A Month in the Country - Hardcover

Ivan Turgenev; Turgenev, Ivan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670487058 ISBN 13: 9780670487059

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1982

Synopsis

"In my opinion ...every love, happy as well as unhappy, is real disaster when you give yourself over to it entirely." This heart-felt sentiment expressed by Turgenev's unfortunate character, Rakitin, sums up the central predicament of this, Turgenev's most celebrated play, completed in 1850 during the period of his extensive travels abroad. Probably drawn from his experiences of frustration and unhappiness at the hands of the famous Pauline Viardot, "A Month in the Country" explores the complexities of that most universal of themes, the eternal love triangle, and transforms what could be termed an almost hackneyed subject into a brilliant tragi-comedy. With his fresh and subtle play of paradox and a new psychological penetration into character that anticipates the theatre of Chekhov, Turgenev creates a dramatic "month" which surely realizes Henry James' evaluation of the writer as "beautiful genius".

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, Russian (translation)

Review:

Comedy in three acts by Ivan Turgenev, published in 1855 and first produced professionally in 1872 as Mesyats v derevne. The play concerns complications that ensue when Natalya, a married woman, and Vera, her young ward, both fall in love with Belyayev, the naive young tutor of Natalya's son. Considered Turgenev's dramatic masterpiece, the work presaged the psychological realism of Anton Chekhov's plays. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0670487058
• ISBN 13: 9780670487059
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 127