The Influence of Leo Tolstoy'sWhat Is Art?On David Foster Wallace's Literary Project

Pitari, Paolo (2020): The Influence of Leo Tolstoy'sWhat Is Art?On David Foster Wallace's Literary Project. In: Critique-Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Bd. 62, Nr. 1: S. 69-83

Abstract

This article argues that Tolstoy'sWhat Is Art?had a direct influence on David Foster Wallace's conception of literature, and most specifically that Wallace appropriated Tolstoy's discourse (down to most of its most specific details) to found his literary project. The article seeks to prove this by exhibiting the striking extent of Wallace's alignment with Tolstoy's beliefs, by retracing the multiple direct references to Tolstoy in Wallace's work, and by uncovering Wallace's annotations on his own copy ofWhat Is Art?as further confirmation of what a careful comparative analysis of the works of the two authors makes manifest.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Department 3
• Themengebiete: 400 Sprache > 400 Sprache
• ISSN: 0011-1619
• Sprache: Englisch