United States or Spain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
These protestations were reënforced by an ardent letter from Countess Tolstoy, the wife of the great author, who reproached Andreyev for having so complacently painted such sombre pictures, with such low and violent scenes, all of which tended to pervert youth. The writers were not the only ones to take offence.
It has acquired a somewhat unaccountable popularity among the budding English intelligentsia. From the literary point of view its value is nil. Artsybashev and Andreyev were very second-rate writers; they had no knowledge of their art and their taste was deplorably bad and crude, but at least they were in a way, sincere, and gave expression to the genuine vacuum and desolation of their hearts.
In "The Lie" Andreyev depicts the pathological process in the soul of a man who, crushed by the falsehood of his own solitary existence, becomes insane at the idea that truth is inaccessible to human reason and that the reign of the Lie is invincible. The hero of "The Thought" reveres but one thing in the world his own thought.
However, these strugglers, so infrequent in the work of Andreyev, have, in spite of all, something sickly and savage in them; instead of real fighting courage, they possess only extreme audaciousness, mystical rapture, or nervous exaltation. The "obscure future" toward which their eyes are turned is not lighted up by the rays of faith and hope.
But these are only the dreams of a dying man, the last rays of light of the life which is being extinguished. The ray, penetrating this sick soul, is like the weak sunlight which passes through the dirty windows of a dark hovel. In his two stories, "The Stranger" and "The Obscure Future," Andreyev shows us two men of entirely different character, animated by generous feelings and a firm will.
III. #Translations# #When the King Loses His Head, and Other Stories#, by Leonid Andreyev. In previous years I have called attention to other selections of Andreyev's stories. The present collection includes the best from the other volumes, with some new material. "Judas Iscariot" and "Lazarus" are the best of the prose poems.
Andreyev's father, who was a geometrician, died while he was still at school, and the family was without resources. The young man did not hesitate, however, in setting out for St. Petersburg, where he entered the university, hoping to gain a livelihood by giving lessons. But it was hard to secure what he wanted. "I knew what terrible misery was," Andreyev tells us; "during my first years in St.
In general, the stories of Andreyev, after passing through various catastrophes, lead the reader back to this theme, the moral isolation of a human being, who feels that the world has become deserted, and life a game of shadows. The abyss which separates Andreyev's heroes from other men makes them weak, numb, and miserable.
Andreyev, in writing it, has come very near to solving the question of the meaning of life, and its justification.
His heroes take refuge in half-crumbled castles, they look at the reader from the top of craggy rocks, whither their love of solitude has led them; even death itself is not a repulsive skeleton, but rather a majestic form, full of grandiose mystery. Andreyev, on the other hand, but rarely breaks the bounds which unite him to reality.
Word Of The Day