Savva and the Life of Man - Two plays by Leonid Andreyev
Andreyev, Leonid Nikolayevich, 1871-1919
English
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THE MODERN DRAMA SERIES
EDITED BY EDWIN BJÖRKMAN
SAVVA
THE LIFE OF MAN
BY LEONID ANDREYEV
SAVVA
THE LIFE OF MAN
TWO PLAYS BY
LEONID ANDREYEV
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
THOMAS SELTZER
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND
COMPANY
1920
1914,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_This edition is authorized by Leonid Andreyev, who has
selected the plays included in it._
_All Dramatic rights reserved by
Edwin Björkman_
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PLAYS BY LEONID ANDREYEV
SAVVA
THE LIFE OF MAN
INTRODUCTION
For the last twenty years Leonid Andreyev and Maxim Gorky have
by turns occupied the centre of the stage of Russian literature.
Prophetic vision is no longer required for an estimate of their
permanent contribution to the intellectual and literary development
of Russia. It represents the highest ideal expression of a period
in Russian history that was pregnant with stirring and far-reaching
events--the period of revolution and counter-revolution. It was a
period when Russian society passed from mood to mood at an extremely
rapid tempo: from energetic aggressiveness, exultation, high hope,
and confident trust in the triumph of the people's cause to apathetic
inaction, gloom, despair, frivolity, and religious mysticism. This
important dramatic epoch in the national life of Russia Andreyev
and Gorky wrote down with such force and passion that they became
recognized at once as the leading exponents of their time.
Despite this close external association, their work differs
essentially in character. In fact, it is scarcely possible to
conceive of greater artistic contrasts. Gorky is plain, direct, broad,
realistic, elemental. His art is native, not acquired. Civilization
and what learning he obtained later through the reading of books have
influenced, not the manner or method of his writing, but only its
purpose and occasionally its subject matter. It is significant to
watch the dismal failure Gorky makes of it whenever, in concession to
the modern literary fashion, he attempts the mystical. Symbolism is
foreign to him except in its broadest aspects. His characters, though
hailing from a world but little known, and often extreme and extremely
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