| The study examines Tolstoy's ideas on education and art as he presented them in his early educational writings, Anna Karenina, and his treatise What is Art?. Its focus is the dialogue of ideas that occurs as a result of Tolstoy's use of two radically different generic forms, the novel and the philosophical tract, as filters through which he examines a single set of ideas. Chapter One offers a theoretical discussion of genre in general and how it shaped Tolstoy's writing. This discussion includes several basic assumptions and observations about genre that underlie the study as a whole. An examination of Tolstoy's use of the essay and how its generic laws influenced the presentation of his ideas in that form is the subject of Chapter Two. Comparing Tolstoy's educational essays and What is Art? illustrates the writer's development as an essayist, and concludes that, despite his improvement, he never achieved the level of success presenting philosophical problems in the essay that he did in the novel. A rereading of Anna Karenina through the lens of What is Art? in Chapter Three reveals potential interpretations of the novel that otherwise are not apparent, and shows that the same structure of ideas that Tolstoy presented in What is Art? underlies his thinking about all abstract philosophical problems. The study reveals the tension between theory and practice that presented problems for Tolstoy throughout his life, and demonstrates how Tolstoy's use of multiple genres to examine a single idea or method of thinking allowed for a more complex and complete exploration than was possible in a single genre. |
