Tolstoiâs Breasts or the Mammary Offensive
äºTolstoi and the Evolution of His Artistic WorldSearch for other papers by Helena Goscilo in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
In this chapter, Helena Goscilo offers a trenchant overview of Tolstoiâs apparent obsession with aspects of the female form, analysing works from all periods. Goscilo acknowledges Tolstoiâs moralized preoccupation with the flesh and all its frailties. Moreover, his whole life, in both personal and literary terms, was marked by a battle with (or against?) sensual pleasure. From this general context stems her analysis of the moral significance with which Tolstoiâs oeuvre imbues the female upper body â specifically, breasts â through a technique of externalization that recalls the legibility theories of the eighteenth-century Swiss physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater. Famous illustrations of this âmoral significanceâ are the dyad of Natasha and Elena Kuragina in War and Peace, as well as aspects of Anna Karenina, with its equivalent censorious juxtaposition of Kitty and Anna. A later example, unsurprisingly, is to be found in The Kreutzer Sonata, where Tolstoi continues to denounce dresses that sell womenâs bodies âon the market of heterosexual relationsâ. Goscilo then proceeds to suggest that there is ample evidence that for Tolstoi breasts carry a special, morally-loaded significance, although she also finds its roots back in the medieval period. In conclusion, Goscilo locates Tolstoiâs fetishization of the breast within his more general demonization of female sexuality, which in turn is part of an âantiquated misogynistic scriptâ.