SOURCE: "The Legend of the Poet and the Image of the Actor in the Short Stories of Pasternak," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 3, No. 2, Winter, 1966, pp. 225-35.

In the essay below, Aucouturier analyzes Pasternak's focus on actors, the "legend of the poet, " and ideas associated with these professions in "The Mark of Apelles," A Tale, and "Letters from Tula."

"You played that role so well!

I forgot that I was the prompter. . . . "

—My Sister, Life (1917)

"Oh, had I known that's how it happens

when I made my stage debut. . . . "

—Second Birth (1932)

"All grows still. I go onstage. . . ."

—"Hamlet" (Poem from Dr. Zhivago, 1946-1953)

Written and published between 1915 and 1929, Pasternak's short stories have remained the least known and least studied part of his work. At the time of their publication they suffered from the proximity of a highly esteemed poetic output which eclipsed them in the eyes of...