322 SEER, 83, 2, 2005 illuminate Fet's poetry through a series of often strikinglyperceptive close readingsof individualpoems. Klenin's third and longest chapter is devoted to verse form and language. Here she meticulouslysurveysthe metresof both Fet'soriginalpoetry and his translationsagainstthe context of contemporaryRussianand to a lesserextent German verse. And although sometimes the level of detail given is not always commensuratewith the degree to which it ispossibleto correlatemetricaland thematic meaning, this is more than made up for by, for example, the incisivenessof Klenin's analysisof Fet'stranslationof Goethe's 'Aufdem See'. This isset alongsideversionsof the samepoem by SergeiAksakovandApollon Grigor'ev to show how Fet manages to convey the effect of the metrical peculiarities of the original using slightly different,but parallel techniques in ways not thought of by the other translators. The sections on rhyme and stanza structureare particularlylucidly focused on the relationshipbetween form and content. Here again Klenin's close readings are full of insights, as, to give one example in the context of poetic closure, when she readsthe verse epistle to A. L. Brzheskaia,'Dalekii drug, poimi moi rydan'ia',in the context of contemporary letter-writing manuals (p. 314). One theme that runs through all the chapters of the book relates to the periodization of Fet'spoetry. Klenin persuasivelyarguesthat in his earlyverse he persistently introduced features that, while common in the German tradition,were adventurousand even radicalin the context of contemporary poetry in Russian. During the I85os, Fet allowed himself to be persuaded by his Russianeditors,especiallyTurgenev, to alignhispoetrymuch more closely with Russian expectations, but continued to use a much higher level of experimentation in his translations.When he returnedto poetry in the I88os after two decades of silence in the wake of adverse positivist criticism, he revertedto a large extent to the poetic practice of his youth. Notwithstanding all that has been writtenabout Fet's'dualism',Klenin arguesfor an essentially unifiedpoetic vision covering his whole career. In doing so she highlightsthe great complexity and subtlety of Fet's writing, and demonstrates to a new generation of scholarsthe cardinalimportanceof thisextraordinarypoet. Curtin University ofTechnology, Perth DAVID N. WELLS Love, Jeff. The Overcoming of Histogyin 'Warand Peace'.Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics, 42. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York, 2004. Vii + 21 1 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?45.oo: $56.oo (paperback). THis study of what may be called Tolstoi's theory of historyin WarandPeace, examined by many scholars previously, though never so deeply or in such detail as here, has a provocative, argumentative manner that stimulates reconsiderationbut provides few, if any, answers.It bewildersin many ways. This reviewer cannot pretend to have understood exactly how history has been overcome in WarandPeaceafter having tried to penetrate the meaning of an argument largely obscured by a manner of exposition as densely and wilfullyvague asone mightfindin a novel by HenryJames. Take,forinstance, REVIEWS 323 the following passage, relevant to the hunt scene, which the author describes as: a recognition of the vitality of the subject, that subjectivitycannot be eliminated, cannot be subsumed into the whole without dire consequences either a mechanical objectivity, an overwhelming sameness, or a plunge into the silence of pure feeling. And this is merely anotherway of characterizingthe centralconflictin WarandPeaceas one between subjectiveautonomy, the privilege of the moment, of undivided experience, and objective determinacy, the basic factors that limit and thus tie together individualsin a world. If we look at the most significantstructural traits of the novel I have discussed, they indeed all reveal a variant of this central conflict between subject and object understood as an underlying conflict between immediate undivided experience which is somehow 'mine' and constructed,hence, mediate, experience that belongs to all and none. (p. I 20) If this is 'anotherway of characterizingthe central conflict', then it hardly encompasses the theoretical conflict between subject and object as Tolstoi so variously and complexly poses the issue, let alone the historical conflict as most readerswould understandit frompondering both the 'essay'sections (as Love calls them) or the argument in the second Epilogue. The novelty of Love'sapproachseemsbest appreciatedby recognizingthathe hastrodwhere angels fear to tread in dealing with Tolstoi's theorizing. He has treated it as seriousand valuable in its own right, something that not all commentatorson...