„Tajemnica owa wielka jest” – Antoniego Czechowa polemika z love story

Abstract

This article intends to analyze Chekhov’s literary works with love themes from the point of view of P. C. Hogan's Literary Universals Theory. The Russian writer is aware of what universal narrations based on emotions are, and he argues with them in his works. During the first stage of this polemic, the notion of love is portrayed in a comic way. Chekhov makes mockery of the usual stylistic patterns and he presents the triumph of material wealth over the feelings. During the maturity stage of his writing, the polem ic aims to evoke the reflection and also to refresh the emotional reception of the reader. In his literary works, e.g. About Love or A Woman's Kingdom, Chekhov exposes to what extent the literary stories on feelings can shape the reader’s and hero’s expectations against the development of love relationship. In the Chekhov’s story titled The Lady with the Dog, for the first time active characters are introduced, whose love is free from the imposed norms and expectations, and thanks to this a new stage of modernist explorations in Russian literature begins.