The writer and playwright Anton Chekhov is one of the most canonical figures of modern literature. His work, whose period was spread over the last three decades of the nineteenth century, marked a watershed in the history of Russian literature as well as in world literature in general. With Chekhov’s prose, the important chapter of the nineteenth-century Realist novel reached its end-point, giving way to the earliest expressions of modernism. Contrary to the common association of the rise of Modernist prose with the names of James Joyce, R.M. Rilke, or Virginia Woolf, the course offers to approach Chekhov as the herald of existentialist modernist prose of the twentieth century.

The first part of the course will center on selected works by Chekhov (including his novellas “The Steppe” and “Ward No.6” and the plays “Uncle Vania” and “The Three Sisters”) addressing them within their historical and literary context. In the second part of the course we will deal with the “Chekhovian” as a literary poetic trait. This we shall address via some of manifestations of the Chekhovian in twentieth century Hebrew literature, from Uri Nissan Gnessin, through Hanoch Levin and to Yoel Hoffman.

The students are expected to prepare for the class, to attend regularly, to participate actively, to give a short oral presentation during the semester and to submit a final paper.