| | 1 | Author: | Friedland, Louis S. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Anton Chekhov  | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | We are about to come into possession of Chekhov. It will be a
priceless possession, for Chekhov is indispensable to our understanding
of the psychology of the great people that has introduced into the present
world situation an element so complex, so disturbing, so tragic and
beautiful. Chekhov is the faithful reporter, unerring, intuitive, direct. He
never bears false witness. The essence of his art lies in a fine restraint,
an avoidance of the sensational and the spectacular. His reticence reveals
the elusive and lights up the enigmatic. And what a keen, voracious
observer he was! Endless is the procession of types that passes through
his pages — the whole world of Russians of his day: country gentlemen,
chinovniks, waitresses, ladies of fashion, shopgirls, town physicians,
Zemstvo doctors, innkeepers, peasants, herdsmen, soldiers, tradesmen,
every type of the intelligentsia, children, men and women of every class
and occupation. Chekhov describes them all with a pen that knows no
bias. He eschews specialization in types. In a letter written to his friend
Plescheyev, Chekhov draws in one stroke a swift, subtle parallel between
the two authors, Shcheglov and Korolenko, and then he goes on to say,
"But, Allah, Kerim! Why do they both specialize? One refuses to part
with his prisoners, the other feeds his readers on staff officers. I
recognize specialization in art, such as genres, landscape, history; I
understand the 'emploi' of the actor, the school of the musician, but I
cannot accept such specialization as prisoners, officers, priests. This is
no longer specialization; it is bias." Chekhov ignores no phase of the life
of his day. This inclusiveness, this large and noble avidity that refuses to
be circumscribed by class or kind or importance, makes the sum of his
stories both ample and satisfying. His work illuminates the whole of
Russian life, the main thoroughfares, the bypaths, the unfrequented
recesses. Without Chekhov, how are we to embark on the discovery of
Russia? | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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