William Shakespeare

Reading notes

• The Baron §23 Shakespeare

  William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the English playwright whose Hamlet the Baron reveres above all roles and whose honor he imagines himself defending.

• The Duel §117 Shakespeare

  William Shakespeare, invoked by Laevsky as the authority behind his self-comparison to Hamlet's indecision.

• To M. P. Chekhov, 1879. Taganrog. §3 Shakespeare

  William Shakespeare, invoked as the standard of literary greatness against which Chekhov measures Cervantes.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17–18 April 1883. Moscow. §8 Shakespeare

  William Shakespeare, paired with Newton as the standard of supreme creative achievement that Chekhov claims no woman has reached.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 18 February 1889. Moscow. §4 Even Shakespeare never had to hear the sort of speeches I have heard.

  A hyperbolic comparison invoking Shakespeare as the standard of literary greatness, used here self-mockingly to suggest that the praise and blame Chekhov received over "Ivanov" exceeded even what a genius might expect.

• To N. M. Yezhov, 7 January 1892. Petersburg. §5 помните шекспировское знаменитое выражение: "Мне не дорог твой подарок, дорога твоя любовь"

  A proverbial Russian tag routinely attributed to Shakespeare in period usage ("I do not value the gift, but the love is dear") -- close in sense to Ophelia's line in Hamlet IV.5, "rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind," but not a direct quotation from any single English original. Suvorina cites it exactly as the Russian proverbial phrasing gives it, and the translation here renders that Russian wording only, not any specific English Shakespeare source text -- see the allusions entry for this loc, which records the citation as a folk-proverbial attribution rather than a verified textual quotation.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 27 May 1891. Bogimovo. §6 Shakespeare's heroines are all between fourteen and sixteen

  Chekhov's third literary example in the same rebuttal, generalizing (loosely) about the youth of Shakespeare's heroines to round out his case against Suvorin's moralizing.

• The Head Gardener's Story §4 In this wicked, depraved age, even virtue must ask pardon of vice

  The neighbor's quotation renders a Russian translation of Hamlet, Act III, scene 4 (Hamlet to Gertrude: in most English texts, close to 'virtue itself of vice must pardon beg'), used here as ready-made, slightly pompous ammunition for his complaint about lenient Russian courts. The mismatch between the line's original context (a son's private reproach to his mother) and its use here (a general complaint about the state of the nation's morals) is typical of how Chekhov's minor characters wield literary quotation as social performance rather than considered argument.

• Talent §31 collars a la Shakespeare

  Loose, open collars styled after period portraits and stage costumes of Shakespeare were a recognizable affectation among self-consciously artistic young men in 1880s Russia, signaling literary pretension through costume rather than accomplishment.

• Notebooks. Diaries §86 Hamlet

  Shakespeare's tragic prince, invoked here for his speech on the terrors of the afterlife (Hamlet's soliloquy "To be or not to be"); Chekhov turns the thought back on life itself.

• Notebooks. Diaries §3785 Shakespeare, Homer

  William Shakespeare, listed with Homer, Hugo and Dickens (\S3786) as "undisturbing" classic reading -- the joke is on the shallow reader who prizes them for comfort rather than substance.

• A Woman's Toast §4 Shakespeare

  Invoked (and immediately contradicted) as the authority behind the dismissive view of women that the speaker's own toast sets out to overturn.