How War and Peace drew on The Iliad
A documented line of influence: Leo Tolstoy demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Iliad
Homer · c. 750 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy · 1869
The Age of the NovelRelevance
9/10
On War and Peace’s page
- The model Tolstoy was reaching for — war rendered as the texture of a whole people's life
- He praised Homer for grounding manners and customs in real historical event, and War and Peace is his attempt at the same on a national scale
- Of all the books that shaped him, he named only Homer and the Bible as lifelong companions — read the Iliad and you stand where Tolstoy stood
On The Iliad’s page
- Tolstoy found the Iliad in the summer of 1857 — and never let it go
- In his 1891 list of the books that formed him, only Homer and the Bible span every stage of his life
- He admired Homer's "picture of manners and customs based on historical event" — which is precisely the thing he set out to do across the vast Russian canvas of War and Peace