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Tolstoy wrote War and Peace on the brink of a moral and spiritual crisis that led him to focus on Christ’s ethical teachings (especially the Sermon on the Mount) and to embrace pacifism. Both the characters of Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky drew on his personality in various ways.
War and Peace opens in the Russian city of St. Petersburg in 1805, as Napoleon’s conquest of western Europe is just beginning to stir fears in Russia. Many of the novel’s characters are introduced at a society hostess’s party, among them Pierre Bezukhov, the socially awkward but likeable illegitimate son of a rich count, and Andrew Bolkonski, the intelligent and ambitious son of a ...
Aug 21, 2024 · Leo Tolstoy - War & Peace, Novelist, Realism: Voyna i mir (1865–69; War and Peace) contains three kinds of material—a historical account of the Napoleonic wars, the biographies of fictional characters, and a set of essays about the philosophy of history. Critics from the 1860s to the present have wondered how these three parts cohere, and many have faulted Tolstoy for including the lengthy ...
In War and Peace, most major characters wrestle with how to live fulfilled, happy lives in a world that seems to be overwhelmed with suffering. For example, Pierre seeks meaning and stability in Freemasonry, a spiritual brotherhood that promises to cure him of his youthful debauchery, but he’s soon disillusioned by its members’ hypocrisy.
War and Peace, a novel by Leo Tolstoy, was first published in its entirety in 1869. The novel is set in early 19th-century Russia and follows five aristocratic families during the Napoleonic Wars. The narrative delves into themes of war, love, and the search for meaning in life.
Feb 24, 2009 · Antony's Brigg's acclaimed translation of Tolstoy's great Russian epic. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Set against the sweeping panoply of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, War and Peace —presented here in the first new English translation in forty years—is often considered the greatest novel ever written.
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Irrationality of Human Motives. Although a large portion of War and Peace focuses on war, which is associated in our minds with clear-headed strategy and sensible reasoning, Tolstoy constantly emphasizes the irrational motives for human behavior in both peace and war.
