This paper is suspended in 2024-25.
This paper gives students the opportunity to delve deeply into the life and writings of one of Russia鈥檚 greatest and most prolific writers, Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910). He not only changed the shape of Russian and world literature, but also impacted political and social movements across the globe. With Russia currently at war, war will be a central theme.
The bulk of the paper will focus on Voina i mir (1865-69), which in its scope and ambitions challenged all the reigning ideas of its time about how history is recorded, how novels are written, and about the individual鈥檚 place in the world. Tolstoy鈥檚 life was vast; he grew up in a serf-owning gentry family shortly after the Decemberist Revolt and died just years before the Bolshevik Revolution. 听During that time, he thought and wrote about all the burning questions of his day, so while this paper has a single-author focus, it also gives us the chance to consider most aspects of nineteenth-century Russian literature and culture.听
A full year devoted to Tolstoy will enable students to trace the evolution of his thought and writing from his early war stories and experiments in narration, through Voina i mir, to the late novellas and non-fiction where he boldly proclaimed his new worldview arrived at after spiritual conversion. It will also offer the space to consider Tolstoy鈥檚 legacy through different lenses, from a feminist approach to his writing on women, to a postcolonial examination of his writings about the Caucasus, to an ecocritical examination of his views on nature. For Tolstoy, all the big questions of life鈥攈ow must I live? what must I do? what is the purpose of science and art? what is religion? how should society be structured?鈥攚ere open and pressing. 听Engaging with Tolstoy on his own terms means wrestling with these burning questions anew.
Set Text: Voina i mir The heart of the paper is seven weeks devoted to Tolstoy鈥檚 masterpiece, Voina i mir. 听One week will be spent on exploring Tolstoy鈥檚 aims for the work and his writings about the text, so that we can best appreciate what he was trying to accomplish. We will then work our way slowly through the text, considering how it fits in Tolstoy鈥檚 evolving thought about war, death, love, and nation, while also exploring its place in his evolving ideas about what literature is and should do.
Note: Students in Part I are not required to read the entire text in Russian. 听Selected passages will be assigned that give a good representative sampling of Tolstoy鈥檚 style and techniques. Students in Part II are encouraged to read as much as they can in the original, but will also be given recommendations about which portions to focus on in Russian.
Topic 1. Early writings (pre-1860) The first four weeks of Michaelmas will be devoted to Tolstoy鈥檚 life and writings pre-Voina i mir. 听We will study both the biography and the early writings and will consider the links between the two. 听This topic, which includes Tolstoy鈥檚 first war writing, will provide crucial background for approaching Voina i mir.
Topic 2. Late writings (1880-1910) The final five weeks of Lent term will focus on Tolstoy鈥檚 post-Voina i mir writings. 听We will begin with his spiritual crisis and Ispoved', and then consider his shifting views about art, sex, death, and faith. 听And finally, we will return to war with the posthumously published Hadji Murad.
Note: Anna Karenina is not covered because it is included in SL4.
厂别别听course handbook for full details.
Students are urged to read Voina i mir over the summer (or Year Abroad).
The following reading list serves as an introduction to the subject. 鈥⑻� 听Bartlett, Rosamund. Tolstoy: A Russian Life. London: Profile Books, 2010. 鈥⑻� 听Berman, Anna A. (Editor). Tolstoy in Context. 澳门六合彩开奖记录: 澳门六合彩开奖记录 University Press, 2022. 鈥⑻� 听Gustafson, Richard. Leo Tolstoy Resident and Stranger: A Study in Fiction and Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. 鈥⑻� 听Love, Jeff. Tolstoy: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum, 2008. 鈥⑻� 听Morson, Gary Saul. Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 鈥榃ar and Peace鈥�. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. 鈥⑻� 听Orwin, Donna Tussing (Editor). The 澳门六合彩开奖记录 Companion to Tolstoy. 澳门六合彩开奖记录: 澳门六合彩开奖记录 University Press, 2002. 鈥⑻� 听Wasiolek, Edward. Tolstoy鈥檚 Major Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
This course is open to Slavonic students in both Part IB and Part II. It consists of twenty faculty contact hours (eight in Michaelmas and eight in Lent); four hours of seminar (in Easter); and normally ten supervisions over the course of the year (four in Michaelmas, four in Lent, and two in Easter).
厂别别听course handbook for full details.
For the SL.11 Moodle site, please see here. The password can be collected from the paper coordinator.
Students for Part IB听
A 5-hour online timed exam. The exam consists of four sections: A, B, C, and D. Section A is comprised of commentary passages and essay prompts about the set text,听Voina i mir. Section B is comprised of essay prompts about Topic 1, Tolstoy鈥檚 pre-1860 writings. Section C is comprised of essay prompts about Topic 2, Tolstoy鈥檚 post-1879 writings. Section D is comprised of essay prompts that can be responded to using听Voina i mir听in combination with any other works by Tolstoy.听
Candidates answer three questions: either one or two from Section A (if two, one must be a commentary and one an essay question), one question from section B, and/or one question from section C. 听If you choose to answer only one question in Section A, you may answer one question from section D in place of a question from B or C. For each answer, you should write no more than 1,300 words.听
Students for Part II听
Students will write a coursework essay in the break before Easter Term based on prompts about the set text (the equivalent of Section A of the exam for Part IB students).听 In Easter Term there will be a 3-hour online timed exam. During the timed exam students will answer two questions on the topics (the equivalent of Sections B and C for the Part IB students). For each answer, you should write no more than 1,500 words.听
Candidates for this paper may not draw substantially on material from their dissertations or material which they have used or intend to use in another scheduled paper. 听Candidates may not draw substantially on the same material in more than one question on the same paper.
Dr Anna Berman |
