SOURCE: Winner, Thomas G. “Chekhov's Seagull and Shakespeare's Hamlet: A Study of a Dramatic Device.” American Slavic and East European Review 15 (February 1956): 103-11.

In the following essay, Winner explores parallels between The Seagull and Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Chekhov's use of literary allusions or echoes represents one of the most striking variations of the playwright's many evocative devices. Such devices, which stand outside the immediate action of his later plays, frequently are of symbolic significance and sometimes have a commentary function similar to that of the Greek chorus. Chekhov's use of literary or folklore allusions in his later plays is usually eclectic and may shift from author to author, folksong to folksong. Quotations from Shakespeare, especially from Hamlet, occur in various plays of Chekhov. But in the Seagull we find more than incidental background snatches from Hamlet. For Hamlet appears related to the total structure of the play, and it...