Prose Class with Helen Hagemann, Friday 14th November

Friday, 14^th November is Prose with

Helen Hagemann @ the Fremantle Arts Centre:  Helen’s start will be directly after lunch in Room 3

1.00pm-3.00pm

This workshop is called “Secrets & Dramatic Irony”.  Writing exercises and our readings will include part of Anton Chekhov’s story The Lady with the Dog (dramatic irony). This is the last teaching class for the year as we will have readings of our Spilt Ink Winners, plus all who would like to participate in our final class for the year on

28^th November.

 

 

"The Lady with the Dog" (Russian: Дама с собачкой, Dama s sobachkoy)^[1] is a short story by Anton Chekhov first published in 1899. It tells the story of an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a young lady he meets while vacationing in Yalta. The story comprises four parts: part I describes the initial meeting in Yalta, part II the consummation of the affair and the remaining time in Yalta, part III Gurov's return to Moscow and his visit to Anna's town, and part IV Anna's visits to Moscow. Vladimir Nabokov declared that it was one of the greatest short stories ever written.^[2]

 

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov was a part-time assistant in his father's business and also a singer in a church choir. At age 15, he was abandoned by his bankrupt father and lived alone for 3 years while finishing the Classical Gymnazium in Taganrog. Chekhov obtained a scholarship at the Moscow University Medical School in 1879, from which he graduated in 1884 as a Medical Doctor. He practiced general medicine for about ten years.

While a student, Chekhov published numerous short stories and humorous sketches under a pseudonym. He reserved his real name for serious medical publications, saying "medicine is my wife; literature - a mistress." While a doctor, he kept writing and had success with his first books, and his first play "Ivanov." He gradually decreased his medical practice in favour of writing. Chekhov created his own style based on objectivity, brevity, originality, and compassion. It was different from the mainstream Russian literature's scrupulous analytical depiction of "heroes." Chekhov used a delicate fabric of hints, subtle nuances in dialogs, and precise details. He described his original style as an "objective manner of writing." He avoided stereotyping and instructive political messages in favour of cool comic irony. Praised by writers Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, he was awarded the Pushkin Prize from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1888.

 

Reference:  Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_with_the_Dog

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