How War and Peace drew on Confessions
A documented line of influence: Leo Tolstoy demonstrably engaged Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Confessions
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · 1782
EnlightenmentThe influenced
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy · 1869
The Age of the NovelRelevance
7/10
On War and Peace’s page
- The natural-man creed behind War and Peace is Rousseau's — Tolstoy worshipped the Confessions, read all twenty volumes, and wore a Rousseau medallion in place of a cross
- Pierre's search for an honest, instinctive way to live and Karataev's untutored serenity both descend from the Confessions' faith in the uncorrupted self
- Reading Rousseau first reveals the worldview Tolstoy absorbed whole and then dramatized across a thousand pages
On Confessions’s page
- Tolstoy didn't just read Rousseau — he wore a Rousseau medallion where a cross should hang and called himself "a Rousseauist"
- He said he read "the whole of Rousseau, all twenty volumes" and "worshipped him" — the Confessions' cult of the natural, uncorrupted man runs straight into War and Peace
- Pierre's groping toward authenticity and the peasant Karataev's untaught wisdom are Rousseau's natural man given flesh