Creating and Recovering Experience · Default Product

Compare retailer offers

About this product

The thesis of this book is that repetition is central to Tolstoy's art. The author argues that Tolstoy uses this device—or rather, complex of devices—to represent and examine the processes by which people structure and give meaning to their experience. Repetition is shown to be essential to his style, to his understanding of characters' psychology, to the structure of his work, and to his interaction with readers. In short, it defines much of what is "Tolstoyan" about Tolstoy. Following a discussion of the epistemological and psychological beliefs that shape Tolstoy's use of repetition, the author explores the effects and implications of repeated verbal elements as they function in the discourse of characters and narrators. She develops a concept of "novels of length," which are distinguished from ordinary "long novels" in that length is essential to their themes and purposes. A complex dynamic of memory, forgetting, and reminders (repetition) structures both the characters' evolving identities and the readers' changing apprehension of the text. The author next discusses Tolstoy's use of repetition to shape relationships among characters, and considers the connection between these

More from Stanford University Press