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Chapter 22 - Embarrassment

from Part IV - Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2023

By
Caryl Emerson
Edited by
Yuri Corrigan
Yuri Corrigan
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Summary

Caryl Emerson distinguishes Chekhov from the nineteenth-century Russian prose tradition of Gogol and Dostoevsky through his specific evocation of embarrassment, an emotion so ubiquitous in Chekhov’s writing as to become fused with his poetics and his worldview. While Dostoevsky and Tolstoy built their plots on more assertive acts and emotions, Chekhov, as Emerson shows, runs his path to redemption and discovery through the moral capacity to cringe at one’s own words and behavior.

Keywords

ChekhovRussian literatureembarrassmentshameDostoevskyGogol
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Chapter
Information
Chekhov in Context , pp. 170 - 176
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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