Dear Editor
Dear Editor A Russian Master? A review of my New Life of Anton Chekhov in The New Leader of September 27, 1976 has just come to my notice. In it your reviewer, Anne Frydman, censures my...
...Much as I would have welcomed proper scholarly criticism of my work in your pages, The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...What subjects do these masters teach...
...BERTRAND RUSSELL TODAY Magazine offers philosophic alternative to religion...
...To call the gymnasium teacher of the story a "Russian master" is not only to "Briticize" his position and to diminish the importance of literature in the story...
...He thus corresponds with the person who, in an English-speaking school, teaches English and is therefore called the "English teacher" or the "English master...
...She has lectured me on the care needed in translating Chekhov's titles, but she has not so much as mentioned the lengthy passages in succeeding prefaces to volumes of my Oxford Chekhov, where I have given my reasons for adopting this or that version...
...Box 431...
...In order to evaluate Mr...
...However, in my review of A New Life of Anton Chekhov the problem of titles was part of the larger issue of Mr...
...Now, though uchitel certainly does mean "teacher," slovesnost most emphatically does not in the context mean "literature," but "Russian language and literature...
...10468...
...For these reasons my "Russian Master" is the accurate version, and Ms...
...Frydman's "Teacher of Literature" is, quite simply, wrong...
...Daniel Manesse challenges Billy Graham to debate...
...My objection was to changing it to something worse...
...In it your reviewer, Anne Frydman, censures my translations of the titles of certain Chekhov stories while complaining that these contain what she calls "egregious errors...
...There is no space to discuss your reviewer's other criticisms of my titles, since perfunctory and superficial objections based on ignorance often require a great deal of time and trouble to refute, as the previous paragraph shows...
...More important, it is to be deaf to the ambiguous suggestions of "master," which in our shared language also means lord, proprietor, maestro, and so on...
...And in any case I have a further, more serious objection to her treatment of my work...
...The uchitel slovesnosti was, in fact, the man who, in a 19th-century Russian school, taught Russian...
...Send $1.—P.O...
...My children, at school in England, are not set essays on Shakespeare by someone whom they would describe as their "teacher of literature," but by their "English master," or "English teacher...
...Hingley's book, the reviewer must be familiar not with his explanations elsewhere, but with the works of Chekhov...
...Oxford Ronald Hingley Anne Frydman replies: The title "The Teacher of Literature" is neither my translation nor an especially good one—it has been the standard since Constance Garnett...
...For example, i am rebuked for rendering Chekhov's title Uchitel slovesnosti as "The Russian Master," instead of "The Teacher of Literature...
...I am totally bewildered to find technical objections raised by someone who has not even bothered to familiarize herself with the material she criticizes...
...Hingley's explanations in The Oxford Chekhov of other title changes are more plausible...
...The word appears in other translations, such as Tolstoy's Master and Man or Bulgakov's The Master and Margherita...
...Hingley's sometimes questionable literary judgments...
...Since the biography seems to be addressed primarily to general readers, I felt obliged, as a specialist, to criticize the particular ways the author's interpretations convey Chekhov to this audience...
...Jerome Avenue Station, Bronx...
...Perhaps Mr...
...Let her advertise her nonexistent expertise at someone else's expense...
Vol. 60 • January 1977 • No. 1
