Chudakov

The Poetics of Chekhov: The Sphere of Ideas Author(s): A. P.
Chudakov and Julian Graffy Reviewed work(s): Source: New Literary History, Vol. 9, No. 2, Soviet Semiotics and Criticism: An Anthology (Winter, 1978), pp. 353-380 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468578 . Accessed: 27/02/2013 16:17
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The Poetics of Chekhov: The Sphere of Ideas*

A. P. Chudakov
Do notexpecta final answer. Alexander Blok The wordfrozeon thelips. Innokenty Annensky
OUR PROGRESSIVE ANALYSIS of Chekhov'sartistic fromthe system bottomup (fromthe world of objectsto the theme),the sphere of ideas is the last and culminatinglevel to be examined. By what principles is it constructed?By what laws is it regulated? In short, what life do ideas lead; how do they develop in Chekhov's artistic world?
IN
I There are various waysbywhichideas in literature are givenartistic An author may share an idea expressed by one of the representation. characters,and in this case its development lies in the continuing elucidation and detailing of this alliance. But there may be no such hero, in which case it is the thematicconstructionas a whole that makes clear the idea. The idea may develop on its own, or it may be his philosophicalor pubsupported by the author'sexplicitsympathy, licisticutterances. In some works the idea matures in isolation; in othersit develops in a strugglewithantagonistic ideas; and so forth. In the literarytraditionbefore Chekhov all kinds of internaldevelopmentof the idea had one common feature:the aim was alwaysto and compresent the idea to the reader as fully,straightforwardly, as It out" with the utmost was pletely possible. power of con"rigged viction.In many artisticsystems(for example, Tolstoy's), the idea is affirmed with immense authorial determination and unremitting emotional fervor.
* First Chekhova [The poeticsof Chekhov] (Moscow, published as Chapter 6 of Poetika 1971), pp. 245-76. The University of Virginia History, Copyright? 1978 by New Literary
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This method of representing an idea can be termed dogmatic but understanding (withoutgivingthe termany negativeconnotation, it in the general philosophical sense). The method is fairly whichM. even of those artistic systems widespread-it is characteristic M. Bakhtin calls polyphonic,1in particular of Dostoevsky'sworks. According to Bakhtin,in the world of a work by Dostoevsky,several ideas coexistwithoutone of thembeing predominantover the others in the eyes of the author. But within the confines of each separate idea, there are always intenseefforts to give thatidea completeness,to takeit to itsextremes, in its resolution,to to exhaust all logical and ontological possibilities place the hero in extreme situationswhere his idea would be totally thatDostoevsky's manifest. It is not fortuitous works,more oftenthan of those any other author,have been used to extractwhole, finalized programs (each hero and his idea serves as materialfor such a program). With Dostoevskythe idea develops with passionate commitWithin itself,in its own development and subjective inflexibility. it to limit. is taken its ment, dogmatic The essential differencebetween Chekhov and his predecessors is that in his artisticsystemthe idea is not dogmatic, either when it develops withina single consciousness or when it is suffusedover a whole thematicfield. With Chekhov the idea on principle does not eitherin the argumentsof the characters(as reveal all its possibilities with happens Turgenev, Goncharov, and Dostoevsky)or in theirdeliberations (as happens with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy). The idea is never followed to its conclusion. With Chekhov the line of developtimesand in differmentof an idea is alwayspunctuated.At different ent circumstancesa few propositionsare uttered,at which point the developmentof the idea is again interrupted by the daily flowof life and sometimesis completelybroken off. or The development of the idea is not accompanied by consistent DosWith unlike and Chekhov, Tolstoy thorough argumentation. one cannot extractthe viewsof the heroes fromtheirwords toevsky, in any coherent or orderlyform; one cannot, for instance,expound themin the formof a philosophicalor publicisitic tract.The historical of minimal the idea is and philosophical apparatus (a feature that When makes it possible to talk of Chekhov's universal accessibility). whose positions there is a clash of ideas in Chekhov, the protagonists are based on a particularview or philosophical doctrine do not expound it in detail,or even in those main pointsby whichthe doctrine can be recognized.2The broad contextof theviewor doctrineis never mentioned in the work. References by the heroes to philosophers, historicalfiguresare impreciseand approximate,and the auwriters,
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thordoes not correctthem: "Someone in Dostoevskyor Voltaire said that if God did not exist people would inventhim" (WardNo. 6).3 or of The absence in Chekhov's prose and plays of a Vorgeschichte conclusive endings has the result that in the sphere of ideas neither the genesis of the idea (the idea is as "readymade" as the character) nor the final point of its development is traced. In the spiritual searches of the heroes, what is importantis not the finalpoint (which often simplydoes not exist), but the actual agonizing course of the idea. Confrontation and argument are essential for the internal developmentof ideas. Whole novels have been constructedon the conof ideas (Goncharov'sAn Ordinary frontation Story, Turgenev's Fathers and Sons). In a novel of thiskind each of the opposing ideas strives for the fullestpossible expression and dogmatic inflexibility. Only this can ensure it a victory or a worthyplace. It is as if antinomyalone is not enough for Chekhov. Thesis and antithesisare both subjected to additional doubt from the inside. Trigorinand Treplev in The Seagull are opposed in theirunderstandman of ing of art. But both the beginnerTreplev and the well-known lettersTrigorin themselvescast doubt on theirown fundamentaltheses. The man of letters, already formedand withhis own established manner, says: I do notlikemyself as a writer. I am in somekindofintoxication Worsestill and often.cannot understand whatI am writing. ... I love thiswaterhere,
these trees, the sky, I am aware of nature, she rouses passion in me, the insuperabledesire to write.But you know I am not a landscape painteronly,I am also a citizen,I love mycountry, mypeople, and I feelthatif I am a writer then I am obliged to speak about the people, their sufferings, their future, about science, the rightsof man, and so on and so on, and I speak about I am always in a hurry,I am urged on fromall sides, people get everything, angrywithme, and I dart fromside to side like a fox chased by hounds, I can see lifeand science recede endlesslybefore me and I am lagging further and further I feel thatall I back, like a peasant who has misseda train,and finally can writeabout is the landscape and in everything else I am false,falseto the marrowof my bones. He continues to write in the same spirit, and in the same way continues to note down rare details in his notebook, to polish the technique of the landscape. But the thesis has been questioned. His antagonist, Treplev, repudiates Trigorin's art "in which they describe how people eat, drink, fall in love, walk about, wear their
jackets." He is a passionate protagonistof new forms:"We musthave new forms. New forms are necessary and if they don't exist then
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nothingis necessary."But he too castsdoubt on his own thesis:"Yes, I am coming more and more to the conclusion thatit is not a question of old and new forms,but of a man writingwithoutthinking about formsat all, writing because it flowsfreelyfromhis heart." In Chekhov's world it is very typicalto find the idea that is not resolved and not resolvablewithinthe framework of the work,but is merelyposed in it. "Why,he wondered, was he poor? ... He had the same nose, same hands, feet,head, back as a rich man, so whyshould he workwhen otherswere idle?" Such are the reflections of the hero of the storyThe Shoemaker and the Unclean Spirit.Not only can the question not be resolved withinthe given consciousness,but in accordance withthe structureof objective narration,it can be posed only within the categories of the thought and speech of the hero. Rothschild's Violinposes key questions of existence,both existence in and general sociallyspecificexistence.This is done in the categoriesof the centralhero, the undertakerYakov. The main ones are "loss" and "profit." can'tmansomehow liveso that there weren't these losses and wastes? Why ... In general do peopleprevent each other Whatlossesthat causes! why living? If What terrible losses! therewas no hatredand spite,people would get enormous from each other.... Fromdeaththere wouldbe only advantages no needto eat,to drink, to paytaxes, tooffend profit: people,and sinceman liesin thegravenotone year, buthundreds, of years, thousands thenifyou add it up theprofit is enormous. Fromlifemangetsloss,from deathprofit. This idea is of coursecorrect, but all the same offensive and bitter: why shouldthere be sucha strange orderofthings in theworld that which is life, givento manbutonce,passesbywithout profit? The point here is not that such people are not capable of solving problems of such a scale. Characterswhose moral and philosophical baggage should, it would appear, make it possible forthemto resolve such complex problems, for instance the central characters in A The Fit, Fear, The Name-DayParty,and Unpleasantness DrearyStory, are in a similarsituation.The crux lies in the impossi[Nepriyatnost'], in bility principle of solving such questions in the sphere of pure of giving a dogmaticallyexhaustive speculation, in the impossibility conclusion to the idea. Chekhov realized this veryclearlyon a theoreticallevel as well. In 1888 (the year of the turningpoint,of the finalestablishment of the he of view twice formulated his objective manner) relatively points clearly: "You are confusingtwo notions,"he wroteto Suvorin on 27 October 1888, "thesolution and the correct of a problem posingof the question. Only the second is essential for the artist.In Anna Karenina and Evgeny Oneginnot a singlequestion is solved,but theyfully satisfy
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posed in them. you preciselybecause all the questions are correctly The court must present the questions correctly, but let the jurors decide them,each to his own taste."This idea is expressed witheven in another letterto Suvorin, dated 30 May 1888: greater clarity
You writethat neither the talk of pessimismnor the storyof Kisochka ador solves the problem of pessimism.It seems to me thatit is vances anything The not up to writers to solve questions such as God, pessimism, and so forth. business of the writeris to depict only who talked or thoughtabout God or pessimism,how, and in what circumstances.The artistshould be not the judge of his charactersand of whattheysay,but only an impartialobserver.I heard a rambling,inclusive conversationbetween two Russians about pessimismand I must report that conversation just as I heard it,and judgment willbe passed bythejury, i.e., the readers. Myjob is onlyto be talented,i.e., to be able to distinguishimportantevidence from unimportant.to be able to throw light on charactersand to speak their language. Shcheglov-Leont'ev blames me forending a story withthe sentence: "You can't make anything out in thisworld!" Accordingto him the artist-psychologist must make thingsout, that'swhyhe's a psychologist. But I do not agree. It's time that people who writeand especiallyartists realized thatin thisworld you can't make anything out, as once Socrates realized and as Voltaireoftenadmitted.The mob thinks thatit knowseverything and understandseverything: and the more stupid it whom the mob trustsmakes up his is, the wideritshorizon seems. If the artist mind to announce that he understands nothing of what he sees, then this alone would be great knowledge in the field of thought and a great step forward.
Thus in Chekhov's artistic in the purelylogical sphere of the system, no of there is ideas, fullness, logical continuity,or development, exhaustiveness.This kind of developmentdoes not lead to a dogmatically complete result. Logical developmentis the internalsphere of the idea. The examiexternalformof the idea. The idea is givenconcreteembodiment:its lifeis bound by thousands of threadsto the object world of the work. We shall now examine those formsin whichitexists,and thatmaterial world in which its being takes place. In our case this is all the more because the world of being of the idea has forChekhov,as important we shall see, a quite special significance.
nation of it is only the firststage. The second is the examination of the
II
In literature the idea is presentedto the perceivingconsciousnessin concrete form. But this concretenessis not absolute. The narrator's
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abstract speculations enter the work to a greater or lesser degree along with other material. Their place, their "quantity,"differsin differentartisticsystems. Some systemsinclude entire completed with their initial concept and strictlogical philosophical constructs, form(compare, forexample, "the spiritof the army"in Warand Peace and the mathematicalmeans of proof). An idea expressed in abstractform is categorical,enclosed in its own logical sphere. It presupposes the existence of a truth-dogma whichexcludes, bythe law of identity, all otherideas. Thus the degree of dogmatizationof an idea in a construct, where abstractspeculation occupies an importantplace, will be greater than in one where this idea is never once formulatedin the abstract. In Chekhov's earlyprose, the voice of the narrator,whichwas to be forthe was important heard in utterances, appraisals, and reflections, abstract was even a little of an idea. There and development detailing the whole evolution of Chekhov's narrative theorizing;nevertheless, manner until the middle of the 1890s consists in the gradual but consistent"extermination"of this voice. The objective narrationof the 1890s is quite free of it. In the late nineties the voice of the narratoris an ingredientof the narrationjust like any other. Extensive meditations and philosophicaldeliberations appear. (Their size is can be considered and relative, large only with references to they in no way be compared, for can sense Chekhov in this Chekhov; with Tolstoy.) example, But these are discoursesof a particulartype.They cannot be called in the strict sense. Thoughts are expounded in abstract-philosophical of all an extremelyconcrete manner. Specific pieces of information kinds,details of the settingor of the landscape, referencesto particuenter freely into these delibof the story, lar people, the protagonists is merged in of out at all erationswithout place. Everything appearing a homogeneous narrativeflow: them exists between connection and inevitable Some unseenbut significant both,even betweenthemand Taunitz,and betweeneveryone, everyone; deserted in thislife, evenin themost is fortuitous backwater, everynothing a has a single common with a is filled spirit, everything thought, single thing not thisit's not enoughto think, singleaim, and in order to understand inside ofgetting tohavethegift it'sprobably also necessary enoughto reason, noteverybody has. The unhappy, a gift overstrained, life, which, obviously, who and theold peasant had calledhim, as thedoctor suicidal "neurasthenic," are both fromone personto another, spenteach day of his lifewalking and wonderful chanceoccurrence, and are bothpartsof a single organism, and underhisownlifeis partofthis forthemanwhothinks rational, whole,
stands why.(On Official Business)[Po delamSluzhby] of lifefor the man who considers his own existenceto be a chance fragments
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Nina Zarechnaya'sfamous monologue in the first act of The Seagull of is intended to give some impression Treplev's "decadent" play-a play in whichlife is portrayed"as it appears in dreams," where there are "living people," where the theme is taken from "the sphere of abstractideas." The monologue is constructedpreciselyas an abstract of lifeand the fusionof philosophicaldiscourse about the destruction all consciousnessesinto a single world spirit,about the coming kingdom of the world will: "All lives, having completed their sad circle, were extinguished .... The bodies of livingcreaturesdisappeared in ashes and eternalmatterturnedthemto stone,to water,to clouds.... Fearful lest life should arise in you, the fatherof eternal matter,the devil,changes the atoms in you everymoment,as in the stonesand in the water." But in this monologue the philosophical terminology and abstract meditations with are logical freelyinterspersed extremelyconcrete Reference is made not to but to "men, lions, "all lives," pictures. only and antlered deer, eagles, partridges, geese, spiders, silentfishes... in short, all lives." Astronomicaldimensions, grandiose pictures of of reuniversalemptinessand cosmic cold, the monotonous rhythm words cold. cold, ("Cold, peated Empty, empty,empty.Terrifying, terrifying, terrifying")-allthis is accompanied by the domesticintonation of the sentences visually depicting all these nonexistent phenomena: "The cranes no longer wake in the meadows witha cry, the May beetles are no longer heard in the lime groves." A similar example is to be found in The Lady withtheLittle Dog: "The sea had sounded like that down below when there was no Yalta and no Oreanda, it was sounding now and would go on sounding as indifferthistotal entlyand dully when we were no more. And thisconstancy, indifference to the life and death of each of us, perhaps containsthe the ceaseless motionof lifeon earth guaranteeof our eternalsalvation, towards perfection." Abstractspeculationswithideas are absent fromChekhov's artistic system. Chekhov clearly sensed the linearity and dogmatism of abstract ideas and their essential unacceptabilityto the artist,and expressed thisviewon a numberof occasions. It is typicalthathe does so most passionatelywhen discussingTolstoy. "There's no ending to the tale," Chekhov wroteof Resurrection, "and what is therecannot be called an ending. To write and write,and then to go and reduce to a textfromthe Gospel-that's reallytoo theological.To everything decide everything as dividwitha textfromthe Gospel is as arbitrary all into five criminals and not ten? Whya text ing categories.Whyfive not from the from the Gospel and Koran?" (letter to M. O. 1 Men'shikov, Jan. 1900). The reductionof a work to an abstractidea is unacceptable in any
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form. On reading Tolstoy's Afterword to The KreutzerSonata, Chekhov wrote:"Tolstoydenies man immortality, but myGod whata lot of personal stuffthere is here! Two days ago I read his Afterword. . . . All great sages are as despotic as generals. .... So to hell withthe philosophyof the great men of thisworld! None of it,forall its crazy afterwords and lettersto the governor'swife,4 is wortheven the mare in Kholstomer" (letterto A. S. Suvorin, 8 Sept. 1891). The is decisively categorical("despotic") natureof philosophicalconstructs it is in a even writer's nonartistic works; the rejected; unacceptable nature of maximalism is Tolstoy's moralizing dogmatic directlycontrastedwith his "princes, generals, old aunts, peasants, convicts,inspectors,the mare in Kholstomer." If when drawingup a pictureof some particulareventa man starts froma preconceivedabstractidea, he risksmakinga serious mistake. The hero of the story The Wifeknowsthereis faminein the villageof Pestrovo. He already has a particularconception of how thingsare there. But then he visitsthe village. What does he see? A boypullsa little another boyofaboutthree, girland a babyin a toboggan, in hishead wrapped like his hands enormous a mittens, woman's, up peasant tries to catchfalling on histongue and laughs.A cartloadedwith snowflakes brushwood with a peasant no way and there's oftelling it, approaches alongside he'sgonegray orwhether He whether thesnow hisbeardwhite. it'sjust turning him smiles to and and coachman, my recognizes sayssomething, mechanically off takes hiscap tome.The dogsrunoutoftheyards and lookcuriously atmy horses. isquietand normal . . . Therearenoanguished andsimple. Everything no voicesscreaming forhelp,no cries, no curses, all aroundis silence, faces, in with their the air. tails order,children, toboggans, dogs The point is not thatrealityis fullerand more various. It is not at all like what he had expected; it is completelydifferent. The only true in Chekhov's the concrete one is seen without view, picture, prejudice in all the totality of its importantand secondaryfeatures. Chekhov was veryconsistentin his adherence to the concreterepresentationof an idea. Even in his purely theoreticalutterances,for example when he is expounding his ethical program,and in genres which do not necessarilyrequire the embodimentof an idea in concrete images, his practiceremains the same. In a famous letterto his brotherNikolai he says: Educated people, in myopinion,should satisfy conditions: the following theindividual, and therefore are tolerant, Theyrespect they extremely genand compliant. ... Theydon'tmakea fuss abouta hammer ora lost tle,polite, rubber. ... They forgive noise,cold,overcooked meat,and witticisms. ..
with the aim of arousing somebody else's They don't humiliatethenmselves
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so as to be sighed They don't play on other people's heartstrings sympathy. and fussedover in return.They don't say: "Nobody understandsme!" or: "I've wasted my talents!" ... They are not vain. They are not interestedin such falsetreasuresas acquaintance withcelebrities or shakinghands witha drunken Plevako. .. .5 They cultivatetheir aestheticsense. They are incapable of going to sleep in their clothes, of seeing bedbugs in a crack in the wall, of breathingfoul air, of walkingon a floorthathas been spat on, of eatingthings cooked on a kerosene stove.
in 1886. Ethicalcategories This was written forthe such as respect forare on and so about individual, self-abasement, vanity, thoughts in theabstract mulated in and thenimmediately concrete exemplified which situations understands me!"and so growintoscenes("Nobody
on). Abstract formulae are equated with real objects and situations; both
haveequal weight notonlyin a singlelogicalconstruct, butalso in a whole: singlesyntactical
which The flabby,apathetic, indolentlyphilosophizing,cold intelligentsia, finds it impossible to invent a suitable model for its credit notes; which is unpatriotic,doleful, and colorless; which gets drunk on one glass and patronizesfifty-kopeck brothels;whichgrumblesand is ready to deny everything, whichdoesn'tmarry and sincea lazybrainfindsiteasier to denythanto affirm; refusesto educate childrenand so on. A flabbysoul, flabbymuscles,atrophy, intellectualinstability-all thisby virtueof the factthatlife has no meaning, that women sufferfromleukorrhea,and that money is evil. Degeneracy and apathyare alwaysaccompanied by sexual perversion,cold premature old age, querulous youth,the demise of miscarriages, depravity, the arts, indifference to learning, injusticesof every kind. (Letter to A. S. Suvorin, 27 Dec. 1889) Thus even in Chekhov's nonartistic writings the general idea exists only in its material embodiments or in close proximity to them. "The intellectual" and "the Philistine" in such speculations are not people in general, but people with a specific way of life, habits, and external appearance. The dogmatism of abstractions is cancelled out by the concreteness of the everyday situation.
III
One of the major concrete forms by which an idea can be embodied is in an individual, a character who "expresses" or holds to that idea. The embodiment of an idea in an individual creates an alliance between idea and individual. There are various typological aspects of this
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and so on. By conMezzanine),Sasha (A Marriageable Girl) [Nevesta],
alliancein literature. The history of Russianliterature from thelate to in its middle of the the nineteenth consists century eighteenth evolution an initial from where the individual exists for the only point absorbedin the idea, to a kindof equilibrium, idea, and is entirely whereequal importance is attached to the representation of thedeoftheidea and of theindividual whoexpresses it.Characvelopment of a hero naturally features teristic, "typical" bringtheidea intothe centerof attention the idea is the (Stolz in Goncharov's Oblomov); reasonfortheir it. revealand reinforce existence; they In Chekhov's artistic world a newaspect ofthis alliance arises. As we in chapter 4 ofPoetika demonstrated Chekhova thelawsof Chekhov's world that evenwhenthesimplest ofstatements is madebyan provide no moreattention is paid to theactualthought individual, expressed of the situation, thanto all attributes to place, surroundings, pose, instance. tone,as wellas to all thenuancesof theparticular gesture, The same thinghappenswhen an idea is fully embodied.A large number of"unimportant," oftheindividual characteristics peripheral are introduced, whichare neutralwithregardto the idea and in whichtheidea does notnecessarily imslidethrough. The resulting it is that is not so much the idea itself is that as pression important, the field ofitsexistence-the individual himself with all hisfortuitous and not so much the its as concharacteristics; itself, peripheral thought not so muchthe quality creteexistence, of the suit,as the wayit is In the alliancebetween "individual" worn,and the wearerhimself. and "idea" in Chekhov's it the is former who has world, greater significance. The reservation shouldbe added that all thesepoints refer to cases where the hero does have a clearlyrealized ideological heroeslikeRagin(Ward No. 6), Von Koren(TheDuel), platform-to Yakov Terekhov the Lida Volchaninova (A Murder), (TheHousewith
with trast theheroes ofGoncharov, and inparticuTurgenev, Tolstoy, lar Dostoevsky, suchcharacters are notso very in Chekhov's common work.It is farmoreusual to encounter the kindof hero whoseattitudeto the worldis not elaboratedand remains unideologically In thesecases theauthor's formed. attention is switched to theindividualand to hisexistence in general. In earlier artistic at thecenter ofinterest werethelawsthat systems a particular connect and that individual idea-the explanaparticular tionof howtheidea ofenterprise and acquisitiveness tookpossession of Chichikov, or whyAleksandr Aduev becamean adherent of the in their of practicality. The circumstances weregiven theory entirety in detail,and the biography of the hero,oftenbeginning from the
years of his infancy.In Chekhov's artisticworld this link is left un-
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clear. There is no explanation of how and whythe hero of An Anonythereasons mous became a terrorist; [Rasskaz cheloveka] Story neizvestnogo for his spiritualcrisis,his repudiation of his previous ideas, and his "change of world view" are alluded to only in his own not very categorical statements.His personalityis a given. Chekhov cannot of emergingsocial forms.He gives serveas an example of a chronicler a purely synchronic slice of actuality;diachronyis minimal. Spiritual life is complex, and everyalliance between an individual and an idea, whethertemporaryor permanent,is full of imponderables. In earlierartistic utteranceby the hero everyimportant systems, expressed the essence of his being, created it, and formed it. This method is typified by the direct speech of the charactersin Ostrovsky'splaysor in Goncharov'snovels. Any situationmay give rise to an utterance that deeply accords with the given character and forms another brickin the building of his personality. In Chekhov's artisticworld a statementby a particularcharacter, even when it is an extended one, need not mean that this statement expressesthe finaltruthreached, or comes fromthe verykernelof his personality.The utterancedepends on the chance circumstancesin which a character finds himself. As Kataev has remarked, "For Chekhov itis important not simplyto express a particularopinion in a but also to show the causation of any opinion, its dependence story, circumstance."6 upon In the storyThe Student, the hero's thoughtsarise in the following situation:"It seemed to him thatthissudden cold had destroyedorder and harmony in everything.... Huddling up from the cold, the student thought that the very same wind had blown in the time of Ryurik,and of Ivan the Terrible, and of Peter the Great, and thatin theirtimesthere had been the verysame rabid povertyand hunger; the same thatchedroofs fullof holes, the same ignorance,wretchedness, the same ubiquitous waste, darkness, the same sense of oppression-all these horrorsstillexistedand would continueto exist, and lifewouldn'tgetbetter just because a thousand yearswould pass." These thoughtsdo not formthe basis of the student'sconvictionsthatbecomes clear lateron when he reflects that"truthand beauty... have always been the main thing in man's life and in the world in of the particularmoment, general." It was the externalcircumstances the cold, the wind,and the darkness,thatset his thoughtsin motion. The special concentration on the chance happenings of the fateof a characterwho expressesa specificidea, on all the circumstances which have no relevance to the idea itself, createsthe effect thatthe content and the logical development of the idea itselfare not intended to be the most importantguides for the reader. They are counterbalanced
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by the endless varietyof existence as it is embodied in the concrete of its dogthe significance individual. The idea displaysits relativity; maticcontentis dimmed.
IV
It is a traditional situationin literature foran idea to reveal itstruth in itsbankruptcy, or (whichis incomparablymore frequent)itsfalsity, This confrontawithreal circumstances. the process of confrontation tion can be carried out in various ways. It can be independent of the hero's will. Such are the manyworks on the theme of "lost illusions"in Russian and world literature. It can come fromthe hero himself.This is the kind of positioninto which Dostoevskyplaces his heroes. Raskolnikovwants to make sure The wayto whetherhe "dare" violate"common" morality. forhimself In it encounter a is not rare to this murder. is test Dostoevsky through situationof the typewhere the hero is ready-often on the verge of a fit-to dischargea bulletinto his own temple (like Ippolit in TheIdiot) merelyto prove his life-thesis. Tests of both these kindsoccur in Chekhov. In TheDuel Von Koren prepares to put into practice his idea of the "annihilation of the weak." In The Wager[Pari] the hero has spent fifteen years in volunIn thesis. Ward No. 6 detention to his tary Ragin is able to prove of his convince himselfthroughhis own experience of the rightness arguments: between the Even now Raginwas convinced thattherewas no difference in thisworld houseof Mrs.Belovand Ward6, that wasnonsense everything and vanity of vanities, and yethishandstrembled, hisfeetwerecoldand he or evenyears a wasterrified Was it to really .... possible spend day,a week, here as thesepeople had done? . . . No, it was hardly possible.... Ragin assuredhimself thattherewas nothing specialabout eitherthe moon or . in . . . and that time everything . wouldturnto dust,butdespair prison . ofhim, he grabbed thebarsin bothhandsand shook suddenly gotthebetter all hisstrength. themwith Fires tells the storyof Kisochka, which shows what "horrorsand absurdities""in practical life, in encounters with people" result from and fragilof life,the worthlessness thoughts"about the pointlessness of of the visible Solomon's vanities.' world, 'vanity ity " But it could not be said of any of these storiesthat in it the idea is exhaustivelyexamined or "tested" in confrontationwith the real world of the tale. Though he has seen withhis own eyes thatman can change, Von Koren neverthelesssays at the end of the The Duel: "I
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true,as I now see to mygreatjoy, that I was mistakenabout you, but you can stumble even on a smooth road, and such is man's fate: if you're not mistakenabout the main thing,you'll be mistakenabout the particulars.Nobody knows the real truth." Another hero [the unnamed lawyer in The Wager. Tr.] sacrifices fifteen yearsof his lifein order to prove the idea that"livingany kind of life is betterthan not livingat all," but at the moment when this long ordeal in the name of an idea is about to be rewarded,itbecomes clear that the proof is false, that his ideals have changed radically years.Not onlydoes he no longer recognize"any during those fifteen kind of life,"but he in fact scorns every kind of life,in any possible form: "I confess to you," he writes,"that I despise freedom and life and health and everythingthat your books refer to as the world's blessings."Again a conclusivepiece of ready wisdom is not handed to the reader. It is replaced by another. But there is no reason eitherto trustin the stability of this new wisdom. In Fires,the storyof Kisochka utterly failsto convince the student for whom the engineer's tale is primarily intended: "All this proves and to read, but to believe,excuse me, I neitherwish,nor knowhow. I shall believe God alone, but even if you talked to me untilthe second coming and seduced another fivehundred Kisochkas I'd believe you only if I went mad." The second listener, the narratorwho conducts the narrative, is no more convinced: "A lot was said last night, but itdidn't resolvea single question for me, and now that it's morning all that remain in my fromthe entireconversationare the firesand memoryas if in a filter the image of Kisochka. I mounted myhorse and took one last look at the student and Anan'ev, at the hystericaldog with the lackluster, almost drunken eyes,at the workmenglimpsed in the morningmist, at the embankment,at the horse with its neck stretchedout, and in thisworld!' " thought'You can never get to the bottomof anything But this isn't all. The engineer Anan'ev, who tells the storyabout Kisochka, is himselfnot convinced-for all his years' experience of of life,the inevitabiltesting-that thoughtsabout the "worthlessness ityof death" are unworthyof our attention.He himselfadmits that such thoughts "comprised and still comprise the highest and final stage in the sphere of human thought."So it is not a case eitherof the affirmation or of the refutationof a particular idea, by means of of the object world; it is impossibleto reducingit"down" to the reality bring an idea to a dogmatic conclusion not only in the ideal sphere, but also in its projectioninto the materialsphere. The point is in the very process of the idea's existence, its embodiment in a concrete
nothing and explains nothing," said the student, " . . . I like to listen
acted in good faith and have not changed my convictions since. .... It's
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This is preciselythe substanceof Anan'ev's tale-what he personality. felt,what he did when he "was oppressed by such thoughts."What is importantis not so much the resultof the developmentof an idea in an individual human soul, as its tortuousprogressthroughthatsoul, open to the influencesof the materialworld. In thiswaythe idea itself is plunged intoall the peripeteiaof the materialworld,experiencesall its jolts and vacillations. The real worldof the workis not parallel to the developmentof the idea, but intersects it, encroaches upon its development,disruptsits the developmentof the logical orderliness,and in general interrupts idea. The scale of these encroachmentsvaries,but theyare constant. The hero of Fear curtailshis discussionof the horrorof facinglifenot because he has exhausted the theme. He "would have spoken a lot longer." But he "heard the voice of the coachman. Our horses had arrived." The hero has no opportunityto return to this theme. In Ariadnethe narratorand Shamokhinargue about women. Shamokhin expounds an entire treatiseabout the "backwardnessof the intellectual woman," about education, which has turned woman into a "huto please the male onlyin man animal,"about such a woman's striving order to "defeat that male," and so on. But the narratornever does learn the end of this discourse. A quite ordinary everyday detail intervenes: "I didn't hear any more, since I fell asleep." Astrov's one of the centralideological act about forests, monologue in the first at itsculminating and semanticsectionsof UncleVanya,is interrupted I then be a littlebit in is shall a man thousand years happy, point: "If I come intoleaf, When birch then see it for it. a and responsible plant and swayin the wind,myheart fillswithpride, and I ... (he sees the who has broughthima glassof vodka on a tray).However... workman, (he drinks) it's time I was off." In The House withtheMezzaninethe artistand Lida expound theirviewsin a more or less detailed fashion only once. They get no chance to conclude their argument; events separate them forever. Let us imagine a man who wants to cross a crowded square. It is impossibleto do thisby the most directcourse-he willbe obliged to stop, make his way round other people, step back before moving vehicles,and so on. The course of an idea in Chekhov's artistic system between is verysimilar.The author's attentionis equally distributed that he encounthis man's course and the other people, everything ters. The internalcontentand developmentof the idea are made of equal significanceto its external existence. In Chekhov's world, the of everyday materiallife,of those idea is not freeof the fortuitousness by whichit is accompanied in real existence. particularcircumstances At the center of attentionis the ontologyof the idea.
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The reader clearly senses that the creator of this world was concerned to depict not so much the idea itself, as itscomplex existencein we might say the surrounding world. Using Hegelian terminology, that in Chekhov's world the idea does not strive to realize its but alwaysremainson the plane of "existence-in-itself-and-for-itself," the chance conditionsof its worldlyexistence. The idea cannot be extractedfromthe empiricalexistencein which it is immersed. When it is isolated and presented outside the conditionsof itsexistence,itceases to be that idea. It does not existin a pure the of existence. outside form, sphere everyday in its The idea in Chekhov's world does not reach dogmaticfinality internaldevelopment(see above, sectionI). But neitherdoes confrontationwithrealitycomplete it, give it the label of ultimatetruth.The random external world, from which the idea in Chekhov's system cannot be isolated, encroaches upon its development and merelyinand puts a brake on thisdevelopment.The idea experiences terrupts all the vacillationsof thisworld; it is open to all external influences. The similarnature of the idea's developmentboth withinitselfand externallymakes it possible to speak of the incomplete, tentative, system. undogmaticcharacterof the idea in Chekhov's artistic Only one thingis dogmaticin Chekhov-the censure of dogmatism. No immobile idea that is not open to correctioncan be true. Even it will turn when in its sources an idea is of the brightest and finest, into its opposite if pushed to extremesand taken as an absolute. In Chekhov, a person who rigidly adheres to a particularidea, and failsto accept the amendmentswhich reality can bringto it,is always limited.The contentof an idea, whetherit be liberalism,Darwinism, or religion, can save no one. It is the rigid,dogmaticheroes who most the markof authorialcensure (L'vov in Ivanov,Vlasich bear obviously in Neighbors, Rashevich in On theEstate[V usad'be]).Any fanaticism is even in fanatical maternal love. There few are repulsive, examples Russian literature of maternallove arousing such odium as the love of for her Bobik and Sofochka. Natasha in ThreeSisters The undogmatic nature of the idea conformson another level to that principleof fortuitous, unpurposeful organizationof the artistic material,which we have already observed on the object level and the level of theme. The level of ideas is isomorphicto the other levels of the system.
V
In Chekhov's artistic world there is no openly purposeful selection of things, motives, or character traits. The object world, events,
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charactersare all presented to the reader in theirindividual chance selectionor The worldis depicted without qualitiesand combinations. work of art,has a differentiation. construct, Everyartificial including of dogmas, whichguide a finalaim and reveals a dogma, or a system its creator. The degree of subordination of artisticconstructsto a single guiding thoughtvaries. But subordinationalways exists. It is thatis absolutelyundogthe motionof lifeitself, only existenceitself, matic. It is irrationaland chaotic; and only its meaning and aims are unknown and not subordinated to a perceived idea. The nearer a created world is to natural realityin its chaotic, senseless, and arbithe nearer thisworldwillbe to the absolutely forms, undogmatic trary nature of reality.Chekhov's world is preciselysuch a world.
VI
The descriptionof the content plane of each level of the artistic systemunder examination is beyond the scope of poetics, and thus of the themeof thisessay. Let us therefore examine beyond the limits but to the actual just a few of the points related not to the structure content of the ideas, merelyin order to show how close the link is between contentand structure. we have noted of the structure Thus the characteristics of the idea as well as itspositionand lifein the worldof a workbyChekhov, itself, of values (by this,of lead us to an understandingof Chekhov's system worldmodel,and elaborated in his artistic course,we mean the system not in the statementsmade by the author in his nonartistic writings such as letters, precludes essays,and newspaper articles).This system the absolutizationof a pure idea, since such an idea always conceals There is only one thing withinitselfthe danger of dogmatic finality. the is that undogmatic-concrete reality, phenomenon of existence. The holder of an idea is thisconcrete reality.For thisreason it is he, and not the idea, who is the centralcategoryin the Chekhoviansystem of values. Chekhov attaches prime importance to the individual, his inner substance (to use a modern term-his existentialbeing). Moreover, the dependence of thissubstanceupon a person's expressed thoughts, upon any doctrine to which he adheres, is very relative. Both his utterancesand his ideological platformare defined by the infinite number of accidentsof existence(situation,mood, general condition of the psycheat thattime,and so on). All thismay leave the kernelof untouched. This kernel,the essence of his his individuality completely In the real world man is revealed only withdifficulty. individuality,
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cannot displayit freely.It is surrounded,overshadowed,obscured by the external circumstances and objects of existence. Thus in Chekhov's artistic world it appears to the reader not in its pure subbut with the "rags of life,"surrounded by the thingsand stance, along of this random world; it hardly glimmersthrough the phenomena thicklayerof these objects. And yetonly the essence of the individual is the measure of everything. In the ideological confrontations between characters,the person who is, if not the bearer of truth (there are no such heroes in Chekhov), then the one who gets nearest to it,alwaysturnsout to be not the one whose logic is strictest and who has the mostconvincingly based ideas, but the one whose purely human qualities arouse most in the author. In The House with theMezzanine,Lida's prosympathy but if there had been a gram ("Last week Anna died in childbirth, still be mustn't sitwithone's arms she'd alive"; "One dispensarynearby folded. It's true,we're not saving humanity, and perhaps we're makbut we're doing what we can, and we're right")is ing many mistakes, far more reasonable than the fantastic who positiveideas of the artist, is convinced that the truthwould quickly be found, if only "we all, both citydwellersand villagers,everyone withoutexception, agreed to share the toil whichis expended by humanityin general to satisfy theirphysicalneeds," for "each of us would need to devote, perhaps, no more than two or three hours a day." But the author's sympathies are unquestionablywiththe artist, and are aroused by qualitiesof his personalityindependent of the ideas he expounds. In exactly the same way his coolness towardsLida depends above all on her human qualities (in the firstinstance the systemof dogmas by which she guides her behavior in life,always knowingwhat is good and what is bad). Misail Poloznev in My Life is rightnot in his idea of the simple life (on thispointChekhov gives no finaldecision),but because in specific situationshe behaves with greater moralitythan his opponents: his the engineer Dolzhikov, his formerfriends. father,his father-in-law for the hero of The Wifewhen he realizes that Enlightenment begins the pointat issue is not the particularimplementation of an idea, over whichhe and his wifeare fighting: not thatpeople whole is secret "the are starving, but thatI am not the kind of person I should be." In The Wood-Demon Khrushchovsays,"Look me straight in the eyes, without ulteriormotives, withoutprograms,and seek first the human being in me" (Act II). "I want," says the hero of A BoringStory, "our wives, children,friends,and studentsto love us not for our name, for our titleor label, but for our ordinaryhumanity." The problem of "man and idea" is posed in the sharpest formin
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one of the storiesof the mid-1890s.What is the natureof the relationof ideas-the idea of God? "Believship betweenman and the loftiest in not God is The difficult. ing Inquisitors,Biron and Arakcheev, believed in God. No, you must learn to believe in man" (The Head Gardener's Later in the storythereis [Rasskaz sadovnika]).7 Story starshego a discussionof the same problem in an even more extremeform:the is higher not only than an unrealized idea, but individual personality also than one which has been realized, an action. On one side of the scales is placed murder,the embodimentof the idea of evil, and on the other, man himself.Despite the obvious material evidence, the judges and the townspeople do not admit the accused's guilt in the murderof a saintly man, the doctor,because theyfinditinconceivable that "any man would dare to kill our friend the doctor! Nobody is capable of fallingso low!" This is how the problem is formulatedby the "head gardener": I am always I haveno fears or for either formorality byacquittals. delighted I feelsatisfaction. Even whentheverdict is"not guilty"; on thecontrary, justice whenmyconscience in tellsmethatthe have made a mistake jurors deciding on acquittal, I still feeltriumphant. ifthe Judgeforyourselves, gentlemen: morein manthanin theevidence, thematerial judges and thejurorstrust is not thisbelief in manof itself loftier thanany proofsand the speeches, few considerations. This faith is accessible to the worldly only people who havea senseof and an understanding of Christ. Common views,a common doctrine which unites groups of people, in Chekhov's opinion, carrythe grainof historido not in themselves, cal progress.Only an individualpersonality, freeof the dogmas of his such within And can a thus it is immaterial himself. clan, carry grain to whichsocial group thisindividualbelongs by birth.This positionis confirmedalso by Chekhov's nonliterary remarks:"I don't believe in our hypocritical, false,hysterical, uneducated, indolentintelligentsia, even when it suffers and complains, because itsoppressorsspringfrom its own depths. I believe in particularpeople, I see salvationin particular personalities,scatteredhere and there throughoutthe whole of Russia-whether theyare intellectuals or peasants,thereis strength in them,though theyare few" (letterto I. I. Orlov, 22 Feb. 1899).
VII
whichwe shall examine in the lightof The second aspect of content, the structure of Chekhov'sartistic world,is the natureof the Chekhovreservationshould be made immediately. ian ideal. One significant In a world model as undogmaticon principleas Chekhov's,the term
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Chekhovian ideal is conventional. It signifiesmerely that this ideal is most frequently discussed in Chekhov's works and has the author's but no more-nowhere does the author openly sympathy. Sympathy, proclaim it as his own view, nor does he openly and fullyassociate himself with the hero who declares this ideal. The fact that in Chekhov's artisticsystemman is represented in the totalityof his internaland externalexistence,thatit is impossibleto select only the most importantaspects, that the whole chance combinationof man's materialand spiritualexistenceis depicted, thatideas closelyinteract withthe materialworld, have "an attachmentto the earth and to the body,"to use Gogol's expression-all thispresupposes an ideal of man in whom the physicaland materialoccupy a quite particularplace. In contrast,for example, with Dostoevsky,who was not remotely occupied in the sphere of ideals by concrete ontological forms,but only by spiritual categories, Chekhov set up an ideal in which the materialand the bodilyare of equal worthwiththe spiritual.Both in the heroes' monologues and in authoriallyoriented narration the combined with ideal is represented by a man with loftyspirituality, and is milder and gentler so on: "Man education, health,refinement, there; people are beautiful, sensitive,and flexible,their speech is elegant, their movements graceful. Science and the arts flourish among them, their philosophy is not gloomy, and their attitude to women is full of noble refinement" (Uncle Vanya,Act I). The equal value of the spiritualand the physical-even down to a person's manners and his material surroundings-is likewise constantly emphasized in the depiction of negativescenes which are the reverse of the ideal: butthey intellectuals, servants, Theycallthemselves they speakdownto their likeanimals, treat readnothing seriously, peasants they study badly, they they do absolutely little theyunderstand theyonlytalkabout science, nothing, is serious, about art. Everyone looks graveand talksonlyabout everyone And all thetimetheoverwhelming everyone philosophizes. things, important of us, ninety-nine majority per centof us, liveslike savages!The slightest and eat abominably, they provokes thing sleepin stuffy brawling abuse,they thereare bedbugs, moralimpurity. squalor,and everywhere damp,stench, ActII) Orchard, (TheCherry The most aphoristically blatant example of the equal value of the internaland the externalis the famous expressionof Astrovin Uncle about a person should be beautiful: the face, the Vanya: "everything ideal aspects("the clothes,the soul, the thoughts" (Act II). The "lofty," soul, the thoughts") are made equal to the "material" aspects, and reduced almostto the level of hygienic requirements.This resultedin
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of this remark,which achieved widespread the general accessibility did other aphorisms by Chekhovian heroes, as several popularity, which adorn parks and clubs. under disIt goes withoutsayingthat the ideal which is constantly cussion in Chekhov's works is not limited to these aphorisms. It is much more profound. Chekhov attached importancenot only to the abstractspiritualideal of man, but also to the man as a whole, man himselfand the naturalmaterialworldin whichhe is required to live. In Chekhov's time,and even much later, the value of such an ideal was not fullyappreciated; by comparison withother ideals it seemed and "earthy."But therecame a period in human history too utilitarian when the necessityof coming down to earth became obvious to all. There came a time when despite all the medical advances, the truth man is sicklierthan could no longer be concealed: twentieth-century his predecessors on the planet. UNESCO data affirmthat in recent decades nervous and psychic diseases have increased tens of times in geometrical progression. The over; their incidence is grGowing spiritualhealth of nationsdepends more than ever beforeupon their physical health, and the attitude of modern man to his personal health is no longer a private matterbut has entered the sphere of social ethics.Even more acutelyman is faced in the twentieth century withthe question of the fateof naturalresources.The amount of land covered by vegetationis inexorablydeclining.Once towns,roads, factories,and airportswere just spots on the green face of the planet. Now it is unspoiled nature thatlooks like spots on the map. Withthe perfectionof the means of extractionand processingof natural raw materials,the scale of the dumping of waste products back onto the earth and into its atmosphere (the waste gases of all sortsof engines and furnaces,the waste fromchemicalfactories)has reached unprecedented levels. The oceans are being continuallymore polluted with oil products and indestructible synthetic floatingwaste. In theirvoyon in Thor the Ra 1969, Heyerdahl and his colleagues were age to see the ocean polluted by all sortsof rubbish(just twenty staggered he the scientist's first during voyage on theKon-Tiki, yearspreviously, had seen none of this). The animal world is perishing; dozens of species have completelydisappeared and willnever be seen by future generations. resultsof The compositionof the atmosphereis changing.The first this are already evident. Natural biocenoses are being infringed;the unity of all the elements of the living and nonliving world of the planet, ecological chains which took hundreds of centuriesto form, are being broken. In the words of Chekhov's hero: "The sun, the sky, the woods, the rivers, the creatures-it was all created, adapted,
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was put in order and knows its place" mutuallyadjusted. Everything (The Reed-Pipe[Svirel']).This great harmony of nature is being violated (not to mention the growing level of radiation, all the conseto predict).Man is willfully the quences of whichare impossible altering face of the planet. The problemhas reached the scale of the biosphere as a whole. In the 1890s, much of thisdid not exist,the restwas unnoticed; the minor,and quite reparable. Among the damage seemed temporary, few perspicacious people to offera diagnosis of the incipient, severe, and possiblyfatalillness on the basis of fatalsymptoms, to guess and foretell the fateof the planet,was Chekhov. Even in his earlystory The Reed-Pipe,the hero, who has spent forty years observing"God's doings fromyear to year," says: And wherehas it all gotto?I remember, twenty years ago thereweregeese here,and cranesand ducksand blackgrouse-massesof them!... There wereno end of snipe,greatsnipeand curlews, and smalltealand woodcock were or even sparrows, therewas no counting them!And just likestarlings itall gotto! Nowyoudon'tevensee a birdofprey. ... Now,brother, where's to see evena wolf it'sa wonder or a fox,notto speakofbearsand minks. But once upon a timetherewereevenelks! butthebeasts thebeesand thefish. It'snot too,and thecattle, justthebirds, If don't believe the old ask willtellyouthatthe me, folk; you everyone ... fishtodayare not whattheywere.Everyyearthereare fewer fishin the seas,thelakes,and therivers. cut they dryout and newones don'tgrow.Whatdoes growis immediately itgrows itgetscutdown-so itgoes down;today up,and,lookout,tomorrow on endlessly, until left. there's nothing In the play The Wood-Demon thereis a hero who seems to be the first one in Russian literaturewhose purpose in life is to preservenature. Khrushchovis a doctor,but he considers his main activity to be prothe woods from cut and new ones: down, tecting being planting I heardthatyousold me, I'm upset.. . . Aleksandr Vladimirovich, Forgive Kuznetsov twodaysago. If that's true. .. thenI beg yourwood forfelling and tell him you've you,don't do it. ... Let me go over to Kuznetsov's
changed yourmind.... To fella thousand trees,to destroythemfora couple
And the same goes for the woods .... They cut them down, and burn them,
of thousand forclothes foryourwomenfolk, forwhims and luxury. rubles, To them willcurseour barbarity! so thatposterity ... ... destroy and profesthefamous scholar words Mladness,psychopath. In other .... I'm mad .... No, sorthinks it'stheworld that's mad,togo on supporting you!
Act III) (The Wood-Demon,
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In the firstact of this play there is a passionate monologue (which laterbecame famousin UncleVanya)by Khrushchovon the defenseof the forests("The Russian forestsare crackingunder axes"). Part of the concept of the futurehappiness of those people who willbe living "in a thousand years" is the preservationof those things"which we cannot create." When The Wood-Demon was reworkedinto UncleVanya,these ideas were developed further. Astrov'smonologue in Act III (a monologue illustrated by maps and diagrams!) sounds like a lectureby a modern scientist: A map of our district as it was fifty yearsago. The dark and lightgreen the of the half in forests. whole area was covered The netsignifies forests; workof red overthegreenshowswheretherewereelkand wildgoats.... Now letus looklowerdown.This is howthings weretwenty-five yearsago. of thewholearea is underforest. ... And so on and so Already onlya third forth. Now letus lookat thethird A map of thedistrict section. as itis now. There is somegreenhereand there, butit'spatchy, notcontinuous; theelk, theswans, thewoodgrouse haveall disappeared.... Allin all,it'sa picture of gradualand unmistakable degeneration. The beautiful life of the future"in two hundred or three hundred years"is a lifein harmonywiththe beauties of nature: "How beautiful the trees are. And how beautiful,when you thinkof it, life ought to Act IV). Nature is the arena be, under treeslike these!" (ThreeSisters, in whichman's "free spirit"acts: "They say a man needs seven feetof earth. But it's a corpse that needs seven feet,not a man.... A man needs not seven feetof earth,not an estate,but the entireworld,all of nature,where he'd have the space to display all the qualities and the The authorialideal is not peculiaritiesof his freespirit"(Gooseberries). affirmedindisputably.In Chekhov's usual manner,categoricalaffirmationsof thistypeare disputed,just like any others.Astrovhimself but the directionof authosays,"Perhaps all thisreallyis crankiness," is obvious. rial sympathy The author clearlysympathizes withthose remarksby his heroes in whichthe appraisal of man's attitudeto nature is placed on the same level as the value of spiritualphenomena. In his nocturnalreflections before the duel, Laevskycounts among his moral crimesnot onlylies and indifference to people's sufferings, ideas, searchings,and struggles,but also the factthathe does not love nature and that"in his own garden he has never planted a single tree or grown a single blade of grass." The absence of any authorial hierarchyregardingthe importance of these phenomena is built not only into the material,but also of thisextract-it reprethe syntactical structure into the formitself,
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sentsa chain of syntactically equal phrases: "He's no longer afraid of the stormand has no love of nature, he has no God, all the trusting girls ... have already been ruined by him and his generation,in his of nature has own garden." In the twentieth centurythe preservation ever will become more been-and clearly-the yardstickby long which to measure the moral potentialof every man: of the scientist, in the degree to which he gives thoughtto the influenceof his disin the degree coverieson the futureof the planet; of the industrialist, to whichhe is concerned about the effect of his businesson nature; of the politician,in the degree of concern he shows to the resultsof the actionsof the scientists and industrialists withregard to nature; of any individual-in his daily relationswiththe vegetable and animal world thatsurrounds him. This has long been the ethicalstance of contemporaryman. Chekhov included in the ideal under discussionsomethingthatwas considered utilitarian;he raised his utilitarianism to the level of lofty He was the firstliteraryfigure to include in the ethical spirituality. sphere man's attitudeto nature.Justas Chekhov saw that each indiin unitywithhis materialsurroundings, vidual person is his totality, so he thoughtof man's futureonlytogetherwiththe fateof the whole of the natural world in which man lives. He was concerned about the future of a district,a province where there had once been many and animals,and then therewere none. His imagiforests, reservoirs, nation was alarmed by the futureof the entireplanet; he had visions of an empty Earth, withouta single living creature on it, rotating around the sun pointlessly and aimlesslyfor millionsof years in cosmic emptiness.
VIII
In the sphere of ideas a greatwriter is alwaysvitally preoccupied by "eternal ideas"-the meaning of human life, the point of existence, truth,death. Every great work of art approaches in one way or another a resolutionof these key problems of human existence,and reveals to the world some new, as yet unknown variant of the resolution-or the posing-of these questions. The thirdand finalaspect of contentwhichshould be consideredin of Chekhov's artisticsystemis the way connectionwiththe structure he representsthis level of ideas. There have been various kinds of approaches in literatureto problems of this kind. Despite the differencebetween the artistic of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky,they systems in such a way have the one pointin common: theyare both constructed
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as to clarify, to "pursue" these questionsto the utmostdegree. The narration,the object world,the plot and theme of theirworksare so constructed that confrontations of the heroes, material characteristics, and narrator's meditations mostfully reveal the attitudeof the hero to the idea. The whole artistic is system directed towardsthisend. In Chekhov things are different.The plot situationsare not so directly pointed towardsa particularaim and do not express openly the author's commitmentto the resolution of a problem. Arthur Luther remarksthat "Chekhov's heroes eat, so as not to have to talk about God."8 More precisely, theyhave neitherthe timenor the place to talk about Him. Dostoevsky'scharactersare enclosed in situations which have been selected to allow them to discuss and reveal everythem. Chekhov's heroes never findthemselvesin thingthattorments such speciallychosen situations.They "eat, only eat." The vision of man as inseparable fromhis materialsurroundings,fromthe shell of existence,determinesthe special formsin whichideas on day-to-day this loftylevel, and theirlife in the hero's soul, are represented. In Tolstoy,withhis "dialecticsof the soul," and in Dostoevsky, who transfers "action fromthe externalworld into the souls and heartsof his characters"' and strivesto perceive things that no one can see, there is no limit to what can be put into words about the eternal, extreme problems of the human soul. In Chekhov's artisticworld there is alwaysthe suppositionof a certain"beyond" in the resolution of these questions. The author can go only as far as a certainboundary; beyond lies a sphere whichis inaccessibleto his words. It can only be approached fromvarious directions. The word existsonlyin order to speak of the existence of this sphere. Any speculations in it are impossible. For Dostoevskyand Tolstoy, death and God are not a boundary. in theirworksthisis the pointof departure. For Chekhov Everywhere it is the end. He reaches a particularlimitand returnsthe reader's consciousness to his own (mystical)experience. If we imagine narrationas a kind of road, then Chekhovian narration is a normallysignpostedroad whichsuddenlybreaks offwithout warning.Afterthispoint there is no one to help the reader; he is left to his own devices. Further progress is dependent upon a person's own resources-he may go a long way,or a shortdistance,or he may remain at the end of the made-up road, not prepared to venture where the path is ill-defined. Perhaps this is why Chekhov is renowned as one of the most accessible of writers.Tolstoy and Dosare fortheirreaders Virgilsin the loftiest toevsky spheresof the spirit. the reader take the him hand and lead They by throughall itscircles. In Chekhov's world the road is not difficult; the signs thatthere will
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be "something"are apparent to everyone. But nobody is led by the author witha firmhand towardsthis "something." The authorialword cannot penetratethis"closed sphere." The idea of inexpressibility throughwords is fundamentalto the Chekhovian Chekhov could have said withWittgenstein: of the "beyond." poetics "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, dariiber muss man schweigen." The principleof silenceis a means forthe undogmaticembodimentof ideas of the highest level. It presupposes the absence of dogmatic merelysigns,a canvas on whichthe opinionsabout theseideas, offering reader can make his own patterns. In the thirdperiod of Chekhov's career, the narrator'svoice spoke deliberationsand thoughts more loudly in his works; the storyteller's take in the most complex and profound phenomena of the spiritual sphere. But even now such thoughts are expressed not in logicalphilosophical or teleological categories. They are given as an indeterminate, imprecise sensation, more a thought-feeling than a thought-idea: It began to seem to himthatthe grasswas singing; thoughit was already to convince someoneplaintively it was wordless, half-dead, trying perished, thatthesun had of that it was its and frankly guilty nothing, through song tolive, wanted itpassionately himthat had no reasontoburnitout;itassured ifit werenotfortheintense thatit was still youngand wouldbe beautiful, but it nevertheless therewas no guilt, heat and the drought; keptasking itwas that that thepainwasunbearable, and vowing forforgiveness, someone foritself (TheSteppe) sad and sorry .... inthis fancied for a moment that world, among they hugemysterious Perhaps too wereseniorto of lives,theytoo werea force, theendlessnumber they
somebody.(In theRavine)
tothink indeeply and wanted dear May!One breathed One couldsenseMay, farbeyond abovethetrees, undertheheavens, nothere,butsomewhere that wasnowfully in thefields and woods, thetown, mysterious, displayed, spring man.And forsome to weakand sinful richand holy, fine, incomprehensible to cry. reasonone wanted Girl) (A Marriageable In Chekhov's system the ordinary (practical) language used by Tolstoy and Dostoevskyin this sphere is impossible. The narrator's The word acquires additional speech is organized rhythmically. senses, in its semanticscoming to resemble the poetic word. As for Chekhov avoids words or or the "transcendent," depictingthe "lofty" only permitsthe poetic word. The comprehension of these spiritual spheres is leftto high poetry.
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NEW LITERARY
HISTORY
Now thatthe basic constructive principlehas been established,and on the and "ideological" levels its manifestation object, plot-thematic, has been clarified,the time has come to speak of the relationto this principle of the firstof the levels of the artisticsystemwhich we examined, the level of form,the narrativelevel. of Chekhovian narrationis the The most importantcharacteristic of world the surrounding through a concrete perceiving depiction is directly linked to the principleof consciousness.This characteristic fortuitousnessin Chekhov's artisticsystem. The world, described from some abstract position by an omniscient author, appears in itssubstantive form.But the world,seen bya particularobserver,who is far fromomniscient, and whose vantage point depends upon many in the often unexpected causes, appears to the reader foreshortened in An which mostfortuitous is a ways. object presentedby description importantdetails freelycombine withminor,temporaryones, which are there only because theyentered the observer'sfield of vision. The real observersees the world not in its qualityof timelessness, but at everymomentof its existence. He does not see the finalresult of processes, a resultwhich would force him to see and select in the processes themselvesonly the most importantand decisive aspects. comThe process unfoldsbefore his eyes,displayingall its fortuitous plexity. For thisreason the emergence of objectivenarrationin Chekhov's landmarknot only significant prose in the mid-1880s is an extremely in the evolutionof the narrationitself.The developmentof objective of the principleof fortunarrationis at the same time the formation itous representation.The hegemony of the objective manner in the of thisprinciple, period from 1888 to 1894 signifiedthe affirmation which could develop fullyonly on the basis of narrativeof thiskind. The furtherevolution of the narration did not influence the new manner of representation-as we have seen, the narratortook over the role of the real perceivingfigure. The second most significant characteristic of Chekhovian narrator-is also directly narration-the absence of an authoritative In objecresponsible for the creation of the effectof fortuitousness. tive Chekhovian narrationof the second period, there is no person, close to or even equal to the author, to pass sentence,make an open choice, summarize,explain, and therebyreveal the purpose for the of the artistic system.This situationdoes not particularconstruction of career when the narrative Chekhov's in final decade the change For the narratorof the third period is structurebecomes different. who assumes rightsto total omalso not an authoritarianstoryteller niscience and explicitgeneralization.
THE POETICS OF CHEKOV
379
All these major characteristics of Chekhovian narrationare manifestations on the narrative level of the principle, universal in of fortuity. Chekhov's artistic system, In the general impressioncreated by an artistic the role of system, narrationis unique. All other devices, whichcreate the artistic effect needed, are discrete.Each acts in turn. By givinga selectionof "fortuitous" details, or by extinguishingthe events in an episode, the author can fora time leave the expositionfree of a particulardevice. Narration, however, cannot be interrupted.And it is preciselythe narrationwhichfillsall the "voids" whicharise because of the discrete characterof the other devices. Unlike all the other means, and alone among them, it affectsthe reader at every moment of his reading. Thus the "absence of author" in the Chekhovian narration in the second period is evident not only on every page and in every paragraph,but in everyword of the text;everyword remindsthe reader of it. And Chekhov's narration is the firstlink in the chain, the first whichwillbe created component of thatimpressionof fortuitousness that secure as a resultof the action of all levels of the artisticsystem, the the which sensed on reader, base, constantly patternof a new by vision of the world is woven. Thus in the artistic systemwe have examined, there is revealed an of all levels, the narrative, the object and the plotisomorphism thematiclevels, and the level of ideas. On all these levels a single constructive principleis operativein the selectionand organizationof material for the world to be depicted. This is the new principle of introduced into literatureby Chekhov. artistic representation
GORKY INSTITUTE OF WORLD LITERATURE,
Moscow
(Translated byJulian Graffy)

NOTES tvorchestva 1 M. M. Bakhtin,Problemy poetiki Dostoevskogo (Leningrad, 1929); Problemy Poetics(Ann Arbor, (Moscow, 1963): in English, Problems Dostoevskogo of Dostoevsky's 1973). 2 Cf. the reconstruction of Kant's antinomies in The Brothers Karamazov in Ya. E. i Kant (Moscow, 1963). Golosovker,Dostoevsky 3 [All translations fromChekhov's worksare mine. Tr.] 4 [An allusion to Gogol's Selected withFriends,tr. Jesse PassagesfromCorrespondence Zeldin (Nashville, 1969), letter21, "What the Wife of a ProvincialGovernor Is" (letter to A. O. Smirnova). Tr.] 5 [Fedor Nikiforovich Plevako (1842-1909), barristerfamed for his oratory.Tr.] 6 V. B. Kataev, "Geroi i ideya v proizvedeniyakh Chekhova 90-kh godov" [Hero and
380
NEW LITERARY HISTORY
idea in Chekhov's works of the 1890s], in Vestnik universiteta [Bulletin of Moskovskogo No. 6 (1968), p. 36. Moscow University], 7 This sentence was excluded by the censor when the storywas published in Russkie Vedomosti (25 Dec. 1894, No. 356), and itsexact place in the texthas not yetbeen clearly established. 8 ArthurLuther,Geschichte derrussischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1924), p. 382. 9 ErnestSimmons,Dostoevski: TheMakingofa Novelist (London and New York, 1940), p. 61.

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The Poetics of Chekhov: The Sphere of Ideas Author(s): A. P.

The Poetics of Chekhov: The Sphere of Ideas*

haveequal weight notonlyin a singlelogicalconstruct, butalso in a whole: singlesyntactical

and so on. By conMezzanine),Sasha (A Marriageable Girl) [Nevesta],

THE POETICS OF CHEKHOV

THE POETICS OF CHEKOV

(Translated byJulian Graffy)

NEW LITERARY HISTORY

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