Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - The Russian Drama - Anton Tchekhof - The Cherry Orchard
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
290 Anton Tchekhof
THE CHERRY ORCHARD
"
THE CHERRY ORCHARD "
is Tchekhofs pro
phetic song. In this play he depicts three stages
of social development and their reflex in literature.
Mme. Ranevsky, the owner of the cherry or
chard, an estate celebrated far and wide for its
beauty and historic traditions, is deeply attached to
the family place. She loves it for its romanticism :
nightingales sing in the orchard, accompanying the
wooing of lovers. She is devoted to it because of
the memory of her ancestors and because of the
many tender ties which bind her to the orchard.
The same feeling and reverence is entertained by
her brother Leonid Gayef. They are expressed in
the Ode to an Old Family Cupboard:
Gayef. Beloved and venerable cupboard; honor and
glory to your existence, which for more than a hundred
years has been directed to the noble ideals of justice and
virtue. Your silent summons to profitable labor has never
weakened in all these hundred years. You have upheld
the courage of succeeding generations of human kind;
you have upheld faith in a better future and cherished in
us ideals of goodness and social consciousness.
But the social consciousness of Gayef and of his
sister is of a paternal nature: the attitude of the
aristocracy toward its serfs. It is a paternalism
that takes no account of the freedom and happiness
of the people, the romanticism of a dying class.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
