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Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 'War and Peace'

Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 'War and Peace'

Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 'War and
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Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 'War and Peace' Paperback - 1988 - 1st Edition

by Morson, Gary Saul

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Description

Stanford University Press, 1988-12-01. paperback. Softcover. 5x0x8. Softcover. Minor shelf-wear. For any additional information or pictures, please inquire.
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Details

  • Title Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 'War and Peace'
  • Author Morson, Gary Saul
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition number 1st
  • Edition 1
  • Condition Used - Softcover
  • Pages 336
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Stanford University Press, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
  • Publication date 1988-12-01
  • Features Bibliography, Index, Table of Contents
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 250829015
  • ISBN 9780804717182 / 0804717184
  • Weight 0.9 lbs (0.41 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 in (21.34 x 13.72 x 2.29 cm)
  • Size 5x0x8
  • Themes
    • Cultural Region: Russian
  • Category Literature - Classics / Criticism
  • Dewey Decimal Code 891.733
  • Quantity available 1

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Reader reviews for Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in 'War and Peace'

From the publisher

For decades, the formal peculiarities of War and Peace disturbed Russian and Western critics, who attributed both the anomalous structure and the literary power of the book to Tolstoy's "primitive," unruly genius. Using that critical history as a starting point, this volume recaptures the overwhelming sense of strangeness felt by the work's first readers and thereby illuminates Tolstoy's theoretical and narratological concerns.

The author demonstrates that the formal peculiarities of War and Peace were deliberate, designed to elude what Tolstoy regarded as the falsifying constraints of all narratives, both novelistic and historical. Developing and challenging the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, Morson explores Tolstoy's account of the work's composition in light of various myths of the creative process. He proposes a theory of "creation by potential" that incorporates Tolstoy's main concerns: the "openness" of each historical moment; the role of chance in history and within narrative patterns; and the efficacy of ordinary events, "hidden in plain view," in shaping history and individual psychology. In his reading of Tolstoy, he demonstrates how we read literary works within the "penumbral text" of associated theories of creativity.

From the jacket flap

For decades, the formal peculiarities of War and Peace disturbed Russian and Western critics, who attributed both the anomalous structure and the literary power of the book to Tolstoy's "primitive," unruly genius. Using that critical history as a starting point, this volume recaptures the overwhelming sense of strangeness felt by the work's first readers and thereby illuminates Tolstoy's theoretical and narratological concerns.
The author demonstrates that the formal peculiarities of War and Peace were deliberate, designed to elude what Tolstoy regarded as the falsifying constraints of all narratives, both novelistic and historical. Developing and challenging the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, Morson explores Tolstoy's account of the work's composition in light of various myths of the creative process. He proposes a theory of "creation by potential" that incorporates Tolstoy's main concerns: the "openness" of each historical moment; the role of chance in history and within narrative patterns; and the efficacy of ordinary events, "hidden in plain view," in shaping history and individual psychology. In his reading of Tolstoy, he demonstrates how we read literary works within the "penumbral text" of associated theories of creativity.

About the author

Gary Saul Morson is Professor of Slavic Languages and Comparative Literature at Northwestern University, and the author of The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky's 'Diary of a Writer' and the Traditions of Literary Utopia, and the editor of Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian Case Studies.
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