SOURCE: Nazarenko, Vadim. “Imagery in Čexov.¹” In Anton Čexov as a Master of Story-Writing, edited by Leo Hulanicki and David Savignac, pp. 131–34. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton & Co. B. V., 1976.

In the following essay, originally published in 1961, Nazarenko discusses verbal imagery in Chekhov's writing.

The key to the understanding of verbal imagery is not found in a narrow linguistic sphere. A word becomes image-bearing only when it proves itself able to evoke the images of the real world which are alive in us. The most sophisticated means of linguistic imagery of A. Efimov's sort can turn out to be fruitless.² But even the most simple word can be a powerful image. The power of a word to create an image does not per se reside in the word, but rather in the way the word acts upon us. That is why a narrowly linguistic approach to the problem...