Anton Chekhov (Bloom's Modern Critical Views)

239 Pages·1998·1.32 MB·English

by  Various

ModernCriticalViews
ANTON CHEKHOV
Editedandwithanintroductionby
HaroldBloom
SterlingProfessoroftheHumanitiesYaleUniversity
©1999
ISBN:0791047830
Contents
Editor'sNote vii
Introduction 1HaroldBloom
TheCherryOrchard 9VirginiaWoolf
FragmentsofRecollections 13MaximGorky
CraftsmanshipinUncleVanya 25EricBentley
AntonChekhov 45RaymondWilliams
AntonChekhov:(CreationfromtheVoid) 57LevShestov
TheCherryOrchard:ATheater-PoemoftheSufferingofChange 87FrancisFergusson
Chekhov'sLegacy:IcebergsandEpiphanies 101RufusW.MathewsonJr.
ThreeSisters 121HowardMoss
ChekhovandtheModernDrama 139MartinEsslin
ChekhovandtheModernShortStory 151CharlesE.May
TheDramainCrisis:Chekhov 169
PeterSzondi
Chekhov,TheSeaGull 175
DavidCole
"AtSea":APsychoanalyticApproachtoChekhov'sFirstSignedWork 185MichaelC.
Finke
"TheEnemies":AStoryatWarwithItself? 197RobertLouisJackson
FearandPityin"WardSix":ChekhovianCatharsis 209LizaKnapp
UncleVanyaasProsaicMetadrama 219GarySaulMorson
Chronology 233
Contributors 235
Bibliography 239
Acknowledgments 243
Index 245
Editor'sNote
This volume brings together a representative selection of the best critical essays available
inEnglishontheplaysandshortstoriesofAntonChekhov.
My Introduction is an overview of Chekhov's four major plays, taking note of their
relationship to Hamlet. Novelist Virginia Woolf commences the sequence of commentary
withasensitivereviewofa1920LondonperformanceofTheCherryOrchard.
The wonderful reminiscences of Chekhov by Maxim Gorky follow, giving us the best sense
ofChekhovasapersonevermadeavailable.
Eric Bentley provides his fine observations on Uncle Vanya, showing that all plot devices
function superbly both as form and content, after which Raymond Williams emphasizes
Chekhov'sinnovationsindramaticform.
The mystical Lev Shestov illuminates Chekhov's inwardness, his secular spirituality, while
Francis Fergusson, considering The Cherry Orchard, shows that Chekhov reduces "the
dramaticarttoitsancientroot."
Rums W. Mathewson Jr. considers Chekhov's influence upon modern short fiction, while
the poet Howard Moss gives us the gift of the subtlest and most Chekhovian reading that
ThreeSisterseverhasreceived.
Martin Esslin concentrates upon Chekhov's place within modern drama, after which
CharlesMaygivesageneraloverviewofChekhov'srelationtothemodernshortstory.
Peter Szondi brieflymeditatesuponrenunciation in Chekhov'sdramas, and in David Cole's
examination of The Sea Gull, the acts of reading within the play are seen as central to
characterization.
Michael C. Finke studies "At Sea," Chekhov's first published story, finding in it the writer's
lifelongobsessionwithHamlet.
Robert Louis Jackson's analysis of Chekhov's story "The Enemies" finds in it the ancient
Greek understanding that character isfate, while Liza Knapp'saccount of the famousstory
"WardSix"emphasizeshowdirectlyChekhovworksuponhisreaders'sensibilities.
This volume closes with Gary Saul Morson's exegesis of Uncle Vanya, where the high
theatricalityoftheplayisstressed.
Introduction
Chekhov's best critics tend to agree that he is essentially a dramatist, even as a writer of
short stories. Since the action of his plays is both immensely subtle and absolutely
ineluctable, the stories also are dramatic in Chekhov's utterly original way. D.S. Mirsky, in
hishelpfulHistoryofRussianLiterature,ratherseverelyremarksupon"thecompletelackof
individualityinhischaractersandintheirway ofspeaking."Thatseemsunjust, butacritic,
like myself, who reads no Russian perhaps cannot dispute Mirsky, who also indicts
Chekhov'sRussian:
It is colorless and lacks individuality. He had no feeling for words. No Russian writer of
anything like his significance used a language so devoid of all raciness and verve. This
makes Chekhov (except for topical allusions, technical terms and occasional catch-words)
so easy to translate; of all Russian writers, he has the least to fear from the treachery of
translators.
It is difficult to believe that this helps account for the permanent popularity of Chekhov's
playsin the English-speaking theater, or of his storieswith readersof English. Chekhov, as
Mirsky also says, is uniquely original and powerful at one mode of representation in
particular: "No writer excels him in conveying the mutual unsurpassable isolation of
human beings and the impossibility of understanding each other." Mirsky wrote this in
1926, and presumably in ignorance of Kafka, before the advent of Beckett, but they verge
upon vision or phantasmagoria; Chekhov seemsto represent a simpler and more available
reality,butbynomeansacruderone.
The best critical observation on Chekhov that I have encountered is a remark that Gorky
madeabouttheman radierthanthe storiesandplays:"It seemstome thatinthe presence
of Anton Pavlovich, everyone felt an unconsciousdesire to be simpler, more truthful, more
himself."Thatisthe
effect upon me of rereading "The Student" or "The Lady with Dog," or of attending a
performance of Three Sisters or The Cherry Orchard. That hardly means we will be made
any better by Chekhov, but on some level we will wish we could be better. That desire,
however repressed, seems to me an aesthetic rather than a moral phenomenon. Chekhov,
withhisartist'swisdom,teachesusimplicitlythatliteratureisaformofdesireandwonder
andnotaformofthegood.
II
As a modern version of Hamlet, The Seagull surpasses Pirandello's Henry IV and even
Beckett's Endgame, precisely because its Hamlet is so hopelessly weak. I do not mean by
this that TheSeagullis of the dramatic eminence of Endgame,or even of HenryIV;it is not,
and seems to me the weakest and most contrived of Chekhov's four major plays. Its use of
Hamlet, however, is shrewd and effective, and despite The Seagull's limitations, few
comediesstagebetterorremainasauthenticallyfunny.
Trigorin, in one of Chekhov's frightening ironies, appears to be a self-parody on Chekhov's
own part. One hardly knows who is funnier, more outrageously deceptive, and ultimately
self-deceived, the novelist or the actress. Trigorin begins by savoring Nina's naive but
sincere offer to be ruined by him, which he, Arkadina, and we know he is going to take up
anyway. That makeswholly anddeliriously rancid Trigorin'sdeliberations: "Whydo Ihear
so much sorrow in this cry sent by someone so pure in soul? Why does it wring so much
pain in my own heart?" But even better is his address to Arkadina, beginning: "If you
wanted to, you could be extraordinary." And yet better is the ferocious hilarity of the
exchange after the actress has fallen upon her knees, with Arkadina assuring Trigorin that
he is "Russia's one and only hope," and the submissive writer collapsing into: "Take me,
carry me off, but just don't let me go one single step away from you." These beauties
deserve, and will go on deserving, one another, and Chekhov has achieved the highest
comedy with them, radier clearly modeling mese extravagant charmers upon his own
relationtovariousactresses.
Whereveritispurecomedy,TheSeagullseemstomemagnificent.Unfortunately,ithastwo
aesthetic disasters, the unfortunate Konstantin, bad writer and mama's boy, who
inconsiderately delays shooting himself until the very end of the play, and the aspiring
actressNina,Trigorin'seagervictim,whoseendlessvowsofhigh-mindednessalwaysmake
me wish a director would interject a rousing chorus or two of Noel Coward's "Don't put
yourdaughteronthestage,Mrs.Worthington—don'tputyourdaughteronthe
stage!" One sees what Chekhov meant to do with Nina, and Ibsen might have gotten away
withit,butChekhovwastoogoodacomediannottosubverthisownpresentationofNina's
idealism. That does not quite save Chekhov, and us, from having to hear Nina proclaim,
"Know how to bear your cross and have faith." Subtlest of writers, Chekhov did not make
thatmistakeagaininadrama.
III
Eric Bendey, in hissuperb essay on UncleVanya,observesthat "what makesChekhov seem
most formlessisprecisely the means by which he achieves strict form—namely, the series
of tea-drinkings, arrivals, departures, meals, dances, family gatherings, casual
conversations of which his plays are made." This only apparent formlessness, as Bendey
goes on to show, allows Chekhov to naturalize such unrealistic conventions as the tirade
and "self explaining soliloquies" spoken with others present but with no reference to
others."Naturalizingtheunrealistic"isindeedasummaryofChekhov'sdramaticartexcept
that Chekhov's deep wisdom is always to remind us how strange "the realistic" actually is.
One might venture, quite naively, mat Chekhov's most indisputable power is the
impression we almost invariably receive, reading his stories or attending his plays, mat
here at last is the truth of our existence. It isas though Chekhov'squest had been to refute
Nietzsche'sdeclarationthatwepossessartlestweperishfromthetruth.
UncleVanya,asit happens, is my earliest theatrical memory except for the Yiddish theater,
since I saw the Old Vic production when I was a teenager. Alas, I have forgotten Laurence
Olivier as Astrov, and even those three extraordinary actresses—Joyce Redman, Sybil
Thorndike, Margaret Leighton—but that is because I was so permanently mesmerized by
Ralph Richardson as Vanya, a performance eclipsed in my memory only by seeing
Richardson, years later, as Falstaff. I have seen UncleVanyaseveral times since, but in less
splendid productions, and like TheSeagull,it seems to survive any director. The audience
discovers what Vanya and Sonya and even Astrov discover: our ordinary existence has a
genuine horror in it, however we mask the recognition lest we become mad or violent.
Sonya's dark, closing tirade can neither be forgotten nor accepted, and makes us reflect
that TheSeagulland TheCherryOrchardare subtitled as comedies in four acts, and Three
Sisters as a drama in four acts, but Uncle Vanya, a play where all life must be lived
vicariously,hastheironicsubtitle"ScenesfromCountryLifeinFourActs."
Serebryakov is an effective if simplistic representation of all those qualities of obtuseness,
vainglory,andignorancethatarethecurseoftheacademicprofessionatalltimesandinall
places. We are confronted again by the singularpowerof Chekhov'sarmoryof ironies; it is
the low intellectual and spiritual quality of Professor Serebryakov that helps reveal to
Vanya and Sonya, Astrov and Yelena, their own lucid consciousnesses and ranges of
significant emotion, a revelation that only serves to make a bad enough life still worse for
all of them. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you despair would be the
gospel of Anton Chekhov, except that this gloomy genius insists upon being cheerful. As
Bentleysays,yourfateisunsettledbecausethatishowChekhovseesthetruth.
The highest tribute that can be made to Uncle Vanya is that the play partakes of the
madness of great art; to describe it is to believe that attending it or reading it would be
depressing, but the aesthetic dignity of thisdrama producesa very different effect, somber
but strong, a dirge for the unlived life. If Uncle Vanya is not quite of the order of Three
SistersandTheCherryOrchard,stillitsurpassesTheSeagullandisimperishable.
IV
ThreeSistersseemsto me, as to manyotherreaders, Chekhov'smasterpiece, outdoingeven
the grand epilogue to his work in TheCherryOrchardand such magnificent stories as "The
Darling," "The Lady with Dog," and "The Bishop." But Three Sisters is darker even than
Uncle Vanya, though more vital-istic in that darkness. Howard Moss, in a preternaturally
Chekhovian essay on the play, began by notingthat "the inabilityto act becomesthe action
of the play." That suggests to me a particular tradition in tragedy, one that includes the
PrometheusBoundofAeschylusandtheBookofJob,andJob'sinheritorsinMilton'sSamson
Agonistesand Shelley's TheCenci.Since ThreeSistersis not a tragedy, but deliberately only
"a drama," of no genre, we are left perplexed by the play's final effect upon us, which does
appeartobeaChekhovianambiguity.
Moss's comparison to Hamletapplies throughout ThreeSistersfar more adequately thanin
TheSeagull,though there the use of Hamletis overt. Chekhov's three sisters—Olga, Masha,
and Irina—together with their brother Andrey, make up a kind of fourfold parody of the
prince of Denmark, rather in the way that the Karamazov brothers Ivan, Mitya, Alyosha,
and the bastard Smerdyakov—make up a sortof necessarily indeliberate parody ofBlake's
primordialman,Albion,bywayoftheFourZoaswhoconstitutehim.