Tolstoy, 'The Power of Darkness', and Sublime Anagogy

• In Event: Byss and Abyss: Orientations toward Immanence and Transcendence in Russian Thought and Literature

Abstract

This paper interprets Tolstoy’s “The Power of Darkness” through the lens of a hermeneutic device to which I refer as "sublime anagogy." My contention is that the later Tolstoy enacts through art an experience that is more metaphysically ambitious than a sublime aesthetic, yet also more terrifying than a mystical hermeneutic such as traditional medieval anagogy.

Author

• Bradley Underwood, Northwestern U