The Modernity of Anna Karenina

Rosamund Bartlett has been widely recognized as a very bight and talented translator, writer, and scholar. Although she has published her own writings as well, her most famous works have been translations. Specifically, Anna Karenina. This book, originally published in the 1870's by Tolstoy, was translated so well that one of our own Stetson professors considers it to be arguably the single best translation of Anna Karenina to ever be written. Rosamund Bartlett came to Stetson to give a lecture about just how ahead of it's time this book was. Tolstoy's ideas and thought patterns matched those of writers decades past his time. Dr. Bartlett mentions that Tolstoy is in some ways telling us how or how not to live. She also states that this is one thing that makes it so good. Some of her exact words on the subject are: "The best works of art, the best novels, make us think."