Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Introduction
My Aims
The Problem of Mediation in Interpretation
Conceptual Mediation in Cultural and Literary Study
Part One. The Plurality and Limits of Interpretation
1. An Ethical Argument for Recognizing Textual Alterity
2. A Psychological Argument for Recognizing Textual Alterity
3. Alterity and Semiotics
4. Jakobson’s “Metalingual Function” and Alterity
5. Hermeneutic Indices, or Guides to Textual Alterity
5.1. Examples of Hermeneutic Indices
5.2. Hermeneutic Indices, Predication, Simile, Metaphor
5.3. Hermeneutic Indices as Guides to the Plurality and Limits of Interpretation
5.4. Caveats about Hermeneutic Indices
5.5. Are Hermeneutic Indices Inherent in Literary Works?
Part Two. Anna Karenina: A Map of Readings
6. From Theory to Practice
7. Early Signals
8. Reading Readings, and Art about Art
8.1. Varieties of Texts
8.2. Reading and Anna’s Death
8.3. Mikhailov’s Paintings
8.4. Mikhailov and Artistic Creation
8.5. Music and the Nature of Artistic Form
8.6. Form in Art and in Life
9. Art and Metaphysics
9.1. The Plotinian Implications of Mikhailov’s “Creation”
9.2. The Spiritual in Art and in Life
10. The Formal Implications of the Novel’s Conception of Art
10.1. The Two Poles of Language and the Embodiment of Aesthetic Ambivalence
10.2. Examples of Structures of Meaning
10.3. Tolstoy on the Structure of Anna Karenina
11. The Problem of Language
12. Absolutism: Claims about Universal Truth and Morality
12.1. The General Problem of Fictional Authority
12.2. The Narrator
12.3. The Narrator, Karenin’s Self–Deception, and the Nature of True Faith
12.4. Karenin and Echoes of Saint Paul
12.5. Karenin and the “Crude Force”
12.6. The Incompatibility of Saint Paul’s Teachings with Human Nature
12.7. Saint Paul on Marriage, Sex, and God’s Work
13. Relativity: Characters as Arbiters of Meaning and Value
13.1. Introduction
13.2. Multiple Viewpoints in Narrative
13.3. Characters and Relative Time
13.4. Levin
13.4.1. Levin and Kitty
13.4.2. Levin and His Brothers
13.4.3. Levin and Others
13.4.4. Levin’s Faith
13.5. Anna
13.5.1. Anna in Moscow
13.5.2. Anna’s Return to St. Petersburg
13.5.3. Anna and Vronsky
13.5.4. Anna’s Death
13.5.5. Anna and Others
13.5.6. Anna’s Arranged Marriage to Karenin
13.5.7. Anna’s Moral Sense
13.5.8. Anna’s “Doubling”
13.6. Stiva
13.6.1. To Judge or Not to Judge Stiva?
13.6.2. The Example of Turgenev’s Hunter’s Sketches
13.7. Dolly
13.8. Vronsky
13.9. Kitty
13.10. Karenin
13.11. Minor Characters
14. Self and Others
14.1. Understanding and Uniting with Others
14.2. The Individual and the Collective
14.3. Collective Coercion and the Reification of Evil
15. The Inner Voice and Conscience
15.1. Stiva
15.2. Levin
15.3. Anna
15.4. Kitty
15.5. Vronsky
15.6. Conscience, Ethics, and Relativization
16. Essentialism
16.1. Nature and Humankind
16.2. Women
16.2.1. The “Woman Question”
16.2.2. Women’s Wisdom, Narrative Structure, and Male Insight
16.3. Men
16.4. Peasants
16.5. Essentialism and the Problem of Freedom
16.5.1. Levin
16.5.2. Other Characters
17. Fate
17.1. Anna
17.2. Levin
17.3. Fatidic Connections between Anna’s and Levin’s Plots
18. Literary Form, Fate, Freedom, Chance
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index