Introduction and Persons of the Play - Page 2

In one respect Gorky and Andreyev are completely at one--in their bold aggressiveness. The emphatic tone, the attitude of attack, first introduced into Russian literature by Gorky, was soon adopted by most of his young contemporaries, and became the characteristic mark of the literature of the Revolution. By that token the literature of Young Russia of that day is as easily recognized as is the English literature of the Dryden and Pope epoch by its sententiousness. It contrasts sharply with the tone of passive resignation and hopelessness of the preceding period. Even Chekhov, the greatest representative of what may be called the period of despondence, was caught by the new spirit of optimism and activism, so that he reflected clearly the new influence in his later works. But while in Gorky the revolt is chiefly social--manifesting itself through the world of the submerged tenth, the disinherited masses, les misérables, who, becoming conscious of their wrongs, hurl defiance at their oppressors, make mock of their civilization, and threaten the very foundations of the old order--Andreyev transfers his rebellion to the higher regions of thought and philosophy, to problems that go beyond the merely better or worse social existence, and asks the larger, much more difficult questions concerning the general destiny of man, the meaning of life and the reason for death.

Social problems, it is true, also interest Andreyev. "The Red Laugh" is an attack on war through a portrayal of the ghastly horrors of the Russo-Japanese War; "Savva," one of the plays of this volume, is taken bodily (with a poet's license, of course) from the actual revolutionary life of Russia; "King Hunger" is the tragedy of the uprising of the hungry masses and the underworld. Indeed, of the works written during the conflict and for some time afterward, all centre more or less upon the social problems which then agitated Russia. But with Andreyev the treatment of all questions tends to assume a universal aspect. He envisages phenomena from a broad, cosmic point of view; he beholds things sub specie aeternitatis. The philosophical tendency of his mind, though amply displayed even in works like "Savva"--which is purely a character and social drama--manifests itself chiefly by his strong propensity for such subjects as those treated in "To the Stars," "The Life of Man," and "Anathema." In these plays Andreyev plunges into the deepest problems of existence, and seeks to posit once more and, if possible, to solve in accordance with the modern spirit and modern knowledge those questions over which the mightiest brains of man have labored for centuries: Whence? Whither? What is the significance of man's life? Why is death?

If Spinoza's dictum be true, that "a wise man's meditation is not of death but of life," then Andreyev is surely not a wise man. Some philosophers might have