April 20-May 25, 2010
1 pm
Teefy Hall, Room 101
Tolstoy’s renowned masterpiece, Anna
Karenina (1877), widely considered the greatest novel ever written, is
in the same degree the novel of events as it is the novel of ideas. The author
presents his reader with a most enchanting read, where he ponders issues to
which all of us can relate: love and life, marriage and adultery, masculinity
and femininity, search for selfhood and an ardent quest for the meaning of
life. In this class we will ponder these issues as we will delve into the
intricate world ofAnna Karenina. We will approach this novel
through the close reading, which will go parallel to several background
mini-lectures presenting the nineteenth-century Russia as well as Tolstoi the
artist, religious thinker, and philosopher.
Readings: Anna Karenina in Richard Peaver and
Larissa Volokhonsky translation (Penguin Books, 2004, Oprah’s Book Club).
For our first class please read Part 1, pages 1-117.
Schedule
Class 1, April 20, 2010
Introduction. Tolstoy the artist.
Anna Karenina, Part 1, pages 1-115.
Class 2, April 27, 2010
Anna Karenina, Part 2, pages 117-236.
Class 3, May 4
Anna Karenina, Part 3, pages 237-352 and Part 4, pages
353-436.
Discussion questions
Class 4, May 11
Anna Karenina and Part 5, pages 437-549 and Part 6,
pages 551-669.
Discussion questions
Class 5, May 18
Anna Karenina, Part 6 (continued) and Part 7, pages
671-768.
Discussion questions
Class 6, May 25
Anna Karenina, Part 8, pages 769-817.