SOURCE: "Crosscurrents in Russia: Gogol, Turgenev, and Chekhov," in Masters of Dramatic Comedy and the Social Themes, Harvard University Press, 1939, pp. 314-58.

In the following excerpt, Perry analyzes Turgenev's depiction of love in his plays.

Gogol's Marriage and The Gamblers were published in 1842. The next year marks the beginning of the work of an author more important in the realm of the novel than in that of the theater, Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev. Turgenev began his literary career as a writer of plays. For nine years, from 1843 to 1852, he devoted his energies chiefly to that form of art. Toward the end of this period he began writing the short stories which compose A Sportsman's Sketches, and these proved so successful that they turned his attention away from the drama. His comedies are by no means negligible, however; in his own way he helped to carry on the tradition that...