Donald Rayfield
Autore di Stalin e i suoi boia: una analisi del regime e della psicologia stalinisti
Sull'Autore
Donald Rayfield is Emeritus Professor of Russia and Georgian in the Department of Russia, Queen Mary University of London. He has published the standard history of Georgia's literature and is editor-in-chief of the immense Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary. His Stalin and His Hangmen (2004) mostra altro has been translated into nine languages. With 28 illustrations and 6 maps mostra meno
Opere di Donald Rayfield
Opere correlate
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: Selected Stories of Nikolai Leskov (2020) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni — 69 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Rayfield, Donald
- Data di nascita
- 1942
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di residenza
- London, England, UK
- Istruzione
- Dulwich College, London
Magdalene College, Cambridge University - Attività lavorative
- Professor of Russian, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London
- Organizzazioni
- Queen Mary, University of London
University of Queensland - Premi e riconoscimenti
- Officer of the Order of the British Empire
- Breve biografia
- Born in 1942, educated at Dulwich College and the University of Cambridge, for most of his life Donald has been a lecturer and a Professor of Russian. In 1973, he first visited Georgia and has since written a history of Georgian literature, edited a Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary and, recently, published a history of Georgia.
He is also the author of a biography of Anton Chekhov and a study of Stalin and his Hangmen, both of which have been translated into other languages, including Russian. He has translated a number of Russian and Georgian poets, playwrights and prose writers. He is now an emeritus professor, but continues research. He lives in Kent and has a passion for horticulture, especially exotic trees.
http://www.tedxtbilisi.com/?31/bios/
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
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Statistiche
- Opere
- 18
- Opere correlate
- 12
- Utenti
- 478
- Popolarità
- #51,587
- Voto
- 4.0
- Recensioni
- 13
- ISBN
- 53
- Lingue
- 5
- Preferito da
- 3
Having read "The Cherry Orchard", and having seen two performances of it by video, I found the Twayne analysis to be rather helpful to my understanding of the play. The first chapter places the play in the context of Chekhov's life, career, and sociopolitical perspective. Chapter 2 proposes that "The Cherry Orchard" is important for 3 reasons: first for "its intrinsic textual richness, its linguistic power, and subtlety as a piece of dramatic prose"; second because of "its position in Russian cultural history as the culmination of all 'realist' nineteenth century fiction and as the first classic of an arguably new 'symbolist' or 'absurdist' literature; and third, because of its role in the history of 20th century drama. Each of these three aspects illustrate the difficulty for those not fluent in Russian, since so much of the play's deeper meanings seem to be lost in translation. Even in its original language, the subtlety and complexity of the play defies understanding; witness the conflict between Chekhov on the one hand and the play's first director and actors, as to whether it is best presented as a comedy or a tragedy (a duality reflected in the subtitle of the present work). Analyses of the four acts of the play highlighted the difficulties. So much reportedly depended on sound effects, use of long pauses, and subtle inflections of speech, yet Chekhov offered but minimal stage directions. Little wonder that the play's directors weren't often successful at carrying out the playwright's actual intentions. Beyond the analyses of the four acts of the plays, I found the intertextual analysis to be useful, in drawing parallels with Chekhov's other plays and with dramatic works by other authors.
At first reading (or viewing), "The Cherry Orchard" is deceptive -- it appears more simple than it is. For readers seeking to understand the subtleties and nuances of this complex play, Rayfield's analysis is likely to be of some value. For my part, it helped choose between the poles of "catastrophe and comedy". It is both, and best characterized as a tragicomedy, one reflective of its author's compassion and affectionate understanding of the hapless people who populate his play. With this perspective, I recommend the 1981 video with Judi Dench as Madame Ranevsky over the 1999 one with Charlotte Rampling and Alan Bates. The latter misses the comedic elements and presents the story as more of a tragedy than the author apparently ever intended.… (altro)