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CS92PROD
Tolstoy
RUSS 252
Spring 2010
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: REES 252, COL 262

During the19th century when Tolstoy wrote his novels and stories, literature was viewed in Russia as the intelligentsia's primary medium for debating its big questions (such as how to resolve the inequalities that had been institutionalized under serfdom, or how to choose between new and old values as Russia experienced modernization). Writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky willingly assumed the responsibility to address a broad range of political, historical, and philosophical-religious questions in their fiction, and they wrote novels with radical formulations as well as solutions to these questions. However, they also viewed literature, particularly the novel, as a medium with rich potential for innovative formal experimentation, and so they resisted the call for conventional ideological novels. Each of Tolstoy's best works is an innovative formal experiment that creates an unprecedented, new type of novel. Who in Russia could have expected a novel like WAR AND PEACE in the 1860s, ANNA KARENINA in the 1870s, THE KREUTZER SONATA in the 1880s, RESURRECTION in the 1890s, or HADZHI MURAD on the eve of Russia's 1905 Revolution? This course will study how Tolstoy's writings both responded to and transcended their times by creating new novelistic forms and new truths within those forms.

Essential Capabilities: Interpretation
This course teaches how nineteenth century novels were intended to be read; it also teaches the process of literary interpretation.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RUSS
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (REES-MN)(REES-Lang/Lit/C)
Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available

Last Updated on DEC-14-2024
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