The author explores the counterpointing structure of this novel and how it illuminates the themes of opposing forces, such as nature and society and chastity and passion.

Part I: Situating the text -- Historical context -- The importance of the work -- Critical reception -- History, ideology, fiction: Tolstoy from 1860 to 1880 -- Part II: A reading -- Exits and entrances: the laws of the novel -- Hounds and mares: the crime of eros -- Something bitter arises: Levin's peasants and Anna's passion -- Forebodings and transformations: the divergence of the twain -- Wives and mistresses: love against death -- Something bitter arises: the inadequacy of earthly life -- The bitterness of ecstasy -- Tolstoy's "animal metaphysicum" --Part III: Perspectives on the novel -- D.H. Lawrence -- Thomas Mann -- Georg Lukács -- Edward Wasiolek -- Final observation.