Of all Russian writers, Chekhov is one of the best liked and most easily appreciated. Yet he is also one of the most elusive. Here Donald Rayfield reveals the layers of meaning on which the great dramatist's stories and plays are built. He examines his brief twenty-year creative life, from medical student supplementing his income by writing comic stories to his rapid rise as the father of twentieth-century drama and narrative prose. Understanding Chekhov is enriched by revelations from previously unexplored archival material, which deepen our understanding of Chekhov's sources, preoccupations, philosophy, and his relations with theater, with fellow writers, and with contemporary ideas.
Eminent Chekhov scholar Donald Rayfield offers this introduction to the great Russian writer with the aim of making Chekhov's stories and plays more enjoyable for the reader or audience. Rayfield reveals the many levels of meaning and intention in Chekhov's writings, and the varied interpretations that author, reader, theater director, or critic can make. Rayfield explains the idiosyncratic world of Russian theater and Russian literary life from the 1880s to 1904 and illuminates Chekhov's connections to European prose and drama before and after him.
