The theme of theater in Chekhov's collection "tales of Melpomene"

Piao Huimin

This article is devoted to the analysis of the theme of theater in the first collection of Chekhov's "Tales of Melpomene." The problems of "people of art" in the cultural and artistic community of the 1880s are touched upon. The relevance of this work lies in the fact that so far there have been many studies on the relationship between Chekhov and theater, but there has never been any research work devoted to the study of theater as a specific topic. Scientific novelty is distinguished by the fact that previous studies of this aspect are of a biographical nature, that is, when discussing the theme of theater, the authors associate it with the life of the writer. However, all the attention of this work is exclusively drawn to the discussion of the theatrical theme only in the literary works of Chekhov. The purpose of this article is to form a clear and complete understanding of the theatrical theme in five works, as well as to reveal Chekhov's views on this topic. To achieve this goal, the author focused on the analysis of various images in the text, characterized their features in the manifestation of the theme, and concludes that the young writer is rather critical of the theater in the early period of creativity, therefore, the embodiment of the theme of the theater in the first collection of the writer is a kind of tragic-comic character.

Keywords:Russian literature of the XIX century, the work of Chekhov, the collection "Tales of Melpomene", the theme of theater