The Global Novel: a literature podcast
The Global Novel is a podcast that surveys the narratology of world literature and history of translation from antiquity to modernity with a critical lens and aims to make academic education in literature accessible to the world.
The Global Novel: a literature podcast
Before Freud: Anna Karenina (1878)
What truly makes Anna Karenina so significant—as an epitome of world literature—is that it is far more than a tale of love and tragedy. Tolstoy offers us a mirror of the common human condition and suffering—his characters are as alive today, with all their emotional turmoil, just as they were in the 19th century. Today, we’re truly honored to welcome back Professor. Julia Titus from Yale University, to guide us into Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece Anna Karenina. Prof. Titus is the author of Dostoevsky as a Translator of Balzac (2022).
Recommended Reading:
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1878)
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)
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Welcome to the Global Novel Podcast, my friends. It's been a while, but we're finally back on track. This season, the Global Novel Podcast will return with a broader and exciting vision. It will be living under a larger umbrella called Beyond Words. It's meant to be a bigger online platform devoted to exploring the arts and humanities in their full list range. Beyond Words will continue to carry the passion and intensity of the global novel by including other subjects such as poetry, history, film, cultural studies, philosophy, religion, fine arts or even comic studies. In other words, we have big plans to grow the show and are looking for co-producers and podcast hosts. So, if you have relevant expertise, check out our website at theglobalnovelorg slash. Join us for more information about becoming part of our wonderful and creative production team.
Speaker 1:Well, last year we closed with Russian and this year we begin again with Russian literature. The reason is that I often feel that 19th century Russian novels are understated in those comparative literature programs and often European canon dominates the landscape when it comes to the study of the novel, and sometimes because professors trained in that particular field are less familiar with Russia's unique social and religious context. For example, unlike Protestant Europe, russia was steeped in orthodoxy and that different religious background profoundly shapes the works of Russian novelists such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Today we're truly honored to welcome back Professor Julia Titus from Yale University to guide us into Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece, anna Karenina. Professor Titus is the author of Dostoevsky as a translator of Balzac. Hello, julia, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, clara. It's a pleasure to talk to you, as always, and thank you for inviting me back and giving our listeners a chance to learn more about Tolstoy, who, I'm sure, along with Dostoevsky if anybody thinks of Russian literature, these are the two names that are immediately mentioned thinks of Russian literature. These are the two names that are immediately mentioned, and especially the topic of today's show, anna Karenina. Anna Karenina was actually on Oprah's book club choice in 2004. And that drew a lot of readership, new readers to Tolstoy and certainly about what might be in this novel that so resonates with today's readers, especially women and, you know, young women who are trying to also find these answers about family and love and longevity of marriage, something that Tolstoy discussed in such brilliant ways in Anna Karenina.
Speaker 1:Longevity of marriage. What a great way to put this. This. I think what truly makes this novel so significant as an epitome of world literature is that it is far more than a tale of love and tragedy. Right, it is certainly more than an antidote to unwe. Building on earlier, you know european novel tradition and in fact anna herself is often found reading English novels, if I'm correct, or French novels it's English novels in moments of solitude. I think what's great about Tolstoy is his talent in offering us a mirror of the common human condition and suffering. His characters are as alive today, with all their emotional turmoil, just as they were in the 19th century. So, julia, you often told me that this is your favorite novel and of course I have to begin asking why. Why so?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is my favorite novel and in Anna Karenina you can see if War and Peace, which was also published previously in the serialized manner in installments, tolstoy wrote about Russia's past. In Anna Karenina he really recreated the life of the society at Russian history, that as he knew it. Because, you're right, it is not exclusively the novel about marriage, although the initial title was Two Marriages, and of course there is a story of two couples, kitty and Leuven and Anna and Vronsky, and these events kind of unfold in parallel. But at the same time we can all relate because of course you wrote to me that your favorite character is Leuven and Leuven is often viewed as alter ego, as a portrayal of Tolstoy himself, with his quest for faith, because it's not only the quest for happy family, even though the biographical. There are many episodes in Courtship of Leuven and Kitty that mirror Tolstoy's own courtship to Sophia Bers, for example the sin and proposal, how he proposed, and also Leuven, just like Tolstoy, gave his own diary to read to his bride on the eve before the wedding and with the same nerve-wracking consequences. So there are many, many biographic connections and even the other portraits of main characters. These are all drawn from the people that Tolstoy knew very well.
Speaker 2:But what's appealing, as you said, there is this deep psychology of this novel. Because if we think on the surface that, okay, tolstoy's ideal woman is Dolly and Kitty, because Dolly, just like Sofia Tolstaya, is completely consumed by her children, by her family life, and that is often interpreted as Tolstoy's ideal motherhood, because that's a true calling for the woman. And then, of course, anna. The antinomy is Anna leaves her family, she leaves her child to elope with a lover. So that would be, on the other hand, the antinomy, and hence she has to be punished for abandoning her duties.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, tolstoy was, of course, the masterful author and he didn't want to make it so one-dimensional. And so we as readers, I mean, I was always drawn to Anna. I read Anna Karenina as a young teenager and I reread it since many times and I was always drawn to Anna because it's a complexity of the character. And even Vronsky. I mean, of course we know the critical response Vladimir Nabokov in his famous lectures on Anna Karenina he didn't like Vronsky, he just considered him very superficial, but even so Anna falls in love with Vronsky. So there is something in Vronsky that him very superficial, but even so Anna falls in love with Vronsky. So there is something in Vronsky that is very appealing, but in Anna Karenina, I think in any age, because you would read it differently Of course. Now, when I'm older and I have my own children, I read it differently from how I read it when I was a teenager, because then I was solely focused, focused on Anna, because her trajectory, you know, this love affair. But now we can see all these other shades of meaning because on one hand, as I said, we can say it's a story of two couples, so two marriages. But there is also the third couple and that is Dolly and Stiva, and that's kind of an intermediary between she connects this Steva and Dolly, working in the novel as a linking couple between Vronsky and Anna and Kitty and Leuven. So there is that, and so when the novel was initially published, some critics criticized it for lack of unity, because they said well, there is this plot line which is Anna Vronsky, and then there is this plot line, kitty Levin, and they do not connect.
Speaker 2:But in fact Tolstoy vehemently disagreed and Nabokov also said the same thing. Tolstoy said that these plot lines are connected not necessarily through the narrative intersection but through the inner architecture. He says this is actually the mark of the great artistry, that it's like the plafond or the arches, these arches, that they are done in such deliberate and subtle way that you cannot see the structure is not visible. And when we think about it, the narrative, of course, is structured in this way because things the starting point right, it's the ball, where things go badly for Kitty but things look up for Anna, right, so Anna. So then Kitty gets sick, so that couple goes down and she refused Levin, so for that couple things go badly. And of course Anna and Vronsky courtship, so this dynamic. And then ultimately, when the novel is driven to the finale, kitty is living in her blissfully happy married state and Anna is consumed with jealousy and she feels that Vronsky's passion for her is diminishing and ultimately Anna ends up committing suicide and Alevin finds faith and it's really his family life, or rather that Kitty and her son are spared by the thunderstorm, that brings him closer to God. So it's that contrast of the two plot lines really shapes the philosophical content of the novel.
Speaker 2:But, as I said, I mean why I like it. I also like it because, even if you read the fragments, if you look like at one chapter. If you look at the ball or Kitty and Irving skating, you will see these scenes are constructed so richly and Tolstoy was such a master of detail that you can really see. I mean there are more than 30 movie film adaptations. Fana Karenina, because I think everybody's just drawn to bring it to visual imagery, because even as you read you can totally picture it, because these details right, you remember Anna's black dress, the sparkle in her eye or the clumsiness of skitty skating. And she says with you when she speaks to Levin, I'm not afraid, I don't think I will fall, because you really know how to skate. So all these details.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. Tolstoy's characterizations are so convincing and full of artistry, just as you talked about. We could talk endlessly about. You know the major characters, levin, kitty, anna, vronsky, crennan, even Levin's brothers, and how each of them not only shapes events but also carries the novel's philosophical and self-reflective weight. So for me, levin is my favorite character and he feels like, as we all know, tolstoy's own self-portrait, as you just mentioned, who's a philosopher, thinker and feeler who tries to live his life meaningfully. But what strikes me most is the character's aliveness, and especially in those scenes where he works in the fields with the peasants reaping wheat in the scorching sun and pouring rain, as he slowly recovers from Kitty's rejection. I've rarely been so touched by this moment of healing, you know, done through literature. Tolstoy makes visible the beauty of recovery, right, and something most of us cannot see in ourselves while we're still healing and busy managing our own pain emotionally. What do you think about Tolstoy's method or his way of shaping his characters in this fashion?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say that's a great question. I mean, I'm drawn to Leuven, but also they say that Leuven's spiritual counterpart, or at least in some critics' view, is Anna, because before she meets Vronsky her life is very superficial and consumed by this society duties. What does she do? She doesn't really do anything. Yes, she has her son, but that's pretty much only one thing. Maybe enough for Dolly, but it was not enough, obviously, for the woman of this. You know immense gifts, gifts of intellect, gifts of the heart, as Anna Levin is a wonderful character and I think also. So I'm torn between my heart goes to Levin and Anna, and it's interesting when they meet right towards the finale of the novel. He's drawn to her right at the music, at the concert, and then Kitty is like. Kitty suspects that it's not very good either. So, yes, leuven is like Tolstoy. Sofia, the wife of Tolstoy, famously said to Leo Tolstoy that Leuven is him himself, minus the talent. So Tolstoy was like Leuven, but talented Right. So yes, leuven is besieged by the same.
Speaker 2:Again, for Tolstoy the biggest issues were finding faith, so this journey to God, and regarding Leuven's preoccupation with his estate, that's of course biographical. And we have a very interesting commentary because even though the novel was published in the Russian Herald every month, publication was interrupted twice. So from May to November of 1875, nothing was published, and it was the same hiatus the following summer. Why? Because Tolstoy was preoccupied with his estate. He had to do all these things he was writing about. So that, of course, again helps us to see how much of what was written in Anna Karenina actually is drawn from the real life, from the environment that was so familiar to Tolstoy, because people were commenting on the portrayal of the characters that they actually recognized. Steve Oblonsky is rumored to be done from somebody named Perfiliev, who once said to Tolstoy jokingly that he never ate the whole bagel with coffee for breakfast. And so he found it also obviously very true, very resonant. So all these details people could point out to real prototypes who were reworked in the novel as poetic archetypes.
Speaker 2:Yes, the quest for Leuven. Leuven is believable because he well, anna too, because Anna undergoes this big journey right. She starts out with this socialite. In some ways her social situation is similar to Betsy and of course Betsy has a lover, which everybody knows, and it's completely fine. But Anna finds herself from the appearances in the same situation and becomes unbearable, because Anna doesn't want duplicity. She cannot live like Betsy. She wants authenticity in her relationships. That's why she doesn't want to continue in that same fashion.
Speaker 2:Because it's interesting that when a relationship begins, for Vronsky it's a step up in the society, right, because he has an affair with this. You know very brilliant, madame Karenin, who is high on the society ladder, it's very visible, it's a feather in his cap. And of course, anna being a woman, that's exactly the opposite effect, because women are never, never treated in the same, not in Tolstoy's time, not now. They are not held to the same standard, unfortunately. Also, it may be interesting to note that Tolstoy was in Paris during when Madame Bovary was published and Flaubert was famously on trial, right. So Tolstoy was certainly aware of it.
Speaker 2:And some critics say that Anna Karenina can be viewed as the Russian response to Madame Bovary. Because, again, problems with Anna Karenina, also tainted by Russian social situations in possibility of divorce, right. And so there is this whole other layer of complexity and of course, with Emma, with Madame Bovary that one goes from lover to lover to lover, whereas for Anna it's a very different type of relationship that she has with Vronsky. She says my whole life, you are my whole life. If I don't have you, I don't have anything. And that's how she's driven to the suicide, because she feels that he no longer loves her and there is nothing left in her life to draw. Well, some people, some critics, say that we don't know if that's what Tolstoy thought, but there is a biographical fact that he was in Paris during Flaubert's trial.
Speaker 1:Biographical fact that he was in Paris during Flaubert's trial, so some critics suppose that it could be viewed as such.
Speaker 2:But I mean he wanted to write because, again, the War and Peace is a novel about Rachev's past and this kind of epic novel. And when the novel was first published, the critics, again the public, the response, critical response was bigger than War and Peace. Everybody loved it and anticipated every installment. It was a big event. But critics criticized it. For some said, well, it's Tolstoy's portrayal of upper society. So one critic wrote it's just an upper society sketch with art for pure art. They really criticized it. The other critics said that it lacks this unity, as I said, because why write one novel, write two, right? So the critics didn't think Only Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky liked it and then, of course, later Thomas Mann liked it and praised it as the most important social novel.
Speaker 2:Because again, there is this social relationships that you can study, because all the characters, of course Steva is one type, then Karenin is obviously the opposite, right? So you can look at Karenin's circle vis-a-vis Leuven and Kitty's circle and you will see how these are different social spheres and how there are completely different interactions and the norms of behavior that are accepted. Because you mentioned the letter in your questions. Karenin writes this letter. Well, he's mostly concerned with appearances. Does he love Anna? No, he doesn't care. But he knows a divorce is frowned upon in the society. It's not good, so it's better to continue as is, as if nothing is the matter.
Speaker 1:Yep, well, the novel's psychological depth is truly amazing, because we're talking about really deep analytical description of characters way before Freud and Lacan In terms of the proto-psychoanalysis.
Speaker 2:A lot is always said about dreams and in terms of imagery. We remember that Anna and Anna meets Vronsky not only at the railway station but in a very prophetic moment. How does she know Vronsky is interested? Because when she sees that the man has been cut off by the train, vronsky immediately gives money to the widow, and she knows that it is because of her. And she also knows that perhaps this is not the most natural thing for Vronsky to do, because it's a gesture to draw to her attention. And then, of course, that same image of the tragedy connected. She doesn't see the railroad per se, but in her dreams, right, she sees this man, this scary man, doing something with the iron. So this motif of iron is something that goes through the novel, you know, from the railroad to her dream where the man is working with the hot iron, that nightmare, and then of course she dies.
Speaker 2:Interestingly that Vronsky too. Vronsky sees a similar dream, right. So when he comes to her, when she writes to him that I have to see you, and she tells him that dream that she was so scared because she thinks she will die in childbirth, she says it's going to be over soon, and then he remembers his dream too, and so that these two dreams, so they share the dream. There is this connection, unspoken connection between the two and, of course, the other device that we also know, because one of the things that makes Rita aware why Anna is not like Betsy in one of her nightmares we know. Of course the first name of Vronsky is Alexei and the name of Karenin, her husband, sees to Alexei's together, and this she cannot. We know that for her it is indeed the nightmare. She can't like split it, and so the dreams are very, very important and when we think what would be this motif?
Speaker 2:Because there is also the blizzard right, because there is for Anna, it's that whirlwind and it's a metaphor because the blizzard she goes out on the platform when Vronsky says that he follows her to St Petersburg and the blizzard comes out and extinguishes the lamp. So it becomes a metaphor of Anna's, of course, tragic end. And another metaphor in that there is a parallel right, because when Vronsky thinks, when he looks at Anna, when she's already tormented by jealousy, and he says he sees how she becomes like, he feels it's like a wilted flower. He picked the flower and she's now less beautiful and somehow less radiant and it evokes that image, that plucked flower, but also it's the image of the horse, right. When the horse a race horse and he breaks by one awkward movement, he breaks the horse back and the horse dies and that becomes this really also foreshadowing of what is to come, because it was not deliberate and yet it was completely tragic for the event, for that episode with the racehorses.
Speaker 2:So I would say the dreams we should certainly think of dreams as these prophetic moments, how he shapes his narrative narrative. And another thing where Tolstoy was really the visionary is Anna's last monologue, because that last day that she spends thinking of her suicide, it's really the stream of consciousness, right, and when Tolstoy writes it it's way before James Joyce, so it's before that technique was actually used and widely known, and how she spends that whole day and it's completely juxtaposed with the things that she sees and the things that she thinks. So that's also something artistically, it's a great contribution to the art of the novel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm personally really not a big fan of Vronsky. We're going to talk about this character in a second, but before that I was also thinking of this. Constant dreams within several major characters that they have is this image of the despicable peasant? You remember that. Why don't we talk about this kind of disturbing imagery, character that appears in so many characters' dreams? What does that symbolize, do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, it foreshadows Anna's death because again, it's very disturbing and you have, it's that, the muzhik, the peasant. So I think it's incarnation of that tragic image that the peasant was cut off or the railroad worker was cut off during the scene where she arrives in Moscow, and it becomes just a symbol of death and foreshadowing of this, because the imagery of fire is also from hell, right. So with Kitty and Lovin, lovin gazes at the sky during work, in his hunting scenes, you know when, before he meets Kitty, at the time she travels. So celestial imagery for them and just the visions of hell. For this, because it's interesting that in Anna's dream, that despicable old man, he speaks French and she, yes, and she, but she understands he also speaks French.
Speaker 2:In Vronsky's dream, vronsky cannot understand him, but Anna can, because she says he's working the iron and he says one has to shape this iron and work it. So it's interesting that again she is able to understand. But it's a sheer nonsense because dreams, as you recall, the novel opens with a dream how he saw some crystal glasses and they were singing an Italian aria. But these were not really glasses, these were women. And then he wakes up and he says, oh, why am I here. And then he remembers.
Speaker 2:But from that dream we know that we already know what Oblomsky is like he enjoys life. So all these attributes of hedonistic lifestyle wine, you know beautiful women, all of that very light, you know Italian opera, it's all condensed in that light, hedonistic dream. So, with Anna, the gist of it is of course this evil image that is very disturbing, and fire and iron. As I said, iron becomes a symbol that goes through the novel, from the railroad to the streams, then ultimately to bullets because of the failed suicide by Vronsky, and then he ultimately goes to war where he will probably be killed.
Speaker 1:Right, right, well, now that you mentioned characters speak a lot of French in the novel. I'm just curious that in Anna Karenina, characters when they switch into French at moments that are so delicate and emotionally private, I was struck by Karenin's writing Anna a long letter in French to address his decision of their relationship. As you say, he's trying to contain this, he's trying to control this, he doesn't want a divorce. What does it mean that such intimate issues were framed in a foreign language? Was French the lingua franca in the 19th century Russia?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. But for Tolstoy it was actually yes, french was a lingua franca and everybody spoke French. Nobility spoke French. It was part of the cultural upbringing. And maybe you probably know, after the French Revolution a lot of French immigrated or they fled Russia and so all of the Russian society was raised by the French governors, so to speak. French, very good French was absolutely necessary, and Tolstoy in fact writes about it in his memoirs, in his semi-biography the childhood, youth and in adolescence, youth. In this trilogy he speaks about how he wanted. He was always trying to speak French with impeccable accent. And Pushkin, the greatest Russian author, he even wrote verses in French and his nickname in his high school was the Frenchman because he was so proficient in French. If anything.
Speaker 2:When the war with Napoleon started in 1812, russian nobility and Tolstoy writes about it in War and Peace, russian nobility had to take some of them had to take lessons in Russian because their Russian wasn't good enough and since Moscow was about to be conquered by Napoleon, it became a question of personal safety. They had to speak Russian because otherwise, you know, they would be risking their own life, right? So, yeah, so absolutely. But for Tolstoy it's very well done in War and Peace, and it's done in Anna Karenina too. Peace, and it's done in Anna Karenina too, but in War and Peace it's more visible, because if you pick up War and Peace, you will have these pages and pages of French where now there'll be a footnote in English. Here in Anna Karenina it's done a little differently, because it says, okay, he wrote in French, but then you have actual Russian text, so, or in English translation, it'll be all in English.
Speaker 1:In War and Peace, the we hope you liked this episode so far. In the second half of this episode, professor Titus explores how French serves as a covert and inauthentic language for the aristocratic characters. She will also discuss the tension and conflict between culture and individual freedom, the true cause of Anna's death and the novel's reflections on redemption and the meaning of life. If you want to dive deeper into these key interpretations in Anna Karenina, subscribe at theglobalnovelorg slash subscribe. Thank you so much for listening.