Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | Tolstoy, Leo - David Matual (essay date 1975)

David Matual (essay date 1975)

SOURCE: "On the Poetics of Tolstoj's Confession," in Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 19, No. 3, Fall, 1975, pp. 276-87.

[In the following essay, Matual discusses the structure and form of the Confession in terms of classical poetics.]

In its final form the Confession was intended as an introduction to Tolstoj's polemical treatise on Orthodox dogmatic theology (Issledovanie dogmati eskogo bogoslovija (1879-80). These two works together with his translation of the gospels (Soedinenie i perevod etyrex evangelij) and the systematic exposition of his new faith (V em moja vera?) represented his major statements on the religious questions which were to pre-occupy him for the rest of his life. As religious literature the Confession found both defenders and assailants; but those critics who were indifferent to the religious crisis it depicts either understated...

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