DOI: 10.2298/theo2602039g ISSN: 0351-2274

The experience of a literary Work od Art - Chapter XXV, Part I, Book I War and Peace by L.N. Tolstoy in the light of Roman Inarden’s aesthetic axiology

Nebojsa Grubor

Based on the application of literary aesthetic and axiological ideas of Roman Ingarden to the interpretation of Chapter XXV of Part I of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s War and Peace, it shows what the experience of a literary artistic work consists of in relation to the perception of aesthetic, metaphysical, and artistic values. The main thesis states: the aesthetic experience as the concretization of the artistic work enables the experience of three types of values. First, in the aesthetic experience of the constituted aesthetic object, aesthetic value is perceived. Second, in the experience of aesthetic value, the metaphysical value of what is artistically represented and aesthetically experienced is recognized. Third - based on the recognized metaphysical value and the experienced aesthetic value - the artistic value of the literary artistic work is judged. An additional thesis - formulated based on the interpretation of a chapter from Tolstoy’s novel - states: the concretization of the artistic work through aesthetic experience allows for the recognition of different metaphysical values that can be mutually opposed. The aesthetic experience can direct us toward one or the other opposing metaphysical value, with one of possible aesthetic experiences being effective, while the other is both effective and in accordance with the artistic work and its artistic value.

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