One of the axioms of communication theory of Paul Watzlawick states that there are two fundamental modes of communication: an analog and a digital one. Literature can be understood as an analog mode of communication, the intensive use of which already fulfills a metapoetic function. In Tolstoy’s War and Peace, however, the use and reflection of analog communication goes beyond this and takes on additional functions. These are analyzed to determine the underlying understanding of communication and, at the same time, to reexamine the question of the work’s genre—in particular, its classification as a historical novel.
Matthias Freise (Wed,) studied this question.