"The Hedgehog and the Fox"

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at Isaiah Berlin's "The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History", which analyzes how history is oversimplified in the literary work of Tolstoy. The paper explains how the fox represents a multi-tiered point of literary perspective that is objective in nature, while the hedgehog defines the over-simplified and subjective nature of history for history in literature. The paper shows how Berlin denounces Russian author Leo Tolstoy's oversimplified view of history as pertinent to his theory on historiographical views of the 20th century.

From the Paper:

"The symbol of the hedgehog in Berlin's essay is an example of history is defined through a series of oversimplified perspectives that analyze different conditions of a particular civilization. For instance, Berlin asserts that Russian authors like Dostoevsky are 'hedgehogs' that distort and maim the idea of history through generalizations about specific quarters of society that cannot account for their holistic views:"
"Dostoevsky, who is nothing if not a hedgehog; and thereby transforms, indeed distorts, Pushkin into a dedicated prophet, a bearer of a single, universal message, which was indeed the centre of Dostoevsky's own universe, but exceedingly remote from the many varied provinces of Pushkin's genius (Berlin 4).""

Sample of Sources Used:

• Berlin, Irving. The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History. London: Ivan R. Dee, 1993.

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