Chekhov's contribution to the literary world

Chekhov is a rare artist in the world literary world. Whether it is a novel or a script, he has a unique way and his artistic achievements are superb and universally recognized. As for Chekhov's novels, lev tolstoy said: "He created new forms, so I am sure that Chekhov is far superior to me in technology." ! ..... This is an unparalleled artist. " \

Anton pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860. He jokingly said, "I have farmer's blood in my veins." His ancestors were serfs. It was not until 184 1 year that his grandfather exchanged a ransom of 3,500 rubles for the personal freedom of himself and his family and stopped being a serf. 1844, the writer's father came to Taganrog as a shop assistant. Ten years later, he opened his own small grocery store, and later went bankrupt because of poor management. In order to avoid debt, he quietly went to Moscow to make a living. Later, the family moved to Moscow one after another, leaving only Chekhov to complete his middle school studies in Taganrog. He lives by teaching houses and has a hard time. 1879, Chekhov entered Moscow University to study medicine. 1884 After graduating from university, he practiced medicine near Moscow and had the opportunity to meet farmers, landlords, officials and teachers from all walks of life.

1880 On March 9th, the 10th issue of the humorous magazine Dragonfly published Chekhov's short story A Letter to a Learned Neighbor and humorous prose What are the most common novels and novellas? This is the beginning of Chekhov's literary career. At that time, Russia was in a period when reactionary forces were rampant, social atmosphere was suffocating, progressive ideas were imprisoned, and vulgar and boring books and newspapers came into being. Young and inexperienced, Chekhov was once forced to cater to fashion and published a lot of funny stories under many different pseudonyms, among which In Hypnosis Show and Surgery are one of these sketches. But he talked about his difficulties in a letter: "It is difficult to tell the truth and blindly pursue humor! "Sometimes you just pursue humor, write something at random and even make yourself sick!"

Chekhov soon jumped out of the low-level boring funny circle. Since 1883, he has written many humorous masterpieces under the pseudonym of Chehongte Hungary, such as On a Nail, The Death of a Shopkeeper, Fat Man and Thin Man, Chameleon, Premeditated Criminals, Sergeant Prishbeyev and so on. These excellent humorous short stories by Hungarian writer Hong are profound in content and perfect in form. "Nailed on a Nail" and "Death of a Shop Assistant" show the ugliness of Russia. The strong is arrogant and overbearing, and the weak is Nuo Nuo. The maggot-like surname of chervyakov chervyakov is made up of the Russian word чepвь. Its slave psychology is the product of this kind of official life. Thin people and fat people have been good friends since childhood. After a long separation, they hugged and kissed, and their eyes were full of tears. However, the thin man who had been an eighth-class civil servant for two years learned that the fat man was a second-class and third-class civil servant, and suddenly he turned pale and "curled up in a ball and bent over half short", which was well deserved. The chameleon, written in 1884, tells readers that the dogs kept by czar Russian generals are also more important than ordinary people. Inspector Ochamelov and others fawned on powerful dogs, but bared their teeth to the people. The chameleon is a mirror Chekhov gave to the world. Today, more than a hundred years later, some modern people still have the servility of chameleon.

During the period from 1884 to 1886, Chekhov began to turn his attention to ordinary workers and describe their miserable lives, and wrote excellent short stories such as Oyster, Sorrow, Distress, Geisha and Wanka. The singer described how "upper class" shamelessly humiliated a helpless singer. Distress is an ideological and artistic leap in Chekhov's early creation, and its ending (people complaining to horses) strongly exaggerates czarist Russia's indifference to the world. Wanka can be said to be a distressed partner. The naive mind of a nine-year-old child laborer, the hardships of his apprenticeship, and his attachment to his grandfather and his hometown are all subtly intertwined and infiltrated each other in the works with limited space, leaving a deep impression on readers.

Painful, Wanka and other works show that Chekhov has formed a new genre of short stories-lyric psychological short stories. This kind of works is based on ordinary daily life phenomena, with objective and implicit narrative style, cleverly constructed artistic details and carefully outlined life background, which not only shows the psychological state of the characters, but also reflects the important aspects of social life, while the writer's strong emotions are flatly melted into all the image systems of the works.

Since the second half of 1980s, Chekhov's reputation has been increasing day by day. 1888 10, Russian Imperial Academy awarded him Pushkin Prize. It was only eight and a half years from the publication of The First Little Thing to the Pushkin Prize. Chekhov, a little-known figure in Russian literature, became a "red man" in Petersburg. From this period, Chekhov began to write plays. One-act light comedies such as Fool, Proposal, Marriage and Memorial Day are similar in content and technique to Holt's early Hungarian humorous works, and some of them are even adapted from his own short stories. In Ivanov, Chekhov created a "superfluous man" in the 1980s.

The dirty reality and his growing reputation and status made Chekhov uneasy, and he became more and more strict with himself. He is eager for a "clear world view". He understood a truth: If there is no "clear world outlook", then "conscious life … is not life, but a burden and a terrible thing". In the novella Plain Story, it is not difficult for us to grasp Chekhov's mood and understanding. The Jumping Woman vividly shows the ridiculous and pitiful soul of a vain and heartless woman.

/kloc-in the spring of 0/890, Chekhov, who was sickly, came all the way from Wan Li to Sakhalin Island where the czar government exiled and punished prisoners. This is a "hell" on earth, where Chekhov witnessed all kinds of barbarism, pain and disasters, which made him increasingly alienated and even denied Tolstoy's philosophy that occupied his mind for 67 years. 1892, The Sixth Ward and Exile came out. Chekhov not only criticized the resignation of anti-evil, but also denied the asceticism of ascetics and the pessimistic attitude of seeing through the world of mortals. The Sixth Ward is a work with profound thoughts and perfect art. First of all, Chekhov skillfully interweaves the descriptions of "crazy" gromov and "smart" gromov, and skillfully arranges the debate between "crazy" gromov and "healthy" Dr. larkin, which naturally gives readers an impression that in czarist Russia, people who are good at thinking and dare to speak out are regarded as "crazy". What happened to Dr. Larkin, who was honest and kind but didn't know life, set off and strengthened the reader's impression: just because Larkin had talked with gromov several times, he was even treated as a mental patient and was locked up in the sixth ward until he died there. Larkin's experience shows that Tolstoy and all those who advocate giving up the struggle are doomed to failure.

The Sixth District is a turning point in Chekhov's creative development. From the publication of 1892 to the publication of his death work Bride in 1903, Chekhov's artistic activities reached the peak.

In the 1990s, the social, political and economic contradictions in Russia intensified. Under the new historical conditions, Chekhov actively participated in social activities. 1892, he provided relief in Nizhny Novgorod and Voronezh provinces. From 1892 to 1893, he took part in the battle against cholera in Sherpukhov County. He participated in the population census of 1897; 1898, supporting the just action of the French writer Zola in defending the innocent Jewish officer Dreyfus; 1900 In February, he arranged for Larkin, a political exile and social Democrat, to enter the sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in Yalta for treatment and recuperation. 1in the spring of 902, together with Korolenko, he protested that the Academy of Sciences had revoked Gorky's honorary academician title because it succumbed to Tsar Nicholas II's brutal intervention. From 1902 to 1904, he gave material support to college students persecuted by the czar government more than once ... A series of facts show that with the development of the Russian revolutionary movement in that year, Chekhov's democratic stance and thoughts became more and more firm, which is the ideological premise of his later novels and dramas.

Chekhov's novel and drama creation entered its heyday at this time. His short stories cover many important issues in social life. For example, The Farmer, New Villa, Business Travel and In the Canyon depict the poverty, backwardness and ignorance in rural Russia at that time, show the disparity and contradiction between the rich and the poor in rural areas, and reflect the spontaneous dissatisfaction and disgust of ignorant and closed workers.

Capitalism developed rapidly in Russia in the 1990s, which improved the productivity of industry and agriculture and the level of science and technology, but at the same time it also brought disasters and sufferings to the working people. Chekhov reflected this point with his unique brushwork in The Kingdom of Women, Three Years and Visiting the Doctor. This factory gives a hellish impression. Just like a "devil" staring at two red eyes, the factory owner is an "exploiter" who is "devouring other people's lives and sucking the blood of workers". But under Chekhov's pen, not only the workers suffered, but also the owners of those huge wealth were unhappy. Chekhov was limited by his universal democratic stand and viewpoint, and failed to reveal the essence of capitalist exploitation. In his works, capitalism is a kind of "dominant force that is out of life, irrelevant to people and of unknown origin". Under the control of this kind of power, people "submit" to it, forming a mutual relationship of "the strong and the weak suffer together". Because Chekhov did not understand the working class, his exposure of capitalist exploitation and his description of workers were very one-sided. The workers in his works are weak and closed, and even they have to take off their hats and bow when they see the owner's horse. From this perspective, it makes sense for fadeev to say that he doesn't like some of Chekhov's works.

With the rapid development of capitalism, the evil forces of money have penetrated into every corner of Russian social life, and the habits of ordinary citizens have mercilessly corroded people's hearts. Chekhov has always been a severe critic of vulgar habits, and Gorky called him "the enemy of vulgarity". In Yao Neiqi, Gooseberry and Anna in the Neck, he exposed vulgarity with sharper brushstrokes and lashed the intellectuals who were mentally degraded.

History shows that the Great Revolution of 1905 was brewing in Russia at the end of last century and the beginning of this century, and there was a strong feeling in society that "we can't live like this any more". Chekhov artistically reflected this social sentiment in many of his works. The trapped man, the light bulb, the woman with the dog, the Chinese teacher, the home visit, the business trip, the new villa, the farmer, the bride and other works reflect extremely different life phenomena, but they are all permeated with the social sentiment of "can't live like this any more". If Chekhov is interested in the doctor Yao Neiqi and the owner of gooseberry Chi Musha? Himalayaski, a selfish mediocrity, holds a ruthless negative attitude, so he enthusiastically praises those intellectuals who are determined to get rid of vulgar and parasitic life and yearn for a better and brighter future. For example, Nikitin, a teacher from China, Ivan Ivanich, a veterinarian, Lu, a deputy prosecutor, and Najia, the bride, were all praised by Chekhov. His appreciation of the awakened intellectuals, like his denial of the capitalist "devil" with two red eyes, his exposure of the disparity between the rich and the poor in rural areas, and his anatomy of selfishness and mediocrity, are permeated with his democratic spirit and exude a strong flavor of the times.

Chekhov is an outstanding writer, but he has always been very enthusiastic about public welfare. For example, thanks to his efforts, three quite good schools were established in three villages: Tariege, Novoshorki and Merihovo. For another example, Chekhov kept giving books to some local libraries, and the libraries in Sakhalin, Perm, Sherpukhov and Taganrog all received his books. As we all know, Chekhov studied medicine. He once said in a joking tone that medicine is his "wife" and literature is his "mistress". Dr Chekhov often provides free medical advice and medicines to poor farmers in Merihovo and Yalta. During the cholera epidemic in 1892, he presided over the work of Merihovo Medical Station, and controlled the conditions of 25 villages, 4 factories and a monastery. In just three months, about 1000 patients received his treatment. Chekhov, who is enthusiastic about public welfare, has been practicing one of his lofty beliefs all his life: "The desire to do one's best for public welfare should be an indispensable requirement of the soul and a condition for personal happiness."

1903 1 1 month 10, I wrote to the critic keegan. Chekhov said in Jedlov's letter that he felt depressed and lonely when he was recovering from illness in Yalta. He complained, "I feel that life passes by me and I can't see what I should see as a writer." 1June, 904, Chekhov's condition deteriorated. On his beloved wife Olga Knibir? Accompanied by talented actors from Moscow Art Theatre, he went to Badenville, Germany for treatment. Chekhov died there on July 1998 15. When this outstanding writer was only 44 years old, tuberculosis took his precious life.

Chekhov is a rare artist in the world literary world. Whether it is a novel or a script, he has a unique way and his artistic achievements are superb and universally recognized. As for Chekhov's novels, lev tolstoy said: "He created new forms, so I am sure that Chekhov is far superior to me in technology." ! ..... This is an unparalleled artist. "thomas mann believes that" there is no doubt that Chekhov's art belongs to the most powerful and outstanding category in European literature. Hemingway also spoke highly of Chekhov's art: "People told me that Katherine Manthfield wrote some very good short stories, even some very good short stories, but reading Chekhov's works is like listening to a story told by a clever and knowledgeable doctor, and then listening to a story made up by a young spinster. Known as "Chekhov of Britain", Katherine Manthfield admires Anton pavlovic very much. In a letter to her husband, she said, "I want to exchange all Mo Bosang's works for a short story by Chekhov. "In a reading note written in 192 1, she wrote:" If all the short stories in France were destroyed by fire, and this short story (distress) survived, I won't feel sorry. Mao Dun, a great literary master in China, also called on writers to learn Chekhov's "keen observation", "highly concentrated and generalized artistic expression ability and refined language" in his short stories. Time is fair, judge. Chekhov's novels have stood the test of time for nearly a hundred years and still shine with unique artistic brilliance.

Realism describing the most ordinary things is an important feature of Chekhov's novels. Chekhov always pays attention to the daily life of ordinary people, but he does not describe naturalism and does not fall into the "quagmire" of daily life. He carefully observed and carefully selected life materials, and in the process of creation, he visualized and poeticized life materials, revealing the essence of life from ordinary and seemingly accidental phenomena. Little apprentice Wanka wrote to grandpa, the old driver Yao Na lost his son, the bank clerk Gulov met him, the bride Najia went out to study, the young prosecutor Lu Ren went to the countryside for autopsy, and the doctor Korolev made house calls. These are ordinary people's life experiences, which are neither bizarre nor tortuous. By describing all this, Chekhov successfully showed the symptoms of Russian society at that time from all angles. Facing the society ruled by reactionary, evil and vulgar forces, Chekhov showed his dissatisfaction with the dirty reality, sympathy for the working people and yearning for a better future.

In short stories with limited space, it reveals the psychological activities and personality development of characters, outlines the changing process of their mental outlook, and gives people perfect artistic enjoyment. This unique psychological description is another artistic feature of Chekhov's novels. For example, in The Bride, Chekhov shows readers that Najia experienced a major ideological turning point, which resulted in her moral awakening, and she broke away from it by realizing the shame of a vulgar, boring and unearned parasitic life. In order to reflect the turning point of Najia's thought, Chekhov carefully arranged the scene of visiting the future new house. Chekhov's detailed description of the new house reflects his fiance Andre's hobbies, likes and dislikes, and his feelings about life, which can also be said to be a portrayal of his mind. Najia didn't know much about the inner world of this ordinary citizen at first, but now the layout of the new house and Andre's enthusiastic introduction to the new house let her know his inner world and his life ideal at a glance. It was at this time that Sasha's persuasion played a role in Najia's heart, and Sasha's persuasion became her own determination, breaking with her "unclean and immoral" parasitic life that had never changed in her life. Chekhov has a unique psychological description technique. The space of short stories is limited, so he is not allowed to directly describe and portray the psychological activities of the characters in detail and in many ways. He "tried to make the feelings of the characters clearly visible in their actions". Chekhov has always followed this principle in his creative practice, constantly enriching and enriching this psychological description principle, so that short stories with limited space can show the inner world of the characters and give readers a concrete and profound impression. This is Chekhov's contribution to the treasure house of world literature. In Chekhov's novels, artistic details also play a great role in psychological portrayal. For example, sour gooseberry, and the praise of the landlord Nicola Ivanic, this artistic detail shows the landlord's empty and humble spiritual world very incisively and vividly. Another example is that Yao Neiqi counted money every time in the late Qing Dynasty, which obviously exposed the miser's emptiness and low taste.

Sincere and deep lyricism is another feature of Chekhov's novels. The writer not only truly reflects the social life and feelings, but also describes the awakening or depravity of the characters, and subtly reveals his sympathy and praise for the awakened, his disgust and denial for the degenerates, his yearning for a better future and his attack on ugly phenomena. Lev tolstoy felt the lyrical meaning in Chekhov's novels. He called Chekhov Pushkin who wrote prose. Henri troyat, an academician of the French Academy and a famous writer, said that Chekhov was "the first writer who confided to readers in a low voice". Chekhov himself attaches great importance to the embodiment of the author's personality in his works. He said, "We want people to feel the author in the script. In many scripts that I can understand now, I can't feel the existence of the author. It seems that they are all made by a machine in the factory. " However, Chekhov disapproves of exposing the author's own intentions naked in literary works. The author can cry and groan for his protagonist and suffer with him, but "this should be invisible to readers." Chekhov's ability in this respect is superb. He sincerely expresses his feelings in his works, but he does it skillfully for readers to ponder. He always melts the lyric expression into the image system of his works, and arranges the lyric expression skillfully and reasonably in appropriate occasions, that is, where the life and characters described in his works have prepared mature conditions for lyric expression. Both Goose Berry and Woman with Dog have very timely and appropriate lyric expressions, and they are both strongly critical. In The Bride, the writer's lyricism not only exposes the shameful and dirty life of exploitation, but also reflects his sincere yearning for a better future. Lyricism by borrowing scenery is also a common technique used by the novelist Chekhov, such as the moonlit scenery at the end of The Trapped and the quiet, beautiful and starry night in The Blue Sky in the Canyon.

When talking about Chekhov's novel art, we should not ignore his smile, his humor and satire. Chekhov was born with a strong sense of humor. This innate sense of humor can only produce a smile with aesthetic value if it collides with life phenomena and shows its essence. Chekhov wrote many hilarious jokes and interesting stories in his early creation, such as Surgery, which are all interesting sketches, showing his wit and talent as a fashionable young writer. As time goes by, the writer's understanding of life becomes more and more profound, and there is a layer of bitterness in his laughter. Dennis in premeditated crime is both funny and uncomfortable; There is a slight contempt in the chubby laughter; Works such as "The Chameleon" and "Sergeant Pristina" show that the writer is using laughter as a weapon to satirize the forces that oppress ordinary people. The works describing workers' bad luck, such as oysters, sadness, distress and Wanka, show that the laughter here will arouse readers' sympathy and love for the characters. But Chekhov's mature observation of life is more and more profound. Under his sharp eyes, anything trivial, humble, vulgar, small, dirty and reactionary in a beautiful coat can't be hidden. He can always reveal the inconsistency and contradiction between their phenomena and essence, expose their ugly side, and ridicule or satirize them. In the sixth district, the light bulb and The Trapped, bitter satire is often intertwined with faint humor. Lev tolstoy likes the short story The Jumping Woman very much. It is said that when he read this work, he "laughed very hard and praised:' What a delicate humor!'" " "。 Humor in Jumping Woman, Baby and Anna around the Neck is very delicate, and its expression means are also very common: grasping the inherent inconsistency between the characters' personality and words and deeds, and describing it with normal language means. However, Chekhov used exaggeration in depicting the image of "the trapped". A series of details: from umbrellas, rain boots, suede gloves, black glasses, curtains to coffins all exaggerate Belikov's condoms. However, this exaggeration is different from Saltikoff Shedrin's grotesque irony. It is worth noting that Chekhov's Smile once again proves the democracy of his creation: his smile to the working people is always a kind and compassionate smile, but what he has been mocking and satirizing is all kinds of ugly forces.

Chekhov's novels also have an important feature universally recognized: compactness, conciseness and conciseness, "the content is much more than words". Chekhov himself said, "I am good at short stories." He believes that "the more rigorous and compact, the more expressive and vivid." In order to make the work compact, he advocated "cutting away all unnecessary things with a knife." He said: "You know, carving a face on marble is nothing more than removing all the places on this stone that are not faces." Another of his important insights is: "In short stories, it is better to leave room than to write too much." "The subjective factors lacking in novels will be supplemented by readers themselves." Chekhov conscientiously implemented these ideas in his creative practice, so his short stories and stories are always compact and concise, and his images are always vivid. Reading his works, readers always have room for independent thinking and always have a feeling of endless aftertaste.

When talking about the simplicity of Chekhov's works, we can't ignore another great contribution of the artist Chekhov, that is, he can outline the background of life with short stories. In short stories with limited space, with life as the background, the works have expanded their capacity and can reflect social life more deeply and widely. Chekhov has made great achievements and rich experience in this respect. His conclusion is that in his works, readers should "feel the crowd, atmosphere and background leading to the characters" except the characters. Taking the short story "Business Trip" as an example, the protagonist Lu people saw two worlds and two lives in the countryside, which promoted the awakening of Lu people. At the same time, the rural life picture skillfully outlined by the writer also makes the novel richer in content and more compact in structure, which makes readers deeply feel that "the content is much more than words". Naturally, limited by the characteristics of short story genre, it is impossible for a writer to describe his life background in detail in his works with limited space. He can only make the finishing point and make his works more concise and compact. In some of Chekhov's works, he does not outline the life background around the central figure, but only inserts one or two stories that are not directly related to the plot and the central figure of the novel. For example, in Gooseberry, he tells two stories. One of the stories tells that a businessman mixed all his lottery tickets with money and honey before he died and ate them all at once. The second story is about an animal dealer who is eager to find a broken leg, because there are twenty rubles hidden in the leather boots worn on the broken leg. Although these two stories are not directly related to the central figures in the works, they also form a background, which enables Gooseberry to reflect life more deeply and widely, and reveal a truth more concisely and vividly: the copper smell has eroded many people's souls, and the landlord Chimusha Himala Iaschi is by no means an individual phenomenon. Let's take a look at Yao Neiqi again. The boring life of the vulgar Turks and many guests who often join in the fun at their home also constitute a kind of life background, which vividly and concretely sets off Yao Neiqi's spiritual degeneration. Chekhov's sketch of this life background in his short stories is ingenious.

All Chekhov's works show that he is a unique artist. He has been dead for nearly a hundred years, and his short stories have stood the test of time and become unparalleled treasures and precious heritages in Universal Library.

Chekhov wrote two sentences in his notes: "We are all human beings. The best work we have done is the cause of the people. " It is more appropriate to evaluate this outstanding Russian writer with these two sentences.

Chekhov is a writer of the people, and his excellent works of art are the cause of the people. The moral passion that permeates all his creations (aversion to vulgarity, parasitism and exploitation, sympathy for the miserable life of workers, and yearning for a bright life), and the vivid images he created to criticize the shortcomings of the times (such as "chameleon", "trap man" and "Yao Neiqi"). Today, it still has its artistic charm, and it is still fighting against the vulgar outlook on life of ordinary citizens and bourgeois money worship. Humans will never worship money endlessly, and the light of progressive socialist spiritual civilization will eventually shine on people's hearts. The social significance and artistic value of Chekhov's excellent novels are indelible forever, and his democratic spirit cannot be distorted by any speculative literati.

Chekhov will always be with progressive human beings.