George Eliot's "Adam Bede" and tolstoy's Conception of "Anna Karenina"
2005; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 100; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mlr.2005.0046
ISSN2222-4319
Autores Tópico(s)Soviet and Russian History
ResumoGEORGE ELIOT'S 'ADAM BEDE' AND TOLSTOY'S CONCEPTION OF 'ANNA KARENINA' 'Tolstoy created people, but he did not invent characters and situations out of his head. . . . He was no Emily Bronte. He was an intensifying not an inventive genius',1 notes Professor R. F. Christian in summing up Tolstoy's method of creation in his study of War and Peace. Tolstoy drew on three sources. Many of his characters had their prototypes in real life, and his contemporaries were quick to point out sources among their acquaintances. Borrowings from memoirs and histories account for many ofthe scenes and situations described in War and Peace.2 Thirdly, Tolstoy was ready to accept, if not always to acknowledge, inspiration from literature and would often become absorbed in reading before turning anew to creative writing.3 This last source gave the initial impetus to Anna Karenina. In a letter4 to N. N. Strakhov on 25 March 1873 Tolstoy related how he had by chance been reading Pushkin's stories, and on coming across the sketch, Tocth cbe3tfcaAHCbHa ^a^y . . . ', (The guests met at the dacha . . .) * without knowing why and what would come of it, began to think up characters and events'. On 11 May he wrote again to Strakhov to say that he was writing a novel which 'had come' to him 'involuntarily and thanks to the divine Pushkin'.5 The draft6 headed sMoA04eu>6a6a', in fact began: Tocth nocAe onepbi CBesacaAHCb k moao^oh KHHrnHe BpaccKOH.' (The guests after the opera met at the young Princess Vrasskaya's.)7 There is evidence to show that George Eliot's Adam Bede must also have profound? ly influenced Tolstoy's conception of his novel Anna Karenina in the critical initial stages of its creation. It is to be expected that Tolstoy would have found a natural affinitywith George Eliot: Henry James's opinion of her in an early review could equally well have been expressed of Tolstoy, namely that, unlike Dickens and Thackeray, Eliot was 'also a good deal ofa philosopher and it is to this union ofthe keenest observation with the ripest reflection that her style owes its essential force'.8 We are less concerned here, however, with general affinities than with certain characters, situations and stylistic devices in Adam Bede which reappear in Anna Karenina characteristically expanded and intensified. Certainly Tolstoy had been quick to recognize Eliot's power as a novelist. 'Were you in Russia now, I would send you Elliot's [sie] Scenes of Clerical Life', he wrote to A. A. Tolstaya on 12 June 1859.9 On 11 October in the same year he noted in his diary, 'Read Adam Bede. Very tragic, although untrue and full of one 1 R. F. Christian,Tolstoy s WarandPeace,A Study (Oxford,1961),p. 86. 2 R. F. Christian, pp. 59-86. 3 N. N. Gusev,L. N. Tolstoy, Makrialy1870-1881 (Moscow, 1963),p. 193. 4 jubilee Edition,Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy (Moscow, 1928-58),vol. 62, p. 16. 5 JubileeEdition,vol. 62, p. 25. 6 Restoration byV. A. Zhdanov,Literaturnoe Nasledstvo, vol.69, book 1 (Moscow, 1961),p. 423. 7 The influence ofPushkin'spassageon theearlydrafts ofthefuture AnnaKarenina is considered in an articleby N. K. Gudziy,Istoriya pisaniya i pechataniya Anny Kareninoy in theJubileeEdition, vol. 20, pp. 584-5* 8 Quoted byLeon Edel, Henry James,TheUntried Tears.1843-1870 (1953), p- 266. 9 JubileeEdition,vol. 60, p. 300. [191] 474 'Adam Bede* and 'Anna Karenina" thought'.1 He was to return to George Eliot's novels throughout his life. In a letter to M. M. Lederle on 25 October 1891 in which he listed the works which had made an impression on him between the age ofthirty-fiveand fifty, he included, * George Eliot. Novels. Great impression'.2 This is substantiated by his son Sergey Tolstoy who noted in his memoirs3 of his father, 'It is well known that he placed Dickens above all other English novelists. He found Thackeray somewhat cold, and from the other novels praised "Adam Bede" and "The Vicar ofWakefield" '. Eliot was to remain a favourite novelist. G. A. Rusanov recorded the following conversation with Tolstoy in 1890: 'Dickens', said the latter, 'is in the top rank, Thackeray a...
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