For Ayn Rand, "War and Peace" Virtually Defined Literary "Realism"

Posted by WDonway 5 years, 7 months ago to Culture
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Yep, I read "War and Peace," this summer, including at the beach. As committed to substance over immediacy as "Savvy Street" may be, this is NOT a review of a book published in1869.

AYN RAND viewed "War and Peace" as the height of Naturalism (Realism), a novel striving for "unversalism" that rose almost to the metaphysical--and so gave initial, early plausibility to the theory of literary Realism. It was mostly downhill from then till now.

Again and again, Rand referred to "War and Peace" to make points about Realism versus Romanticism.

What is more, Tolstoy was utter explicit about his philosophical views and so we see the premises that drive Naturalism and ultimately drive it into the ground...

In fact, "War and Peace" was so "good" (quasi-Romanticist) that Tolstoy later disavowed his masterpiece as "not true to reality."
SOURCE URL: http://www.thesavvystreet.com/war-and-peace-is-to-naturalism-what-atlas-shrugged-is-to-romanticism/


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  • Posted by mshupe 5 years, 7 months ago
    Wonderful article. Very informative. Oddly enough I've read War and Peace, Atlas Shrugged, and Les Miserable, but have never been able to discuss them and not well enough informed to compare them in this way.
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  • Posted by Lucky 5 years, 7 months ago
    I like the definition and explanation comparing Realism with Romanticism.
    Some dates for the record:
    Battle of Borodino, 7 September 1812
    Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815

    Many years ago I read The Stranger, L'Étranger by Albert Camus about which I have good memories tho' now seeing it as the prime example of Realism in writing.

    I read Anthony Daniels in the Spectator UK. He tells how when assessing crims as a psychiatrist they describe the crime as an observer - the knife went in, blood spurted, I felt sick and stayed there till the cops came ... .
    An attempt, unconscious perhaps, to avoid responsibility as if the body was not subject to direction by a mind, the body and the knife only doing what fate required.
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