The value of literature in human life cannot be overestimated. This kind of art is one of the most ancient and important for humankind. Though this type of art has a connection with such term as fiction, it still has quite a real basis. Literature has arisen much earlier than it was given a definition and typology. The man, who existed before the literature, had already used its main elements even earlier than ten thousand years ago, which played a very important role in the life of the whole humankind. Using the words that were written on stones, people used to leave messages to each other, agreed on something, and send vital information to younger generations. Further, with the development of the human brain and mind, literature has become even more important in other forms of expression. Mankind has learned to use literature as a tool for development. To date, the literature has evolved to unprecedented heights. Its genres, shapes, styles, and sizes define human knowledge and participate in the development of human consciousness. Literature is the most important art form for humans, since it affects all aspects of human life and, at the same time, is constantly involved in the development of each individual. Therefore, a person learns about the most important moral and spiritual meanings that can completely shape his or her personality by means of the themes of war and love.
The theme of war and love in Tolstoy's novel War and Peace (1869)
Undoubtedly, love and war are the most common themes that are addressed in literature. Since ancient times, man was interested in these two things that have a very close relationship with each other. For example, one may notice that most of the works written in ancient times had a military theme. The ancient epics contain many descriptions of the various wars between the strongest states, gods, men, good and evil. At the same time, love was an integral part of the ancient literature as well. Love affects not only poetry but also the other genres of literature. To see how many important themes of war and love in literature, one should examine some of the most influential works in the world literature. The most vivid example is the novel War and Peace by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who claimed that the War and Peace was not a novel, not a poem, not a historical chronicle. A recent biographer has described the work as "‘a great historical novel’ constituting, in Homeric mode, ‘a great piece of national mythmaking’ in which Russia’s history is rearranged and rewritten but "something completely different and new" (Southgate 236). Referring to the entire experience of the world of prose, he wanted to create a literary work and created quite an unusual type. In literary criticism, there is a rooted definition of War and Peace as the epic novel. It is new genre of fiction, which received widespread expansion in the world literature after Tolstoy.
Tolstoy created hundreds of human characters, each of which was self-contained and complete. The novel depicts the monumental picture of Russian life, full of events of great historical importance. Readers will learn about the war with Napoleon, in which the Russian army participated in alliance with Austria in 1805, about the Schöngrabern and Austerlitz battles, about the war in alliance with Prussia in 1806 and the Schöngrabern peace. The novel reflects the major events of the political and social life of the country, different ideological trends such as "Freemasonry, the legislative activity of Speransky, and the birth of the country's Decembrist movement" (McPeak and Orwin 29). The novel War and Peace reflects the diversity of Russian life at the beginning of the 19th century, its historical, social, personal and psychological characteristics. The protagonists of the novel – Prince Andrew Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov – noticeably stand out among the characters of Russian literature, as they implement an outstanding moral and intellectual wealth. For the writer, the war itself was something contrary to human reason and human nature throughout the event: "Ideals of glory and grandeur continue to be manipulated, but essentially ‘consist not merely in considering nothing wrong that one does, but in priding oneself on every crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural significance’" (Southgate 245). But in certain historical conditions, the war in defense of the country becomes a harsh necessity and can contribute to the manifestation of the best human qualities. Tolstoy was the first in the world literature who revealed the importance of the moral factor in war by means of the artistic expression. The philosophical meaning of the epic is not confined to the framework of Russia. The opposite of war and peace is one of the central problems of the history of mankind. "Peace" is a valued concept for Tolstoy: it is not only the absence of war but also the absence of hostility between people and nations, agreement, community - is the norm of life, to which people should strive. The war is what kills love in any form. The novel describes a number of twists and turns of love, the feelings between the characters have a very complex nature, which lends itself to the influence of the war: "And he [Rostov] was not the only man to experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms" (Tolstoy 585).
The theme of war and love in E. Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms (1929)
Another novel that touches on the themes of war and love belongs to another great author. The novel depicts the terrible reality of war in very hard, harsh colors. However, there is no feeling of hopelessness in Hemingway's look at the war, as the terrible force of external circumstances in the art world of Hemingway's novel is opposed to free choice of a spiritually free person who can always make his decision and do as he sees it right. A protagonist of Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms, Lieutenant Henry, is not willing to humbly submit to destiny and contrasts it with his own free choice. At one time he completely voluntarily decides to go to the front, and then, being disappointed in his romantic illusions, quite independently makes a decision: if it is not his war - then it is finished for him. And Lt. Henry with his lover flees to Switzerland, miraculously avoiding execution. This is his free choice. The main sense of the concentrated joy and beauty of life on earth is presented in the novel, i.e. a love, as a kind of miracle, makes its way through the chaos of battle and the cynicism of army life. "Further, as the plot of A Farewell to Arms unfolds, Hemingway produces a dichotomy where a sense of normalcy and structure is an illusion and the reality is absurd and chaotic" (MacDonald 46).
Love seems to save the life of the protagonist, indicating the truth of the war. This novel is about love of the characters Lieutenant Henry who had just miraculously escaped from death and the nurse Catherine Barkley, an English woman who lost her fiancé in the front. Their love and constancy are the meaning of life, loss of meaning, a foothold in the restudy of the universe and the only refuge from the terrible reality around them. Here, leitmotif is the chief method of creating implication. The leitmotif of rain has especially powerful lyrical charge in the book. It appears in the first chapter - in that regard, which will pass through the entire novel - in connection with the death. The motive of the rain, the cold, hard drumming on the roof or on the bare ground, gradually penetrates into the soul of the reader and injects a sense of anxiety and expectation of disaster. Rain gives way to pure, shining snow only in the idyllic Swiss episodes to appear again in the final of the novel: Katherine dies in the rain, and Frederick Henry returns to his hotel in the rain: "But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. [] After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain" (Hemingway 355).
Since creativity is associated with energy, with an excess of mental and spiritual powers of man, it is important to note that the literature as one form of the arts, has a colorful recreational, restorative function. Since the physical and mental health is also associated with the energy of the body, one can call this function of literature a healing function. Recreational function of literature allows the reader to restore, renew, to normalize his or her spiritual potential; healing function of literature performs in the reader's life and society as a whole a kind of preventive action for the spiritual state. It performs the task of purification of the soul, if one talks about the reader, and the task of healing the society, if one talks about society. Hemingway and Tolstoy in their novels show that humankind what war is and what it leads to. They disclose the highly realistic details of battles, precisely describe the spiritual torments of their main characters who experience loss. And here, both authors demonstrate the healing power of love, which is opposed to the war. Both novels are very informative. Their reading allows to learn a lot not only about the horrors of war, but also about its other aspects. Reading novels, it lets the reader feel what the writer has experienced. This kind of educational function of literature is characterized by the transfer of personal experience. This communicative function contributes to the spiritual growth of an individual, a human self is, and his or her adaptation in society. In both novels, the writers raise the theme of war and love, compare them, and show how love affects the war, and vice versa. The theme of war and love is one of the most important for humanity, because these two topics are the two opposite points, which create the greatest contradiction in contact.
Conclusions
In conclusion, literature is a reflection of the era that reveals both the personal and also universal, global social problems. Literature is among the first to respond to the challenges of the time, it voices, interprets everything that happens in a person's heart, everything that happens in a country and in the world. The writers' experience is priceless: the contemporary reader can use literature and feel any era; people can objectively see the modern world. However, literature is a work with the word, understanding the essence of the word can affect the life of a man and a society. Literature plays a leading role in shaping the aesthetic views of each person. Classical works that have stood the test of time can develop in people a sense of beauty, and they will help in understanding life and its complexities. Each word can be compared to an individual brushstroke in the painting of an artist, and each of these brushstrokes is a part of a smear holistic composition, which forms in the mind an idea of one thing or another, the phenomenon. Literature has a direct bearing on the lives of everyone. It is a carrier of many years of human experience and even keeps a major part of the cultural heritage of nearly every nation. The analysis and comparison of the novels of Tolstoy and Hemingway once again ensures the importance of the war and love, as well as the importance of their symbiosis, dichotomy. These two topics can be called the most important in the world literature, as they affect the beauty and the horror of a human being's inner world.
Works Cited
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 24 July 2016.
MacDonald, IV, Michael John. "Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms." Explicator 67.1 (2008): 45-48. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 July 2016.
McPeak, Rick, and Donna Tussing Orwin. Tolstoy On War : Narrative Art and Historical Truth in "War and Peace". Ithaca, US: Cornell University Press, 2012. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 24 July 2016.
Southgate, Beverley. "Tolstoy And Ethical History: Another Look At War And Peace." Rethinking History 13.2 (2009): 235-250. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 July 2016.
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 24 July 2016.
