Chekhov on Writing

Anton Chekhov born January 29 1860, Taganrog, Russia – died July 1904, Badenweiler, (Germany) was a Russian playwright and master of the modern short story.He was a literary artist of laconic precision who probed below the surface of life, laying bare the secret motives of his characters. Chekhov’s best plays and short stories lack complex plots and neat solutions. Concentrating on apparent trivialities, they create a special kind of atmosphere, sometimes termed haunting or lyrical.He is known for the principle in drama called Chekhov’s Gun, which asserts that every element introduced in a story should be necessary to the plot, and he frequently illustrated the principle by using a gun as an example of an essential element. Chekhov described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, and he is regarded as the outstanding representative of the late 19th-century Russian realist school.

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