The Seagull, Anton Chekhov - Donald Rayfield (essay date 1999)
Donald Rayfield (essay date 1999)
SOURCE: Rayfield, Donald. “The Seagull.” In his Understanding Chekhov: A Critical Study of Chekhov's Prose and Drama, pp. 135-49. Madison: University Press of Wisconsin, 1999.
[In the following essay, Rayfield puts Chekhov into historical context to explain the importance of his plays, particularly The Seagull, to the evolution of the theater.]
To understand what made Chekhov's plays of such importance to European theatre, we must look at developments—apart from accidents of history—in a European context. Chekhov's reading was unexpectedly varied. In the 1890s he became familiar not only with Hauptmann and Ibsen, but also with Strindberg (Miss Julie in a manuscript translation by Shavrova) and with Maeterlinck (during his 1897-8 stay in Nice). New drama took over Europe's theatres as melodrama and opera yielded. Beginning with Hauptmann's Lonely People Chekhov was drawn...
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