Home : Book details : Book description

Description of  Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy: Adepts in Self-Portraiture: Volume 3, Master Builders of the Spirit

Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy: Adepts in Self-Portraiture, the final volume of Stefan Zweig's masterful Master Builders of the Spirit trilogy, discloses the smaller version of a writer's own ego. Unconscious though it is, no reality is as important to the writer as the reality of their own life. Giacomo Casanova, Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), and Leo Tolstoy have different approaches to self-portraiture, but Zweig shows that together they symbolize three levels which represent successively ascending gradations of the same creative function. Casanova is depicted as having a primitive gradation he simply records deeds and happenings, without any attempt to appraise them or to study the deeper working of the self. Stendhal's self-portraiture is depicted as psychological he observes himself and investigates his own feelings. Tolstoy has the highest level he describes his own life, records what led him to his own actions, and focuses on self-reflection in a completely unexaggerated manner. Read more