Natasha, Pierre, Being Ordinary

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Dec 18 14:21:51 PST 2002


At 3:50 PM -0600 12/18/02, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Milton's closing lines --
>
> The World was all before them, where to choose
> Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
> They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
> Through Eden took thir solitarie way
>
>-- are as offensive as the First Epilogue to W&P if you refuse him
>his historical horizon. The world had perhaps closed in on Tolstoi
>in comparison to Milton, so his couple are hunkering down rather
>than reaching out, but the core is the same.

Tolstoy mocks those who think that individuals cause Progress or Reaction by making "right" or "wrong" decisions freely:

***** FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20 CHAPTER I

Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.

Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation.

The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies, who formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars, campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.

The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the reaction."

In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or condemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction. *****

Tolstoy must have thought that the "hankering down" of the couple was also historically determined as well, rather than that the couple chose to hanker down.

At 3:50 PM -0600 12/18/02, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Milton's world is radically individualistic with a future, Tolstoi's
>radically individualistic with a perceived boundary.

Tolstoy (in _War and Peace_) seems to have thought of everyone's action as historically determined, except his -- the artist's -- own. -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list