Artistic Detail as an Element of Psychological Characteristics in the ‘Novel from the Times of Peter I’ and in the Novel ‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy

About the author:

Galina N. Kovaleva, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

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Abstract:

The article for the first time compares the techniques of depicting the inner world of the characters of the unfinished novel from the times of Peter I with the techniques of psychological characterization of the novel “Anna Karenina”. A comparative analysis of the elements of poetics of the two novels is undertaken in order to identify similarities or, conversely, to underline the differences between artistic means of historical novel and the novel “Anna Karenina”. Both works were created after Tolstoy had experienced a radical revision of the existing aesthetic views in the early 1870s, which led to the renewal of the system of artistic principles familiar to him. Based on the results of comparison, a conclusion is made about the thematic points of convergence between two novels, about the proximity of the elements of plot construction, the use of a single form of psychological analysis, the similarity of artistic techniques in describing psychological state of characters in the state of acute mental crisis. The undertaken research shows that in the novel devoted to Peter I and in the novel “Anna Karenina” Tolstoy recreated the mental perturbance of the characters, their thoughts, feelings, experiences reflected in their body language almost exclusively with the help of artistic detail, contrasting lexical pairs (“friend–foe”, “light–dark”, “clear–dim”), as well as a specific creative technique — semantic selection: repetition of one or two words, phrases, exclamations, that express psychological state of characters.