish a “union among men.” I think when Tolstoy is at his most brilliant this is what he excels in. When the wounded Andrei looks to the infinite sky and knows peace; when Natasha dances; when Levin sees Kitty after his night in the fields and knows he must have her; when Anna kills herself. In all these examples, we feel deep pathos and we experience the emotion of Tolstoy’s brilliantly drawn characters. We come to know one another better, because we realize we are all going through the same journey. We are all confused and unsure of where that journey is taking us, but we are feeling things along the way. But when Tolstoy uses the ranting Pozdnyshev to communicate his Puritanical sexual views or when he hits you over the head with Maslova’s maudlin tragedy, I feel that he breaks that union of man and I am incapable of taking part in any sort of emotional communication.
I think if Tolstoy were to see where art has gone, he would be appalled. The fact that the erudite, complex and ambiguous texts of Faulkner, Nabokov, and Joyce are now appreciated as some of the greatest works of the past century seems to contradict Tolstoy’s notion that we should be striving towards some universally, comprehensible moral notion of art. But who knows? Maybe Tolstoy’s right. Maybe the modern age has made morally bankrupt, materialistic, hedonistic philistines out of us all. I prefer to think not.
One of my favorite Tolstoy quotes comes in War and Peace when he says a Russian is self-assured because he knows he knows nothing. It seems to be as Tolstoy got older he convinced himself he knew more and more, and his art and life suffered because of this. Nevertheless, I do not want to conclude this post without mentioning the profound effect Tolstoy’s ideas have had on nonviolent movements and leaders, from Ghandi in India to Otpor in Serbia. Clearly, the non-violent philosophies and works of his old age have had immense moral value. This is not to say, however, that everything that does not preach such a clear moral message cannot be called art.
In terms of how the class was structured:
While some of the films were compelling (I especially enjoyed what we watched of the Soviet “War and Peace”), others felt like a waste of time (e.g. that strange Kreutzer Sonata modernization). Unlike some of the others, I don’t mind watching a movie at the end of such long classes, so long as the movie is good. Some classes I think we could have had a much more productive and intellectual stimulating last half of class had we just continued our conversation; other times I think films got us to consider how Tolstoy has been interpreted and understood by other artists.
In terms of the reading list, I don’t think we read too much, but just read too much later Tolstoy. We read absolutely nothing the young Tolstoy wrote before War and Peace, which actually includes quite a lot of stuff that sounds pretty cool and I would like to have read (such as the autobiographical trilogy, The Cossacks, Sevastopol Sketches, and other early short fiction). But for some reason, we read thousands of pages of sanctimonious later Tolstoy that no one (Professor included) really seemed to care for. Because of this, I thought this class presented Tolstoy in a sort of unfair, negative way– focusing disproportionately on the last two decades of his life. Had we read a wider breadth of Tolstoy in a chronological fashion we could have gained greater insight to the intellectual development of the artist.
In terms of the whole “we-are-own-teachers” thing, I think this was an interesting experiment and I am still unsure of the results. On the one hand, I feel like my knowledge of Tolstoy’s life and works after this class is comparable to my knowledge of any other given subject after I take a class on it at Middlebury. The massive amount of time spent getting the readings done alone had to count for something, and I feel like this class was, to a certain extent, effective in presenting Tolstoy’s basic artistic and biographical development. That being said, I felt that a lot of the presentations were repetitive and we could have definitely benefited from hearing more from an expert.
The rationale that students should teach the class because we remember 90% of what we teach and only 10% of what we hear is a bit flawed. While each one of us may now be well versed in whatever topic we had to present on, we still only absorbed 10% of our peers’ lectures. I would rather retain 10% of thirteen lectures on Tolstoy given by someone who has studied Russia and Russian literature for the bulk of his adult life than 90% of the amateur lecture I gave on critical perceptions of the latter half of War and Peace and 10% of everyone else’s amateur lectures.
In conclusion, I think the freedom given to us at times led to some great philosophical conversations and at other times resulted in not-so-fruitful speculation and tangents. We definitely could gained more concrete knowledge and “information” about Tolstoy (that is- the socio-political climates and historical events that influenced his various writings, his literary and linguistic innovations, and the impact of his social ideas) had this class been taught in a more traditional fashion. While I appreciate the idea that the knowledge is out there and it is ultimately up to us to read the books and learn the stuff for ourselves, at times a greater professorial presence would have fostered a deeper understanding of the life and works of this unique individual. Although I hate to be “that guy” invoking to a potentially entitled and tired viewpoint, “isn’t that what are parents are paying for?”
If I were structuring this class in the future I wouldn’t do away entirely with the student-led discussion, but I would strike a greater balance (maybe something like 1/3 student-led, 1/3 movies worth watching, 1/3 professor lectures).
As we have seen through his novels and philosophical works, there are two very different versions of Tolstoy. In his earlier works, Tolstoy seems to have this idealistic dream about what one’s life should be like, and what the ideal love is. Although this seems to be true throughout his earlier works, Tolstoy eventually turns to become a pessimist about art, love, and religion.
In What is Art?, we see that Tolstoy initially argues that art is meant to evoke feelings for both the artist and the person viewing the art. He goes on to criticize different kinds of art, and that the ‘higher class art’ is simply for the artist to become selfish. Here is what I find the first problem with Tolstoy’s argument; I think that there is no direct way to define ‘art’, so therefore it is hard to criticize what is considered good or bad art. While I understand that Tolstoy thinks that some art is worth everyone viewing and understanding, I don’t think that he takes into consideration the fact that not everyone thinks the same way about art—some people find the simple pieces to convey the most emotions, while others find them simply confusing. This idea of Tolstoy’s that art has to evoke feelings in everyone and create a sense of unity seems to be utterly impossible. Here again, Tolstoy tries to make a connection between the peasants and the upper class; meanwhile, in his novels he has blatantly showed the differences between the lives of the men and the women in different social classes. I think this relates back to his desires in both War and Peace and Anna Karenina to Tolstoy’s desire to live the simple life-as a peasant might. It is almost as if Tolstoy desires a peasants life because he does not wish to be anymore more than what he knows he can be; he is critical of the upper class citizens, including the artists, who strive to be as much as they can be. The peasants may look and appreciate a piece of art in the most simple way possible, yet the upper class has to discuss and pick the piece of artwork apart.
In discussion this week, we talked about the fact that a lot of the ‘timeless’ pieces of artwork, or literature are accessible to a vast amount of people. I think that this is more what Tolstoy is trying to argue—although not everyone is going to understand or feel a certain way about art, the pieces that mean the most will be looked at and understand by a vast amount of people. We also discussed the idea that ‘timeless’ pieces of either artwork, or literature, or music are dependent on how they are related to our lives today.
A great example was the fact that I read Dante’s Inferno in the fall because of reading Dan Brown’s Inferno; Dante’s Inferno has probably regained popularity because of Dan Brown’s most recent novel. Although Dante’s Inferno will always be a classic, it definitely was read more recently within the last two years than the 2 before Dan Browns novel came out. Although there are always pieces of art that will be considered ‘timeless’, I think that they are not always remembered-yet once they enter our everyday lives, it becomes much easier.
Tolstoy claims that art should bring strong ‘feelings’ to people, which I believe that his work does. Although I may not agree with his more philosophical works, they do have a type of infectious attitude towards them. In these works, Tolstoy has the ability to express what he wants to say, as well as be free from judgment. In this work, he claims that the art that is done in order to please others is a waste of time, and I think that he truly believes this. Tolstoy clearly was not afraid to go against the crowd and say what he thinks to be important, which is clearly evident in his philosophical works, which eventually get him excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. I believe that most great artwork can be argued on both sides: just don’t because the artist wanted to, or to please someone else. I personally agree with Tolstoy at this point where he claims that great art isn’t created for someone else’s enjoyment; on the other hand, it is when someone simply loves the work that he/she is creating. Tolstoy seems to claim that all artwork needs to have a deeper philosophical meaning. I find this statement to be slightly contradictory to his previous thoughts: if the art is simply created for the artist, then there is no need for there the artwork to have a deeper meaning. If it is created for someone else, then it is understandable that the work is mean to convey a specific image.
Clearly the original ideas that Tolstoy presents about art change throughout the course of the essay. I think that there is a distinct change in Tolstoy as he ages, and the ideas that he puts into his work. While he is young, full of life, and happy with his wife and children, Tolstoy is able to write the amazing and ‘timeless’ novels that are still read today. On the other hand, as Tolstoy ages, he is bitter about the love and the happy lives that other people are able to have. At this time, Tolstoy is angry about being told what to do by the church and his family. He wants the freedom that great artists should be able to have.
In terms of the class, I think that the way that the class is set up is very smart. I think having each student present at least once is a great way to ensure that people truly understand the information. It is very easy to simply read the information and not truly understand what is happening, but having each student present ensures that they know the plot and can have a discussion about it.
Another part of the class that I enjoyed was the difference in the type of people who took the class. It is great that there are different ages, majors, and types of people. I think that everyone brings something different to the class. And as the course continued, people definitely became more comfortable with one another which made it much easier to say our opinions, even if not everyone necessarily agreed with those ideas.
Also, I think that watching different versions of the movies are interesting because it is cool to see how the movies deviate from the books. I definitely agree that sometimes it would be easier to only show the ‘important’ parts of the movie instead of the whole thing, as it was often difficult to focus after a lengthy discussion. I definitely enjoyed the first movie that we watched because it was a great way to understand the time in Tolstoy’s life when he was writing most of the pieces that we were reading-especially because I didn’t know anything about him beforehand.
I do agree with Matt and Alexandra that we could probably take more time in discussing Anna Karenina and War and Peace because they seem to be two novels that deserve more than 2 classes being spoken about. While I did find his philosophical pieces to be interesting, I was definitely less interested in those compared to his novels including the Death of Ivan Illych and Resurrection.
While this class was a lot of reading, some definitely better than others, I am still very glad that I got to learn about Tolstoy’s life and philosophies while he was writing these amazing pieces.
Tolstoy’s idea that the appreciation of true art is predicated on the ability to empathize with what the artist was feeling during the time of creation is interesting and convoluted. I agree to an extent; the ability to transmit feeling by means of an artistic medium is an indicator of artistic ability, maybe of what is too often described as “genius.” Tolstoy’s implication in this idea is that true art should not necessarily be intellectualized; as students of serious literature this is difficult for us to countenance, because we have been taught to rely on our most incisively academic approach to unpacking and understanding a text. When we try to explicate a scene, even if we do so through the empathic lens of author identification, we rely on the identification and analysis of stylistic and formal elements. And why shouldn’t we? If Tolstoy writes like “the world,” that is, if he has achieved such a level of realism that we accept every narrative decision he makes because, as Professor Beyer has said, “that’s just the way the world is,” we should try to figure out why it is that we make such allowances for Tolstoy, when very few other authors—if any—are given such a pass.
To a large extent, in Anna Karenina and War and Peace, I do believe that he earns it. These books are frustrating. They are banal, capricious, ridiculous, funny, sad, discursive, repetitive. But so is life. The most incredible thing to me about the two big novels (yes W and P is a novel) is Tolstoy’s ability to inhabit countless subjectivities, and to constantly reshape our understanding of so many different, fleshed-out characters. His characters are like leaves being buffeted around by the wind. They experience countless epiphanies that are then either diminished or completely negated. To understand a good Tolstoyan character, one must spend a tremendous amount of time with him or her; the way that he allows people into his world is in many ways as generous and tender an approach as that of any author.
So in this way, maybe we are feeling what the author was feeling. Love, frustration, hatred, bemusement, disbelief—to create so many rich characters capable of engendering these feelings in the reader is an absolutely incredible accomplishment. But we are often given to believing that we are seeing and feeling not from the perspective of Tolstoy, but rather from that of one of the occupants of his world.
When Tolstoy’s eschews this, the results are mixed. His treatment of Anna, probably the most interesting of any of his characters, is unfortunate and his manipulation (I call it sadism) of her in order to structurally validate the novel’s epigraph is, in my opinion, clumsy. But he can make us laugh with a pastiche of wartime bravado, or change the way we understand the world he has created with a mere sentence that seems to come straight from the omnipotent Author himself, and that resonates throughout the entire novel. His theories on history, while dry, prolix, redundant, and frustrating, are, I think, integral to War and Peace as an experience. Certainly he probably could have shortened them, or even omitted them, because we all knew what he was going to say, anyway. But he made the choice to include them, and so they are as much a part of the work as our favorite scenes of romance, war, and comets.
Tolstoy’s philosophical works, which I would not call art, succeeded in their transmittance of his “feeling” to the reader; unfortunately, this feeling seemed to primarily be crabbiness. Also, they did so not by evoking in us the same feeling as the author (although I did feel a profound sense of loathing and anger while reading some of his philosophy, even though it was directed not at his targets but at him) but by stubbornly and obviously telling us, more or less, what was on his mind at the time.
Tolstoy’s morality, to me, seems entirely predicated on his enormous sense of guilt. As a young man, he made mistakes—he did what humans do when they are young. But his gradual decline (my word for it) into asceticism makes his thinking profoundly less interesting, because it necessarily limits the scope of what he seems able to understand. This is not to say that his thinking was still complex, his ideas developed, and his wits sharp, but he is employing his tremendous gift for creating highly wrought and convincing narratives within the ponderous parameters of his views of life.
Maybe one chief reason why I found it so difficult to read his philosophical nonfiction as well as his didactic, moralizing fiction was because I had come to expect a certain level of genuine reflection, rather than genuflection. There seems no sense in condemning his unequivocally vile positions on certain issues, namely women in general. It was surprising and disappointing to see this man, in some ways one of the most generous writers of fiction I’ve ever encountered, take such a stand against the living of life itself. In his later art, like Resurrection and The Kreutzer Sonata, we did not feel what he was feeling so much as have it shoved down our throats. Traces of masterful writing were largely nullified by Tolstoy’s insistence on promulgating his own viewpoints. These works do not succeed as art because they push the reader away, eschewing the subtle tapestry of life for a handkerchief with chloroform on it.
Professor Beyer’s comments the other night were poignant and, I think, particularly relevant to the understanding of the man and his works. I am glad that they are distinct entities, and I think that, even if it would have been hard for us to read AK after What is to be Done, we should be thankful that we did it in the right order. Tolstoy lost his ability to write like the world, and instead chose to write like old man Tolstoy, but we cannot blame him for that. He’s just a dude.
On the course:
First of all, regardless of its various pros and cons, I enjoyed the format of this course immensely. Being in an environment of relaxed earnestness like the one created made it much easier to sit in the RAJ house for three and a half hours on a Tuesday night. The focus on student-led discussion and presentations was not only very Tolstoyan, but also a great way of provoking active engagement with the material. That said, it was not always successful. Particularly because I have such a limited knowledge of Russian history and literary tradition, I think it would have been really helpful if each class had started with a talk by you, Professor Beyer. Firstly, because I think there were important pieces of context that only you were able to add—which you often did, throughout the class, but I think it would have been helpful to have a basic context and platform to move from with the student-led stuff. Secondly, I think that if the course were to begin this way, we could get going more quickly and waste a little less time trying to figure who was going to begin the class or what was going to happen next. While I don’t think that the course necessarily has to be strictly regimented, I do feel that this could have made things run a little bit more smoothly, particularly at the beginning of the semester, when people seemed unsure (I know I was, at least) of the extent to which we were in charge. Yet I want to qualify that by saying that the freedom the format gave us was liberating, in a way, and made me more comfortable to offer comments in discussion than I probably would have been otherwise.
I enjoy student-led discussions, and it’s interesting to see on which passages or aspects of the material people choose to focus. The discussions generally were fascinating and engaging, although I think that they would move more quickly and less awkwardly if there had been a more aggressive approach to contribution. It’s hard as a discussion leader to get people to chime in sometimes, and this slowed down some of the proceedings. Still, though, I feel like I got a lot out of them.
I wish we had spent more time actively engaging with critical responses to some of the texts. I loved hearing what people through the ages have had to say about the works, and, while it was interesting and often funny to see their contemporary reception, I think that focusing on more thoughtful, less reactionary criticism would have really deepened our understanding. Also, it seemed like some of the texts were difficult to find criticism for in English, so I think a professor-led section would be the best fit for this aspect.
Also, I wish we had read excerpts from the philosophical stuff and spent more time with the two great novels. I just thought these were infinitely richer and more mineable than the philosophy, which certainly could have been at least generally understood by reading more curated selections.
The films were generally a waste of time. This is partly to do with the general difficulty of adapting prose to the screen, which I think is almost always the project of a lunatic. While I see some merit in comparing artistic visions and cross-media representations, this could have been accomplished by watching clips. I thought that your post-student section insights were consistently more interesting, entertaining, and germane to the material than the films themselves. Although it was nice to have plenty of time for snacks.
The study of Tolstoy is one of irony, correspondence and contradiction. The first we attribute to Tolstoy’s masterful writing. The second describes an intellectual legacy originating from profound influence on leaders of later times. The third stems from the frustrations of grappling with the profundity of ideas of a brash, conflicted thinker. Together, they constitute the makings of a cult, which–mysterious, enrapturing and fervent—certainly lends itself well to the makings of community. But what’s in the Kool-Aid? How can one man’s work inspire the non-violent, pacifistic Gandhi, set the foundations for anarchism, and form an ideological bridge between imperial and communist Russia? The answer lay in the interpretation.
Tolstoy, through both his fiction and philosophy, formulates a far-reaching system of intense feeling, profound mystery and pliant ideology, which allows for the creation of a diverse spectrum of potential meaning. This meaning, created through interpretation and backed by the Tolstoyan mystique, possesses the power to unify, divide, incite and quell as a function of how you read it. This, of course, is nothing new to students of 20th century literary theory and the great investigations of what is meaning and how do we create it. Yet, there is one big difference between the modernists, post-modernists and Tolstoy: The former two are just trying to say anything at all, the latter is trying to say something in particular. The posited existence of a singular intended reading, coupled with the awesome infinity of Anna Karenina, the impetuous arguments of “What is to be Done?” and the general reverence for Tolstoy as the fountainhead inclines readers to tread on unstable ground, to claim the individual reading as the true meaning. This is the cult of Tolstoy, comprised of many sects, whose influence perhaps reaches farther than we think it does.
Something can be said as to what distinguishes Tolstoy from his contemporaries. The structure of the cult of Tolstoy consists of the scripture of his early fiction, the dogmatic writing of his philosophical texts, the legacy of critical responses and his adherents. Together, they create a prestige of importance and relevance that has continued more or less uniformly since Tolstoy’s time. This constancy of influence has prompted people to tie in Tolstoy’s malleable arguments to bolster claims associated with their own causes, which only enhances Tolstoy’s prestige. About each of these aspects of Tolstoy’s legacy, there is much to say. His major works, enigmatic yet accessible, lay the foundation for the cult of Tolstoy.
War and Peace and Anna Karenina, deeply felt and massive in both scope and length, through their sweeping impact, substantiate a lot of Tolstoy’s later, untenable philosophical ruminations. The characters of Anna, Pierre, Levin and Natasha accomplish the difficult task of both presenting a variety of profound and enchanting narratives, largely accessible with regards to both literary device and style, and revealing a secondary level of deep and nebulous potential meaning. This, the product of Tolstoy’s masterful realism, evokes a rich, even profound feeling of liveliness and verisimilitude. The unitive feeling, the great achievement of Tolstoy’s fiction, acts as an ascetic claim of deep and profound understanding, from which Tolstoy builds entirely different, philosophical agreements. Without this ontological claim, as recognized many times throughout the course, little of his work merits deep consideration.
Using his literary popularity as a soapbox, Tolstoy crafts a series of tenuous, impetuous philosophical arguments, abound with contradictions, that appeal to unitive feeling as opposed to reason as justification. This appeal to his own accomplishment and to emotion, beneficial to the projection of Tolstoy’s unrelated views, drives the ambiguity and lack of sound argument present in much of Tolstoy’s later writing. Despite his fallacious positions, his work has lent and continues to lend credibility to a diversity of social views, many of which stand in conflict to one another. Judging the success of Tolstoy’s efficacy toward human unification becomes a trickier matter.
On the one hand, waving the flag of Tolstoy, due to its accessibility, does provide a rallying point for popular feeling. Since we can more or less all relate to Tolstoy in some way, it is then easy to an interconnectedness and sense of community. A professed appreciation for Tolstoy bound together the Tolstoyan movement, and to some extend continues to bind together Russians, liberal idealists, and members of Oprah’s book club. This quality, truly only posited to long-standing classics, should not be discounted.
On the other hand, when you make claims as to the proper reading of Tolstoy, which Tolstoy himself suggests you can, you harness the allure of Tolstoy to corral favor toward a particular interpretation. This act, akin to the hermeneutical thrusts of a cult leader, leads to division at the hands of an overzealous defense of your claim to truth. Worst of all, Tolstoy is the main perpetrator of this act. He tells the reader what War and Peace says about history. He insists that all we know as art is truly artifice. He tells his adherents, with Anna Karenina I gave you a world astoundingly similar and far superior to yours; reject the world you know and live in mine. There is no greater sin against the cause of human unification than inciting this rejection of reality. The great irony is that Tolstoy himself warns against this while simultaneously imploring you to partake in it. This duplicitous argument, the very basis of cultish fervor, can certainly not be called conducive to community.
Even if Tolstoy did not intend this result, he does little to defend against its erroneous interpretation. The fervor of the Tolstoyan movement overtook the intent of Tolstoy’s philosophical writing, but only because he let it. Tolstoy’s indulgence in his own moral views grants others the right to interpret his works as they please. Tolstoy’s effect on community is as equal parts destabilizing as it is unifying, just as is views are as visionary as they are delusional. Thus lives on the cult of Tolstoy.
When considering the course thus far, the parallels that we have drawn between Tolstoy and our modern condition strike me as important. The supplementation of films and a variety of other cultural sources, though perhaps not adding to the reading of the text, push our thoughts to how Tolstoy applies today. The student led and discussion based class structure grant the freedom to include larger considerations into the framework of a literary study. This, I think, creates a type of meaning personal and communal, which at times gets snuffed out by rigor in a more formal classroom. Although I will maintain that the class would benefit from a more rigorous reading of the work, I say so only in praise of clarity as the necessity of understanding.
Additionally, I find the diversity of opinion brought forward through the unorthodox class structure as refreshing. In my opinion, this class has been at its best when the presenter tries to convince you of the meaning they found in the presented work. This lends itself not necessarily to a textbook understanding of Tolstoy, but as an exercise in reconciling different readings of a text in real time. As a result, I think it offers a unique chance to engage fellow students in the class with the academic discipline as a backdrop. Thus I think the structure of the course has clear advantages relative to a more traditional format.
In Tolstoy’s work “What is art?”, Tolstoy attempts to define the true meaning of the term “art” and he does so by stating that “art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced”. Tolstoy’s purpose for redefining the term “art” is so that every “conscientious artist may be sure that all he does has valid meaning” (Tolstoy 10). Tolstoy argues that in order for a piece of work to truly be considered art it must evoke feeling, contradictory to many aesthetic views that appreciate art for simply its beauty or conviction of truth. The corruption of art according to Tolstoy stems from the lack of a true definition for the term: “In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty” (Tolstoy 45). As a result of his strong opposition toward art in the form of aesthetic beauty, Tolstoy created his own aesthetic theory. He did this by defining art in the terms of the feelings that it evokes in an audience and Tolstoy argued that art can only be “moral” if it successfully compels emotions. Many have criticized this theory of Tolstoy’s mainly because the “feeling” that he describes or the “feeling” that the artist should supposedly “seek to express” is ultimately based on subjective experiences that not all human beings are capable of understanding.
This dream of Tolstoy’s, that art has the ability to create community and convey feelings, is fascinating and can be applicable to some of his early works. What do not seem realistic are Tolstoy’s extreme views on moral art and his assumption that a moral art is able to “infect” readers from all different classes and backgrounds. Tolstoy describes an “intrinsic” feeling that exists among all humans (including peasants) that should be able to be felt by observing or reading a piece of art. While I believe that no work of art or piece of writing can fulfill such a great task, I do believe that many works have the potential to serve as relevant to a large majority of people and I think that Tolstoy’s writing successfully achieves this relevance. Tolstoy has the ability as a writer to convey his own feelings, to fully encapsulate a reader into a character’s thoughts, and to shift human emotions into a million different directions in just a single novel or piece of writing.
Anna Karenina is a perfect example in which Tolstoy’s writing can be relevant to a vast majority of people as a result of his depiction of the human experience in a true and sincere manner. Not only is Anna Karenina a fascinating story regarding the consequences of defying social norms, but it is also a novel that depicts the complex human experience in such a detailed manner that the reader can indeed “feel” what Tolstoy was trying to convey in this work. Tolstoy is able to transmit his feelings successfully through these details. Many times he describes a character being embarrassed or blushing and he even describes the way in which certain characters interpret other character’s facial expressions. The novel covers themes from social shunning and patriarchal societies to spiritual yearnings and the desire to live a better life. Similarly, War and Peace has proved to be relevant and is regarded as one of Tolstoy’s most famous novels. Despite Tolstoy’s artistic genius, I still do not believe his novels can relate to all humans and thus be a “moral art” in his perspective.
Tolstoy’s philosophical works certainly do not fulfill his criterion of “infecting” readers universally. A lot of his philosophical writings are very complex and it is not logical for Tolstoy to express that peasants are able to obtain the same “feelings” from his writings as an educated member of the upper class. I agree with Garret’s statement that although Tolstoy’s philosophical writings may not be fully understood by all people, they do have the ability to create a community. His philosophical writings display his beliefs on religion and the Church and essentially have the potential to bring people with similar beliefs together, forming a community. Ultimately I believe that Tolstoy’s “What is art?” provides us with a useful and unique perspective from an artistic genius himself on the purpose of creating art, despite its radical and at times hypocritical views.
Regarding the course, I think that greater student participation has helped me learn so much about Tolstoy’s life and works from a new and interesting perspective. Although lectures from the professor would have been a great way to learn the material as well, I think that by having students teach the class and lead discussions I learned a lot about how the other students in the class interpreted and analyzed Tolstoy’s novels. Also it was interesting to see the development of certain students thoughts throughout the course after reading more and more of Tolstoy’s works and learning about Tolstoy’s life. This class has allowed me to truly appreciate Tolstoy’s life and works.
I enjoyed watching a lot of the films that we saw in class but I think that maybe if we had had a separate screening time on another day of the week than the films may have been more effective. A lot of the times it was hard to focus on the films after two hours of discussion and I think that I did not get to fully appreciate some of the films because of this. Its possible that the class could be more effective by having a student led presentation for half of the class period, a lecture from the professor during the other half, and screenings on another day of the week. Another way that the class could be more effective is to only show important scenes from the movies and maybe incorporate these scenes into the presentation and discussion (instead of just watching them at the end).
I agree with Matt in that I think it was not necessary to read so many of Tolstoy’s works in such a short period of time. I think that maybe focusing the class on Anna Karenina and War and Peace may be a better approach to the course. The reason for this is that Anna Karenina and War and Peace are such profound novels that it seems almost unfair to cover them in just two weeks. Even just having a class on either Anna Karenina or War and Peace would be fascinating as well.
I also think that we have had a great class atmosphere and there have been a lot of interesting perspectives brought to the discussion by many different people. It is interesting to me that in our class we have a variety of different majors, interests, and ages, which makes our discussions very lively and engaging. Bringing snacks to class was another great aspect of the course ☺
—On Tolstoy’s art—
I think that the literary works were successful as art but not the philosophical works. He says in “What is Art?” that the goal of writing is to convey what the writer thinks, while the goal of art is to convey what the artist feels. I think this is useful for distinguishing between the two kinds of work that we’ve read. Even though he’s still describing feelings in works like “A Confession,” it is an explicit description of his own feelings rather than a work that mimics those feelings. In Anna Karenina, he gets us to understand his feelings by making us empathize with the characters. He hopes to make us feel Levin’s love and frustration, Pierre’s imagined magnanimity, and Anna’s torture. In A Confession, on the other hand, he is not trying to make us feel his torture, but to understand it by description.
If Tolstoy sees the peasants as having escaped/conquered the problems that he sees man as facing, is he violating his own condition of universality? He said in an introduction or something that he only writes about the rich because the lower classes don’t interest him. It seems like that’s because the peasants don’t face the question of “What is to be done?” like he, Levin, Pierre, and Andrei do. It seems like his work won’t provoke the same feelings in the peasants because they don’t have time to worry about the silly questions that Tolstoy tortures himself with. Are his works of art by his own standard then just pretty good? Maybe he can get around the peasant problem by saying that the universality requirement assumes that everyone has taken sufficient time to study the works. But even then it look like the peasants won’t be able to sympathize with the high-minded worries of the upper class.
But what is to stop the peasants from understanding the torture of these folks? Maybe they don’t worry about things like finding the perfect husband, but just about how to feed a family. But Tolstoy’s struggle in Confession begins with abandoning the Church as a source of meaning, and surely the majority never give that up in the first place. How could one who is raised and has never questioned that the purpose of life is to fulfill the laws of the Church understand Vronsky’s “desire for desires”? The question would seem ridiculous to a man who has never questioned the received purpose. So it’s not just that some men haven’t yet studied the text enough to appreciate the art. For some it simply will not resonate because Tolstoy’s statements are not universal.
On the other hand, Tolstoy may come back and say that even though the men of the Church may not see it, their situation is the same as that of everyone else. To take meaning from Church teachings is not valid, and so these men are left in the same situation as the rest of us. In that case, Tolstoy’s definition of art needs to be revised. It may not cause the feeling in every man, but if we all understood what is going on around us, then we would feel the same way.
We are now very far from Tolstoy’s original definition. He had said that art communicates feelings as writing communicates thoughts. The only way to make this definition apply to Tolstoy’s work is if we add also that men must study the work sufficiently and also be sufficiently aware of some philosophical truth concerning the invalidity of received value.
Concerning the creation of community from a unifying feeling. All I think I can say here is that in reading Anna and War and Peace, that is what I experienced. In reading the thoughts and actions of Levin, or of Pierre, or even Tolstoy’s own reflections in Confession, I felt the same torture that they did. Whether Tolstoy was conveying that torture that he felt to me or whether I had actually felt it and he was simply describing the human situation is an interesting question. If it’s the latter, his definition of art needs revision (in that case he’s describing my feeling, not conveying his own). If it’s the former, then the unification we feel doesn’t make any sense. I felt a unification with all men because Tolstoy reassured me that what I had felt was a universal truth of the human situation. I can only feel unified with all though, if the work of art is conveying a universal feeling.
We can see the influence of Schopenhauer in this talk of unification. Schopenhauer thought that not only are we all in the same situation, but our individuality is an illusion. The point of art is that it makes us forget that illusion. This theory of art was also present in Kreutzer Sonata, where the speaker hated music because of the very reason that Tolstoy admires art.
Even if “What is Art?” offers no valuable or original theory of aesthetics, it is important to our class because it shows us what Tolstoy is trying to do in his other works. His goal seems to be to convey to us a universal truth of the human situation, which he himself has felt.
—On the course in general—
I thought the films were a waste of time. But it also would have been rough to sit through 3 hours of literature discussion. Ideally the class would have met twice a week with no films.
I do think that the student-led discussions were successful in increasing participation, especially as we became more comfortable with each other. But I think that the best way to get participation (as you could probably tell from my discussion) is to just call on people without waiting for a hand to go up.
Another reason you gave, Prof. Beyer, for having students lead discussion was that we would retain the information better. I think that that’s true for factual information, but not for a deep understanding of a text and the development critical thinking that goes along with it. A tough, professor-led discussion can develop those in every student. Of course, the student-led discussion is without a doubt better than a lecture where the professor just dumps information about the text at us. I agree entirely that I wouldn’t retain any factual information about Tolstoy’s life or criticism if we learned it in that style.
But I still question the value of discussion biographical information and criticism in a literature course. Those should be mentioned only as a means to understand the text, so it shouldn’t really matter if we retain that information. I think I see a course as ideally going through the text with professor and students discussing important parts together, and the professor bringing in that outside information when relevant.
I remember at the beginning of the semester you distinguished between the meaning and significance of a text. I can’t remember which was which, but one was what the author intended and the other was an interpretation we give to it. We accepted the impossibility of (and I question the value of) finding what exactly the author intended to say. Then you said that since we could only go on our interpretations, you have no reason to impose yours on us and we should work together to form our own.
I’ve had many classes that seem to have been in almost complete agreement, but come to an opposite conclusion, and I’ve found them very good for challenging how I think about a work, even if the answer I get isn’t the “true” one. When I read Plato with Professor Witkin in Classics last semester, he was constantly saying to us “what I’m trying to convince you of is…” There was no straightforward answer to how to interpret that text, but Witkin decided that the best thing to do is to present an argument, present an interpretation, and let us determine whether it was any good. I think that’s an interesting and challenging way to read a work, and it gets us over the problems of students trying to come up with interpretations of it when they haven’t read it all or read it very carefully.
Concerning the amount of reading: we all know it was a lot. But the problem wasn’t that I didn’t have time to read it all — it was very helpful that you warned us way ahead of time that we’d better get started. The problem was that Anna Karenina deserved more than 3 hours of discussion (about half the class each week). I think the best works in the course were Anna, War and Peace, and Confession. All the rest I could leave or take. And preferably leave. I think we all would have been better off with a more careful study of his two best works, while forgetting about “Resurrection” and “What is to be Done?”.
Overall, if we had just read Anna Karenina, the course would have been worth taking. So even though a lot of Tolstoy’s later writings were pretty bad, I’m glad I took this course.
In What is Art? Tolstoy writes that art “is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress towards well-being of individuals and of humanity” (50). Tolstoy argues for a universal art that has the business “to make that understand and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible” (104). He disparages the art of the elite class, which is both only accesible to a select few and also relies on the labor and destitution of the working, lower class. After discounting the relationship where art is directly connected (and judged according) to beauty, Tolstoy posits a utilitarian view of art that has a moral purpose. He writes that art is “the transmission of feelings flowing from man’s religious perception,” a perception that, because every man’s relationship with God is identical, causes all “good, supreme” art to be comprehensible by both the masses and the elite (105). Published in 1897 toward the end of Tolstoy(1828-1910)’s life when many of his religious and literary views had changed, What is Art? does not necessarily coincide with the vision seen in his earlier works such as Anna Karenina and War and Peace, and I would argue that his earlier novels contradict the simplicity and accessibility that the “late Tolstoy” supports. In regard to helping to create a community, both his major works become an important part of the Russian (at least literary) identity and still connect readers in the present day. Their power of conveying the human experience and feeling is paralleled by few other authors, but their genius and artistry are perhaps excessive and a hinderance to establishing “brotherly union among men” (212). Likewise with his philosophical works, Anna Karenina and War and Peace were not accessible to the peasant that Tolstoy holds in such high esteem. While the philosophy of his later works (and the impact created with the Tolstoyan movement) follows the same current here in What is Art?, the works themselves do not seem to be examples of an art available to, and evidently understandable by, all men.
To start, I’d like to discuss the Tolstoy’s comment that the nature of the highest art is to both transmit high, elevated feelings that are nevertheless comprehensible by the uneducated laborers. He cites among others the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer as key examples and writes that over education can even affect negatively one’s ability to feel the lofty feelings described in these works. Having taken a class that concentrated on these two epics, I can not imagine understanding many of the implications in these works without study and instruction, but Tolstoy would undoubtably place me as a member of the privileged and over-educated elite class. His point is that peasants intrinsically experience these elevated feelings from good works of art. With respect to War and Peace, much of the original version was published with lengthy dialogues in French without translations, marking it as a text exclusively for higher society. One might argue that despite this, a peasant would still grasp the feeling that Tolstoy aims to convey through his work; the scenes where Andrei contemplates his death or of Pierre’s captivity certainly align more with his later thoughts on Christianity, yet Tolstoy himself admits that War and Peace revolves around the aristocracy and that “the life life of clerks, merchants, seminarists, and peasants is uninteresting and half unintelligible to [him]” (War and Peace, 1365). The lower class is not his concern and it is difficult to imagine a peasant sitting down to read over a 1000 pages of Tolstoy. While his portrayal of life is such that the artistry fades away and evokes these elevated feelings, the community that has the learning to experience such feelings is far less than the masses. With Anna Karenina, critics have argued that Tolstoy himself didn’t fully understand, nor could he control, Anna. The sensuality and darkness that characterize her relationship with Vronsky is certainly against the moral end for art that Tolstoy supports in What is Art?, although the Kitty-Levin narrative seems to evoke these higher feelings. He communicates sincere human emotion and experience in both works, as well a spirituality (especially with Levin, Andrei, and Pierre). To reach these moments of true religious feeling, it is necessary to have both the time to read such lengthy works, and to have the education (especially in regard to War and Peace) required to progress past the French dialogues or philosophical digressions on history.
With respect to his philosophical works, I find it difficult to imagine an uneducated audience reading all of, for example, “A Confession” or “What I believe”. While they are interesting in the sense that they are evidence of Tolstoy’s thoughts later in life and in that they show his intellectual progression, as works of “art” I would argue that they do not in themselves serve to create community. Instead, his philosophical works bring men together indirectly via their influence on the Tolstoyan movement. The movement, centered on Tolstoy’s interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount that he describes in “What I believe”, focuses on non-violence and love and supports communal and sustainable living. In this way his essays themselves do not qualify as “religious art” or “universal art”, but they do create community, if not by conveying feeling, but by sparking a movement. Later, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela would all be influenced by Tolstoy and serve to break down social barriers and fight for an equitable community.
Lastly, of the works we have read so far, it is perhaps The Death of Ivan Ilyich that most qualifies as great and universal art in the sense that Tolstoy expresses in What is art?. In this short story the concentration is entirely on the spiritual journey that Ivan Ilyich undergoes from his childhood to the moment before his death; there is no extraneous material and, while short, is, as Nabokov writes, “Tolstoy’s most artistic, most perfect, and most sophisticated achievement”. The religious experience is the focus, an experience that all men can relate to because the nature of the identical nature of each man’s relationship (according to Tolstoy). The length of the work does not hinder accessibility as it does with Anna Karenina and War and Peace, nor would I say that the language creates a barrier for the uneducated. The tale ends with Ivan finally experiencing “love of God and of one’s neighbor” (66), a feeling that for Tolstoy is identifiable for all men and thus creates community through the common experience.
Now for the discussion of the class model. This has been the first course that I have taken where discussions and lectures are mainly run by the students and is a method that has both positives and negatives. I think that the discussion portions are mainly effective when run by students – as the works we have been reading are monumental and inexhaustible in a mere class or two, sustaining an interesting discussion has not been a large problem most nights. I feel that your additions Professor Beyer are helpful to make sure that overlooked major themes are touched upon and the open classroom allows for a diversity of opinions to be voiced. Like Jake voices, however, I also would have preferred a larger portion of direct lecture from a professor whose experience in Russian literature far exceeds are own. While interesting, with many of the biography and other introductory lectures I felt that they leaned to the cursory and repetitive side. My own presentation of various criticisms of Anna Karenina was no exception; the size of the texts and the responses they have generated results that it is difficult to determine what to include in presentations. I also agree with Jake that our discussions of Tolstoy’s two major novels were curtailed by the time we spent on his other works; the class, of course, aims to cover more than War and Peace and Anna Karenina but I think more professorial lecture would have been especially beneficial during those initial class sessions.
In regard to the films, I enjoyed and found educational that of War and Peace; the unique Russian filmography and breadth of the undertaking certainly enhanced my reading of the novel and conception of the Russian identity. As for the other films (Anna Karenina, Kreutzer Sonata), while it is interesting to consider their departures from the original and what of Tolstoy remains, I think that less emphasis could be given to watching films and that time would be better spent on lecture or discussion. Granted, three hours is a long time to lecture or discuss so the film component makes sense as a final option. To conclude, a model with a reduced student participation and well as film component (without eliminated either) would have been better for me. Nevertheless, I feel that I have learned a good deal about Tolstoy’s life, works and philosophy.
During the discussion tonight (and for the past few gatherings), we found it useful to discriminate between two Tolstois: at the outset, we explored the writer of the legendary War and Peace and Anna Karenina, while in the latter half of the course we focused on a more cynical and disgruntled author. Since this is a “free-write”, I might allow some personal experience and opinion mesh with my response. I will try to focus the first half on this question of feeling and art, especially what I perceive to be Tolstoi’s early success and later failure to integrate this into his philosophical and literary work, while the second part will be a reflection upon the course.
Allow me to begin with an anecdote. I first read War and Peace two summers ago while sitting underwater somewhere in the Pacific on a nuclear submarine. With copious amounts of gritty coffee and free time on my hands, I experienced an “idleness” similar to that which Tolstoi describes, yet I felt motivated to learn something in it. Finding a well-lighted nook bordering the reactor wall (which is comfortably warm), I began and ultimately finished the “novel” (for lack of a better word) that largely compelled me (in addition to a number of Kafka’s works) to leave the military. Certainly, much of my affinity for Tolstoi’s magnum opus was intellectual in nature—I was interested in Russian history and politics in high school and I found it intriguing to see these elements permeate a work of fiction. However, my initial attachment to War and Peace was primarily emotional; in the context of the essay we read for tonight’s class, I suppose that makes it a moral art.
According to Tolstoi, art is affectively infectious, “and it is upon this capacity of man to receive another manʹs expression of feeling and experience those feelings himself, that the activity of art is based” (“What is Art”, Ch. 5). Cynical of my own everyday military life as well as with the officers above me, I gobbled up Tolstoi’s acerbic criticisms of the paradigm military officer of his day: a man whose polished buttons and pressed uniform gains the public’s aesthetic attraction while covering up an innate depravity. Of course I generalize—I found a limited cohort good men and women in America’s contemporary military (and I suppose a later Tolstoi would chastise me for judging what is “good” and “bad”)—but I was particularly frustrated and distracted by the soldiers and sailors of my generation who were, at best, “ardent for some desperate glory” and at worst, eager to kill and enact revenge on the alleged perpetrators of the September 11th attacks nearly a decade before. Therefore, Tolstoi’s depictions of vainglorious Hussar charges and meaningless slaughters in Austerlitz and Borodino, not to mention the host of obsequious yet self-serving officers throughout the work, invigorated an intimate sense of emotional familiarity.
Even though it may have been garbled by translation, at one time I felt Nicolas Rostov’s naïve enthusiasm in uniform—I myself can look back (albeit, not without a sense of shame) upon a self who exercised a demeanor marked by military hubris and jingo. In addition, some feeling compelled me to read the scene of Andrei’s fall in Austerlitz over and over again. It was not a Romantic affinity for the “lofty” skies above a wounded Andrei, but rather a poignant affirmation of the vanity and meaningless of a career in war. “What is it all for?” As my own frustration with the military intensified, and as a curiosity to find a greater meaning in my life usurped my initial patriotism and enthusiasm, this question found a ceaseless presence in my conscience. Thus, though it often becomes tedious, I appreciated Pierre Bezukhov’s philosophical wanderings from Masonry to love and his admiration of Platon Karataev; for a time, I read desperately, searching for something spiritually fulfilling…
And I this is why I believe some of Tolstoi’s works achieve the essence of art: in them, I found something emotionally and spiritually relevant; something that reflected, encapsulated, or validated my own experience and struggle. For me, War and Peace is Tolstoi’s greatest art. Even still, I should not allow unappealing elements of Tolstoi’s writing to overshadow the artistic merit in his later works. For example, although somewhat impractical in a more industrialized and globalized era, I appreciate Tolstoi’s affinity for the laboring peasant life. From my childhood to early adulthood, I spent many days on a ranch in Colorado, and I believe there is a great deal of spiritual fulfillment (however idealized) to be achieved through “working the land”. Thus, I felt and understood Levin’s quest for truth in a simple country life, even though I could not garner much more than an academic appreciation for the passion and psychology sparking between Vronsky and Anna. Still, I consider Anna Karenina art in the Tolstoyan sense—it infected me with a all-too familiar feeling. As did some of his later works. I lost my best friend in high school and for a long time searched for an explanation of life and death. The Death of Ivan Ilych explores such existential subjects. Confession was a less aggressive, more compelling philosophical work, the embodiment of the philosophical evolution I seek in my own life; since it invigorates feelings reminiscent of “the search”, I suppose it also fits the mold of art…
I hold a different view of Resurrection and the other philosophical works we read. Resurrection, for me, was enjoyable as a narrative, but Tolstoi’s less-than-subtle moralistic diatribes quickly grew tiresome. What Shall We Do and What I Believe did not have any redeeming fictional aspect, and thus I could not appreciate them on anything more than an academic level. I suppose my primary disagreement in this art argument with Tolstoi is on the subject of the universal applicability of art—Tolstoi believes that truly moral art should be accessible to everyone (what “accessible” means is somewhat nebulous…). So, while Hans Holbein’s “Christ” is particularly meaningful and emotional to me, is it disqualified as “moral art” if it is dismissed by the majority of devout Christians? Instead, I believe that we are all searching for something pertinent to our individual blossoming, and that sometimes living and thinking are insufficient to illuminate what it is we are actually looking for. Art provides an alternative conduit for that quest.
Now, a reflection upon the course. First, I believe it necessary to relate my motivation for taking the course. In addition to my aforementioned connection with War and Peace, last spring, I took Professor Wieda’s Dostoevsky course and loved it—if I was asked today, I would say the Brothers Karamazov is by far my favorite novel. To inform myself of whether or not I am a Dostoevskyan or a Tolstoyan, I wanted to attain an equal glimpse of Tolstoi’s philosophy and literary canon. Therefore, my initial reaction to the plan for the course was one of slight disappointment—while I value the opportunity to read, analyze, and discuss with my peers, I also sought some direct lecture from an expert professor. However, this was mitigated by the opportunity I saw in the idea of having engaging student presentations. Hypothetically, if a twenty person cohort (of different academic and cultural backgrounds) genuinely interested in Tolstoi (which one would be if he/she dedicates J-term to reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina) showed up to class each day having read AND thought about the required reading, I think a very fruitful discussion would amount with minimal catalysis by the “presenter”.
Unfortunately I do not believe this potential was fully realized. I attribute this mainly to the reading load for the course. War and Peace and Anna Karenina are essential to an understanding of what makes Tolstoi a legendary writer, and I appreciated the challenge of reading them by the first day of class. However, I believe our explorations of these two masterpieces were cut short for the sake of his later philosophical works. Since Resurrection serves as platform for Tolstoi to expound upon many of his beliefs in Confession, What Shall We Do, and What I Believe, I think that reading of the philosophical works, while enlightening, is superfluous next to our reading of Resurrection. Perhaps this course could be entitled, “Tolstoi’s Fiction”, and the presenter/professor could use the philosophical works insofar as they help us understand his longer, more palatable works, but not as required reading.
Otherwise, I had mixed feelings about the integration of film into this course. As I mentioned in the first part of this lengthy response, art provides another medium with which we can gain insight into an idea relevant to our personal growth. Tolstoi’s writing has influenced an immense number of readers in the past 150 years, therefore an alternative insight—through the film lens—is warranted. However, I believe that we would be better served employing select segments of different films rather than trying to drone through hours upon hours of dated, subtitled movies at 11 PM at night. Film clips can embody certain elements of the overarching philosophy in Tolstoi’s works, and I believe these elements can be accessed through excerpts rather than a movie in its entirety.
“What is Art?” attempts to define an extremely diverse and multi-faceted body of creation. Tolstoy ventures to share with readers his perception of what characteristics make ‘true art’ and in doing so can miss the mark on the diversity of forms that art can take and the ideas, emotions, and abstractions it can convey or evoke.
To me, at his best, Tolstoy is the master artist that wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina. His ability to take you inside characters and travel with them through pages of plot demonstrates his expertise as a humanist. The scenes of revelry shared by Pierre and Dolokhov; the hunt and country indulgence shared by the Rostov family; and the depictions of war through the eyes of Prince Andrei or Petya will all remain with me as vivid depictions of human experience from War and Peace. While in Anna Karenina, I will look back at Anna on her deathbed and the moment of forgiveness between Karenin and Vronsky or Levin manning the scythe beside his peasants as they cut field together amongst many other scenes that allowed me to drift away to the high society of St. Petersburg or the Russian countryside two centuries ago as if it was familiar and close by.
As we dove deeper into Tolstoy’s later works, I felt that artist, deft and powerful, slip away. As we have discussed, his searching and inner toil left us with a troubled man fixated on finding solutions to life’s greatest questions. Early in the course, many were troubled by Tolstoy’s vacillation and unending change of opinion. Through Pierre and Levin, we saw the embodiment of that indecision and extreme self-reflection that we could only characterize as representative of the creator of these characters himself. Yet, what was frustrating about these characters, what sometimes seemed as weakness or a lack of fortitude against life’s difficulties or lack of confidence answering life’s troubling questions, also made us sympathetic towards these characters. Never have such transparent protagonists taught us so much in naivety and lack of resolution. Yet, we also had difficulty coming to terms with how Tolstoy concluded each of their stories. Through the end of each of these works we see Tolstoy’s seeming inability to find satisfying resolutions for characters like Levin or Pierre.
In late works like the Death of Ivan Illych or the Kreutzer Sonata, the richness of characters falls away and with it, most of their complexity. No longer is the sun shining on Tolstoy’s pages, but a darker more sinister view of life takes over. There is no delight in the day-to-day simplicities of human life, but a fixation on singular events and preoccupations that define characters and dominate their thoughts and actions. This change in tone and narration is clearly representative of the state of the author. Working more with absolutes and less with humanist indecision, Tolstoy reveals his own inability to find satisfying conclusions. To an extent, this continues to permeate “What is Art?.”
This not to discount a master and say, “What is Art?” is void of meaningful and intriguing ideas about art and humans relationship with it. As he ruminates in the meaning of art, Tolstoy captures some of art’s most simple and beautiful attributes. On page 41, Tolstoy writes: “It is on this capacity of man to receive another man’s expression of feeling, and experience those feeling himself, that the activity of art is based.” The story that follows this quote is one of a boy retelling an encounter with a wolf in which he infects the audience with his own fear from the experience. One of art’s most powerful functions is to abstract an emotion and then depict it in a way that allows the audience to encounter it, whether that is through words or paint or dance. This characteristic of art is one of which I spoke of above and makes Anna Karenina and War and Peace the lasting and important pieces of literature they are. That so many have opened up these works and rode hundreds of pages through Russia with Tolstoy is for me a testament to the author’s mastery. As Jack mentions in his post, the idea of art as “a means of union among men” in the Tolstoyan conception stems very much from the idea of art as a way to convey emotion. That we are united as readers under Tolstoy’s great works, sharing the common thread of being human, connects us in ways unique to artistic expression.
Still, I disagree with Tolstoy’s belief that art takes defined forms. His judgment of certain types of art is subjective and undermines his argument. That there is true art that can be universally appreciated and that art should not be intellectualized are two ideas that play against ideas of free artistic expression. Arguing that one work is ‘true art’ and another of lesser quality is a loosing battle. What one work means to one person versus another can be a result of a range of experiences, understanding, or belief. That Tolstoy believes that the sincerity of the artist plays a large role in how successful a piece is in fitting the model of art is an interesting thought, but one that I think would be quickly dismissed if full transparency allowed us to understand the story of the artist and the work for every piece completed through history.
For me art can take a multitude of shapes and comes in a variety of forms that place it outside of Tolstoy’s conception. What I take away from the work is the way in which the essential parts of art, as defined by Tolstoy, allow us to better understand a master artist’s works and how it reflects on his change of thought and person over time. But in the end, “What is Art?” is the only the reflection of one artist and his beliefs, not to be used to analyze anything other than his own point of view.
On the Course:
Signing up for Tolstoy, I hoped to adventure into the works of one of the most important authors of all time. I had heard phenomenal reviews of classes with Professor Beyer and knew that learning from a Russian scholar was the only way to approach great works like Anna Karenina and War and Peace. I have also enjoyed most those literature courses at Middlebury that are based in discussion and do not revolve around professors that preach their views and interpretations from a pulpit. So, on the first day of class I was intrigued by Professor Beyer’s interest in educational theory and experimentation. When Professor Beyer said that we would be teaching all the classes on the other hand, I was a little more skeptical.
As we went through the semester I appreciated our classmates intelligence and their ability to convey their interpretations of the literature as well as fuel discussion. But, at times I felt that we were too broad in attempting to fully encompass the work/s that were assigned for each class. Each class we would hit upon key points in the readings, but I sometimes felt that we would not do a work justice by only spending a couple of hours discussing it. I felt this especially for War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I would have changed the structure of the course and focused three weeks or more on each work, leaving out some of the rest. I think that instead of student-presenters focusing on large sections (sometimes 500 pages), each should have instead focused on a single major theme or idea and delved deeply into it. In my mind, it should have been Professor Beyer that was leading the discussion of plot development and significant scenes and students taking a much more specific focus on an element of the work. This would have made review more succinct and allowed us to get more quickly to the meat of these books.
What I just described touches on the role of students and the professor in the course. As others have said, I think I would have learned more if Professor Beyer took more leadership in the class. I think that 30% lecture, 30% student presentations, 30% films, and 10% snacks would have been a better way dispersing class time. This way we could have heard more from the person most experienced in Russian literature, history, and culture. The films were great, with one obvious exception. The Russian film of War and Peace was particularly powerful in diving into the Russian perception of the work and greater Russian culture.
On the overall, I enjoyed the course and am glad I was able to read some Tolstoy before graduating. The diversity of perspectives and backgrounds in the class contributed to some great discussions and deeper understanding of the works. The experiences of reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina alone made everything worth it.