Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace
Tolstoy: What Can Beauty Teach Us?
Description
There are brief moments in our lives where we are thrust out of ourselves and granted to see life as exceptionally magnificent, but also too close to touch, and impossible to fathom. For some people, it is love, poetry, friendship or maybe a film which causes us to see our world as a beautiful and cohesive whole for a fleeting and mysterious moment. For Andrei, it is the sky over a battlefield, a few notes in a song, and the cold grip of death. What do these moments of profound insight and deep emotion show us about life?
Favorite Quote
“After dinner Natasha, at Prince Andrei’s request, went to the clavichord and began to sing. Prince Andrei stood by the window, talking with the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of a phrase, Prince Andrei fell silent and suddenly felt choked with tears, which he did not know was possible for him. He looked at the singing Natasha and something new and happy occurred in his soul. He was happy, but at the same time he felt sad. He had decidedly nothing to weep about, but he was ready to weep. About what? His former love? The little princess? His disappointments? . . . His hopes for the future? . . . Yes and no. The main thing he wanted to weep about was a sudden, vivid awareness of the terrible opposition between something infinitely great and undefinable that was in him, and something narrow and fleshly that he himself, and even she, was. This opposition tormented him and gladdened him while she sang.”
–– Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. (New York: Alfred A. Knope, 2007), 467.
Notes
- The intro music for this series is a section from a piece by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844—1908) titled The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. Rimsky-Korsakov was a contemporary of Leo Tolstoy and my favorite Russian composer of the era. I hope you enjoy the segment and the podcast.
- The artwork is titled Battle of Moscow, 7th September 1812, painted in 1822 by Louis-François Lejeune.
- Title changed from “What Can Our Intuitions Tell Us About Reality?” to “What Can Beauty Teach Us?” on 8/20/19.