CONFESSION AND OTHER RELIGIOUS WRITINGS

In "Confession" Tolstoy poses the question: Is there any meaning in my life that
will not be destroyed by my death?

In 1879 the fifty-year-old author of "War a
nd Peace" and "Anna Karenina" came to believe that he had accomplished nothing i
n life. Either of these magnificant novels would have assured Tolstoy's permanen
t place in the annals of world literature, yet his achievement was not enough to
give his life meaning.

"Confession" is an account of this spiritual crisis, ma
rking a shift of Tolstoy's central focus from the aesthetic to the religious and
philisophical.