Anton Pavlovich Chekhov: Poetics - Hermeneutics - Thematics by J. Douglas Clayton (review)

108 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 200g Clayton, J. Douglas (ed.). Anton Pavlovich Chekhov:Poetics Hermeneutics Thematics . The Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, 2006. [v] + vii + 319 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $25.00 (paperback). The eighteen essays in this volume derive largely from papers read at an international conference held at theUniversity ofOttawa inDecember 2004. Participants from Canada, Russia, the United States, Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, Israel and Poland discussed a wide variety of issues, and the volume's editor, J. Douglas Clayton, has arranged their reflections into two parts, the firstdevoted to Chekhov's prose (eleven essays), the second ? to his plays (seven articles). In such a modey miscellany, the one unifying theme is 'the art ofAnton Chekhov'. As is customary in most collections, several items appear prolix, predictable or inessential. However, a number of useful articles examine Chekhov's prose. Thus, Valerii Tiupa meditates upon the 'communicative strategy of Chekhov's poetics', challenging at times the views of Andrei Stepanov and Aleksandr Chudakov. Whenever he manages to liberate himself from the fettersof ponderous theoretical terminology,Tiupa writes maturely and sensitively, observing, for instance, thatChekhov 'leaves the conclusive act ofmeaningful completion (the answer to the "correctiy asked question") to the reader, calling upon his communicative, aesthetic and moral responsi bility. [...] Indeed, it isnot simply the reader who is reading Chekhov's story, but the story itself that is "reading" its reader: the textworks as a test' (P- I7)? Concerning Chekhov's prose there are also solid contributions by J. Douglas Clayton (a debatable piece on self-expression, communication and the 'emptiness' of speech), Irina Gladilina (reflections on a possible diction ary of Chekhov's language), Vladimir Markovich ('archaic' constructions in 'Palata No. 6'), Anatolii Sobennikov (a somewhat disjointed, compressed essay on 'Palata No. 6', which could be developed into a much longer study), Cathy Popkin (a thoughtfulbut wordy article on 'Pripadok'), IuriiDomanskii (an inventive but excessively long exploration of 'Ionych the decadent', with special reference to Baudelaire and Bal'mont), and Julie W. de Sherbinin (a well-informed, sensitive, although not wholly persuasive consideration of 'the poetics ofmiddle ground' and 'Dama s sobachkoi'). The most outstanding essay in the entire volume is provided by Robert Louis Jackson, who offers a precise, ingenious, incisively subtle analysis of Chekhov's story 'Meliuzga', revealing the significance of itsEaster time-frame, the role of church bells and the tarakan, and the theme of resurrection and fall. Professor Jackson concludes that, in this tragi-comic tale,Chekhov 'has given evidence of his awareness of the astronomical distance that separates man from the ideal' (p. 73). Of the items devoted to Chekhov's plays themost substantial and stimu lating is Wasilij Szczukin's article 'On Calculability and Incalculability inThe Three Sisters'.This original and basically convincing studyof the role of numer als in Tri sestry seeks to demonstrate the constant alternation and juxtaposition of two contrasting realms ? the 'calculable', everyday world of numbers, reviews 109 time, objects, prose, and the 'exalted' world of 'incalculable essences' (p. 236), dreams, yearnings, aspirations, lyricism. 'It is as hard to livewithout arith metic and clocks as it iswithout faith, hope and love' (p. 242). Szczukin is mistaken, however, in claiming thatAct IV of Tri sestryis set 'in the spring', that 'the entire action lasts, as itwere, four years and two hours', and that in Act III Irina 'is twenty-four' (p. 234). Chekhov's textunambiguously states that Act IV is set in the autumn, and that Irina is aged twenty-three inAct III ? factswhich Szczukin seems to recognize elsewhere (pp. 239, 242). In another substantial piece Elena Siemens writes informatively (if discursively) about three highly diverse adaptations of Chaika at the School of Contemporary Play Theatre on Moscow's Trubnaia Square, and there are also essays by, among others, Vladimir Kataev (on Chekhov's rejection of happy endings and his existential irony),Yana Meerzon (a thoughtful piece on 'defamiliarization', weighed down by literary theory), and Natalia Vesselova (a somewhat mechanical piece on the flora and fauna in Vishnevyi sad). Throughout the volume theoretical obfuscation periodically rears itsugly head (see, for instance, pp. 7, 54, 156-57, 172, 208, 268, 270-73). One wonders how Chekhov (a writer...

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.