In addition to the short story, Tolstoy also devoted a substantial amount of creative effort, after War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina', to that longer type of fiction which he had attempted in his earlier period - the short novel. Though they vary a great deal in length, no one of them could properly be regarded as either a short story or a novel. For like the earlier short novels, each involves a number of characters and a frame of reference too extensive for the concentrated focus of the short story but not extensive enough for the expansive structure of the full-length novel. Among these eight remaining short novels are several of his most remarkable creations in fiction.
An objective approach to the human condition may be discerned in …show more content…
If the elaborate theory of artistic creation in 'What Is Art?' was in essence an aesthetic expression of his new philosophy, designed in part to justify the future fiction he felt an inner compulsion to write, the results frequently indicate that the literary artist in him transcended the moral and religious preacher. For despite the mass of religious, philosophical, and moral books and articles he wrote during this last period, he produced a surprising body of belles-lettres. And much more fiction might have been turned out if it had not been for a special circumstance. In 1891 Tolstoy publicly renounced the copyrights of all he had written after 1881, the time of his spiritual conversion. This decision became one of the principal reasons for the prolonged and tragic struggle that developed between him and his wife, who had taken upon herself the publication of his works. Every new artistic effort of her husband could cause a renewal of the family quarrel, for she invariably pleaded for the right of first publication for the sake of financial gain, the very thing he was trying to avoid. This unhappy situation made him hesitate to write fiction at all. Some stories that he began he failed to complete for years, and if finished, he would conceal them from his wife or hold up their publication for a long …show more content…
Though in such narratives Tolstoy is usually concerned with bringing the actions and thoughts of his characters into harmony with his new beliefs, he rarely ceases to be the literary artist in matters of language, form, and content.
The fear of death, a problem with which Tolstoy had long been pre-occupied, lies behind the mystical experiences of the main characters in 'The Death of Ivan Ilych' (finished 1886; published 1886) and 'Master and Man' (finished 1895; published 1895), two of his greatest masterpieces in the genre of the short novel. The public hailed 'The Death of Ivan Ilych', for it was the first substantial artistic work that he had written since 'Anna Karenina' nine years before. At last it seemed that the celebrated author had returned to the art that had won him international
An objective approach to the human condition may be discerned in …show more content…
If the elaborate theory of artistic creation in 'What Is Art?' was in essence an aesthetic expression of his new philosophy, designed in part to justify the future fiction he felt an inner compulsion to write, the results frequently indicate that the literary artist in him transcended the moral and religious preacher. For despite the mass of religious, philosophical, and moral books and articles he wrote during this last period, he produced a surprising body of belles-lettres. And much more fiction might have been turned out if it had not been for a special circumstance. In 1891 Tolstoy publicly renounced the copyrights of all he had written after 1881, the time of his spiritual conversion. This decision became one of the principal reasons for the prolonged and tragic struggle that developed between him and his wife, who had taken upon herself the publication of his works. Every new artistic effort of her husband could cause a renewal of the family quarrel, for she invariably pleaded for the right of first publication for the sake of financial gain, the very thing he was trying to avoid. This unhappy situation made him hesitate to write fiction at all. Some stories that he began he failed to complete for years, and if finished, he would conceal them from his wife or hold up their publication for a long …show more content…
Though in such narratives Tolstoy is usually concerned with bringing the actions and thoughts of his characters into harmony with his new beliefs, he rarely ceases to be the literary artist in matters of language, form, and content.
The fear of death, a problem with which Tolstoy had long been pre-occupied, lies behind the mystical experiences of the main characters in 'The Death of Ivan Ilych' (finished 1886; published 1886) and 'Master and Man' (finished 1895; published 1895), two of his greatest masterpieces in the genre of the short novel. The public hailed 'The Death of Ivan Ilych', for it was the first substantial artistic work that he had written since 'Anna Karenina' nine years before. At last it seemed that the celebrated author had returned to the art that had won him international