The narrative present in Anton Chekhov’s prose: Formation and development of techniques, functions of verb forms

The aim of the article is to examine the formation, development, change and interaction of methods of organising narrative texts with the help of the verb in the present tense in the context of the evolution of Chekhov’s poetics. The material of the study is Chekhov’s prose works (presented in the Complete Works in 30 volumes, taking into account early and late editions of the texts), as well as materials of the Russian National Corpus. Along with the growing interest in “total” present-tense-narration in modem literature, the pragmatic and compositional potential of Russian present tense forms used by Chekhov deserve special attention, taking into account his sensitivity to the “poetry of grammar”, his desire to experiment with narrative tradition, and the rapid development and change of literary techniques. The study has shown that Chekhov created a total of 130 complete prose texts entirely in the present tense (the article presents data on the distribution of texts by year, by volumes of the Complete Works, and also notes the number of such works selected by the author for publication in his lifetime collection of works). The number of present tense forms in such texts is up to 15% of the total number of words used; it considerably exceeds the corresponding figure in the prose texts of other Russian writers of the 19th century, including folklore stylisations abounding in the historical present, and samples of the “skaz” (the results of the calculation and comparison are presented and commented on in the article). Several types of early Chekhov’s texts in the present tense have been identified, depending on the author’s approach to the use and combination of textual functions of the present tense forms, which allow the narrative to depict observed processes and scenes, states and qualities, actions and their results. Developing new methods of composition in prose on the basis of the genres of the sketch-scene, the story of everyday life and the humorous caricature, Chekhov creates syncretic texts, where the present tense forms compose vivid pictures of life, or name chains of events, or give generalising characteristics to the heroes. From the effects of actualisation, which lead to a stronger immersion in the described spacetime, to the increased dynamism of “reportage”, to the greater expressiveness in typifying the situation, Chekhov gradually turns to other possibilities of the forms of the present tense. He turns to the subjectivisation of the narrative, to the inclusion of the hero’s perspective within the framework of “fused narration”. It has been established that since 1892 Chekhov did not write texts entirely in the present tense, but combined fragments in the present and past tense in a number of late works. The semantics of incompleteness, the absence of temporal boundaries contributes to the embodiment of the motifs of routine, the insignificance of small events, the meaninglessness of existence. Often passages in the present tense frame the narrative in the past or penetrate into it, expanding its philosophical context of the story, switching the perspective. The comparative analysis of early and late revisions of texts in the present tense (shown in detail in the article on the example of “Shutochka”) also demonstrates the development and enrichment of the repertoire of techniques for introducing present-tense forms into the narrative as important components of the poetics of Chekhov’s prose. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References