Chronology Entry
Year
1920
Text
Mao, Dun. Andeliefu [ID D37670].
Mao Dun argued that the defeatist tone in Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev's works was the natural flavor of literature after great changes and calamities. He was for him the spokesman of his age, when the boredom, disappointment and despondency of young people in Russia reached its peak, especially after their defeat in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904.
Mao Dun schreibt über To the stars : drama in four acts von Leonid Andreyev : "To the stars asks stoically for the meaning of life, but the whole play is steeped in pessimism, offering no solution. Look at the astronomer in the play. He detests the life of the common people, he says that they are like wax men, lifeless and soulless. He researches in astronomy, and feels the world beyond this world in full of wonderment, and that affairs in this world cannot be compared to it. He says : 'In our world someone dies every second, and in the universe probably a world is destroyed every second. How can I cry and fall into despair on account of the death of one man ?' So he is practically unmoved by the death of his own son. But he is unable to alleviate his wife's sorrow for her son, or his daughter-in-law's sorrow for her husband. Andreyev announces through this play the conflicts between emotion and ideals in life. The astronomer's solution is beyond normal thinking. What he seeks is an abstract world, one that not everybody can understand."
Mao Dun argued that the defeatist tone in Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev's works was the natural flavor of literature after great changes and calamities. He was for him the spokesman of his age, when the boredom, disappointment and despondency of young people in Russia reached its peak, especially after their defeat in the Russo-Japanese war in 1904.
Mao Dun schreibt über To the stars : drama in four acts von Leonid Andreyev : "To the stars asks stoically for the meaning of life, but the whole play is steeped in pessimism, offering no solution. Look at the astronomer in the play. He detests the life of the common people, he says that they are like wax men, lifeless and soulless. He researches in astronomy, and feels the world beyond this world in full of wonderment, and that affairs in this world cannot be compared to it. He says : 'In our world someone dies every second, and in the universe probably a world is destroyed every second. How can I cry and fall into despair on account of the death of one man ?' So he is practically unmoved by the death of his own son. But he is unable to alleviate his wife's sorrow for her son, or his daughter-in-law's sorrow for her husband. Andreyev announces through this play the conflicts between emotion and ideals in life. The astronomer's solution is beyond normal thinking. What he seeks is an abstract world, one that not everybody can understand."
Mentioned People (2)
Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich
(Orel, Russland 1871-1919 Mustamäki, Finnland) : Russischer Schriftsteller, Dichter, Dramatiker
Mao, Dun
(Wuzhen, Zhejiang 1896-1981 Beijing) : Schriftsteller, Übersetzer
Subjects
Literature : China
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Literature : Occident : Russia
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Periods : China : Republic (1912-1949)
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Translator
Documents (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1988 | Ng, Mau-sang. The Russian hero in modern Chinese fiction. (Hong Kong : The Chinese University Press, 1988). (SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture). S. 76, S. 160. | Publication / Ng1 |
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