Front Cover -- Title Page -- Praise -- Half Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword by Prof. Donald Rayfield -- Preface: About and Around the Book -- Acknowledgements -- Cover and Plate Section Illustrations -- Part I: Previewing - Basic Principles of Chekhov's Poetics -- 1 Basic Principles of Chekhovian Thematics (What?) - Opening the Book's Outer Circle -- 1.1 Presence through Absence/Unrealised Potential: Formulating a Chekhovian Universal -- 1.2 Thematic Structuration in Three Sisters: Trichotomies -- 1.2.1 An Example: Education and Learning -- 1.2.2 Other Themes -- 1.3 Building a (Textual) Character: Doing, Talking, Wishing -- 1.4 Building a Text: Compositional Implications of the Principle of Unrealised Potentials/Presence through Absence -- 1.5 Negation vs. Annulment: Conservation of Artistic Mass -- 1.6 Paradoxes of the (Un)Realisability of Chekhov's Art -- 2 Basic Principles of Chekhovian Composition (How?) -- 2.0 Preliminary Remarks: Chekhov the Structuralist? -- 2.1 A Theoretical Complex of Complexity -- 2.1.1 The Complex, The Simple, and the Complicated -- 2.1.2 Two Types of Complexity -- 2.2 Saturated Complexity: Shakespeare's Plays as Paradigm -- 2.3 Unsaturated Complexity: Chekhov's Plays as Paradigm -- 2.4 A Third Ideal of Complexity: 'Strong' Parts, 'Weak' Wholes -- 2.4.1 Saturated Complexity Misplaced: Poe's "The Raven" as Paradigm -- 2.4.2 Chekhov's Complexity vs. Shakespeare's and "The Raven"'s -- 2.5 Conclusion: Investment and Interest -- Part II: Viewing - Chekhov's Dramatic Text and World -- 3 Starts that Fit: The Curtain Rises on a Chekhov Play - Opening the Book's Inner Circle -- 3.0 Truisms and Preliminary Theoretical Considerations -- 3.0.1 Frame/Text-Boundaries: Starting Points -- 3.0.2 Authorial Presence: What's in a Name (Personal)? -- 3.0.3 Titles of Plays: What's in a Name (Textual)? -- 3.0.4 Genre-Subtitles.

3.0.5 Skipping the List of Personages -- 3.0.6 Initial Stage Directions (ISD) -- 3.0.7 The Ending of the Beginning: The Spoken Dialogue Starts -- 3.1 The Beginning of The Seagull -- 3.1.1 The Title -- 3.1.2 The Subtitle -- 3.1.3 The Initial Stage Directions and their Context in the Play -- 3.1.4 The Ending of the Beginning: The Spoken Dialogue Starts -- 3.2 The Beginning of Uncle Vánia -- 3.2.1 The Title -- 3.2.2 The Subtitle -- 3.2.3 The Initial Stage Directions -- 3.2.4 The Ending of the Beginning: The Spoken Dialogue Starts -- 3.3 The Beginning of Three Sisters -- 3.3.1 The Title -- 3.3.2 The Subtitle -- 3.3.3 The Initial Stage Directions -- 3.3.4 The Ending of the Beginning: The Spoken Dialogue Starts -- 3.4 The Beginning of The Cherry Orchard -- 3.4.1 The Title -- 3.4.2 The Subtitle -- 3.4.3 The Initial Stage Directions -- 3.4.4 The Ending of the Beginning: The Spoken Dialogue Starts -- 4 Dramaticality, 'Dramaticalness', Theatricality, Dual Fictionality -- 4.0 Introduction: Is Chekhov a Playwright? -- 4.1 Terminology: Drama, Dramaticality, 'Dramaticalness', etc. -- 4.1.0 Preliminary Considerations -- 4.1.1 Sense A ("Dramas" in Real Life): Past and Present -- 4.1.2 Senses B and C in Relation to Sense A -- 4.2 Chekhov's Drama and the Non-"Dramatic" -- 4.2.1 Preliminary Considerations -- 4.2.2 Balzac's Wedding in Berdíchev: Integration and (In)Significance -- 4.2.3 Covert Dramatic Conflict and Chekhovian 'Dramaticalness' -- 4.3 Chekhov and the Differentia Specifica of Drama -- 4.3.1 Drama between Written Literature and Live Theatre -- 4.3.2 Dual (Two-Tier) Fictionality: The Uniqueness of Play Reading -- 4.3.3 Chekhov's Dramaticality at Work: A Scene from The Seagull -- 4.4 Concluding Remarks -- 5 Character and Characterisation (Who?) -- 5.0 Introductory Remarks -- 5.0.1 Preliminary Truisms.

5.0.2 Character vs. Characterisation: Connections and Differences -- 5.1 An Anatomy of Characterisation: No Joking Matter -- 5.1.1 "A Little Joke" - an Epitome of Chekhovian Poetics -- 5.1.2 Chekhov's Poetics and Dramatic Irony: Interplay between Author, Perceiver/Addressee, and Personage/Character -- 5.1.3 The First-Person Narrator's Function: Preliminary Considerations -- 5.1.4 Nádia: Inheriting the Wind? -- 5.1.5 The Narrator: A Deluding Windbag? -- 5.1.6 Conclusion -- 5.2 Characterisation in the Major Plays -- 5.2.1 Two Interrelated Analytical Tools -- 5.2.2 Character-Centrality -- Reciprocal Characterisation -- 5.2.3 In Conclusion: Character-Centralityand Chekhov's Poetics -- Appendix: "A Little Joke" (versions published in Sverchók, 1886, and as revised for the Collected Works, 1899) -- 6 Communicating (in) Chekhov -- 6.0 Communication and the 'Descent of Man's Stature' -- 6.1 Chekhov and Staged Communication: 'Public Images' -- 6.2 Communication at Work: Three Sisters as a Case Study -- 6.2.1 Sisterly Communication: Voluntary/Involuntary, Explicit/Implicit -- 6.2.2 Turning the Other Ear: Attentive 'Deafness' -- 6.2.3 Confessions: Unrequited Communication -- 6.2.4 Multiple ('Criss-cross') Communication -- 6.2.5 Communication and Language(s) -- 6.2.6 Communicational Polyphony: Absent Deep and Present Surface -- 6.3 Concluding Remarks -- 7 "Restraining Order": Repression of Expression as Pressurised Explosiveness -- 7.0 Focusing on Chekhovian Restraint -- 7.1 Major Features of Restraint and Basic Distinction -- 7.2 Restraint in Stories: A Moment in "A Dreary Tale" -- 7.3 Some 'Micro'-LevelExamples -- 7.4 An Illustration: Structuring Restraint in Three Sisters -- 7.5 A 'Macro'-Level Example: The Seagull in The Seagull -- 7.6 Conclusion: A Survey of the Other Major Plays -- 8 "Tea or 'Philosophising'?": Hierarchising Ideas and Values.

8.0 The Importance of Being Specific: Hierarchising, Referentiality and Organisation in Literary and Dramatic Art -- 8.0.1 General Theoretical Considerations -- 8.0.2 Typical Hierarchies in Four 19th - Century Russian Classics -- 8.1 "Sheer Indifferentism": Does Chekhov Really Care? -- 8.2 Perspectives on "Philosophising" in Chekhov's Plays -- 8.2.1 Personages' Partiality, Authorial-Textual Wholeness -- 8.2.2 Thematic vs. Structural Perspective -- 8.2.3 "Philosophising" and the (Un)Reliability of Chekhov's Personages -- 8.2.4 Why "Philosophise"? A Question of Motivation -- 8.2.5 "Philosophising", "Philo-Sophistry", and the Gender Perspective -- 8.2.6 "Philosophising" vs. Philosophy -- (A/The) Truth vs. Sincerity -- 8.3 Value Structuration: The Case of Three Sisters -- 8.3.1 The Specific Centrality of "Philosophising" in Three Sisters -- 8.3.2 "Philosophising" and Reciprocal Characterisation in Three Sisters -- 8.3.3 Correlations between Values, Time and Place -- 8.3.4 Value Structuration and Chekhov's Presence/Absence Dichotomy -- 8.4 Conclusion -- 9 The End(ing)s Justify the Mean(ing)s: The Curtain Falls on a Chekhov Play - Closing the Book's Inner Circle -- 9.0 Preliminary Remarks -- 9.1 Double-Phased Endings in Three Stories -- 9.1.1 The Concept of Skeleton Plot -- 9.1.2 The Ending of "Ván'ka" (1886) -- 9.1.3 The Ending of "Sleepy" (1890) -- 9.1.4 The Ending of "A Little Joke" (1899) -- 9.2 Endings in the Plays -- 9.2.0 Six Lines of Development in Chekhov's Construction of Endings -- 9.2.1 The Ending of Ivánov (1889) -- 9.2.2 The Ending of The Seagull (1896) -- 9.2.3 The Ending of Uncle Vánia (1897) -- 9.2.4 The Ending of Three Sisters (1901) -- 9.2.5 The Ending of The Cherry Orchard (1904): Exit Chekhov the Writer -- 9.3 Exit Chekhov the Man, or: How to End a Life, and A Life? -- Appendix: Potential Ending(s) of The Cherry Orchard.

Part III: Overviewing - A Comprehensive Look -- 10 Chekhovism Viewed from Beyond its Boundaries: Comparative-Contrastive Perspectives -- 10.0 Structural Preamble -- 10.1 Chekhovism among Other -isms: A Pan-Chronic View -- 10.1.0 Chekhov's Personal (?) Attitude to Groupings/-isms -- 10.1.1 Chekhov's Art and the '-isms': Reasoning the Need for Grouping -- 10.1.2 Chekhovism and Specific -isms -- 10.2 Chekhov and the Major Genres of Drama: A Survey -- 10.3 A Perspective of Historical Poetics: A Diachronic View -- 10.3.1 Isomorphism of Diachronic and Pan-Chronic Perspectives -- 10.3.2 Chekhov's Plays in a Diachronic Scheme of European Drama -- 10.4 Assessing Chekhov's Greatness, with an Interart View -- 10.4.1 Evaluating Chekhovism: An 'Objective' Assessment? -- 10.4.2 Chekhovism and Music-like Complexity: An Interart Perspective -- 10.5 In Conclusion -- 11 Chekhov and Posterity - Closing the Book's Outer Circle -- 11.0 Preliminary: Closing the Outer Circle -- 11.1 Some Truisms on Inter-Generational Transmissions -- 11.1.1 On Heredity -- 11.1.2 On Inheritance -- 11.1.3 On Heritage -- 11.1.4 Conclusion: On The 3Hs -- 11.2 Heredity and Heritage in Chekhov's Plays: Past, Present, Future -- 11.2.1 Preliminaries -- 11.2.2 Heredity in Chekhov and Others: Present Variations on Past Themes -- 11.2.3 Heredity in Three Sisters: The Prózorovs, Past and Present -- 11.2.4 Prózorov Posterity: Future, Present, and Absent -- 11.2.5 General Reflections: One Russian Family vs. Humanity as a Whole -- 11.3 Perspective of Inheritance: Parallels and Isomorphisms -- 11.3.1 De-Generation of the House/Home -- 11.3.2 The Prózorov Inheritance: The Venue of Heredity and Heritage -- 11.3.3 Integration of the 3Hs: "Put Out the Divine Spark" -- 11.4 Conclusion: Mortal Chekhov's Immortal Heritage.

Appendix: Reflecting (on) Chekhovian "(Auto)Biographophobia": Nína Zaréchnaïa's Medallion under a Magnifying Glass.