tiuchev russian metaphsysical romantism1

94 NATURE

faces the same problem confranted by the persona of "What Use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" In both cases, a painful form of consciousness that seems to have been given by fate excludes the persona from the realm of those who can calmly accept fate and work in harmony with nature. In fact, the personae are so engrassed in their own human plight that they cannot possibly view nature as anything but an externa!, alien force.

The attribution of man's separation fram nature to excessive ratiocination parallels Schelling's assertion that pure intellectual reflection is a sickness that sunders man fram the world that surrounds him.

42 But the absence of a sense of nature as a living

organism and the absolute denial in these poems of the possibility of a harmonious relationship between a thinking man and nature contradicts the inherent optimism of Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, which posits a common essence for all phenomena of the universe and counts higher philosophical consciousness as one of the forces that can unite man with nature.

Thus the traces of Schelling's philosophy in Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's metaphysical nature poetry range fram the traces of the German text in Tiutchev's "Nature is not what you think," through the reflection of Schellingian ideas in poems like Boratynskii's "Omens" and Tiutchev's 'There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea," to a virtual rejection of the most basic precepts of the Philosophy of Identity in Boratynskii's "Autumn." Within this small graup of poems, the poets do show their differences. But with these differences, they nevertheless treat a number of the same themes-nature as a living organism, nature as the Absolute, the problem of man's separation from nature-and they incorporate these themes in their poetry in a way that brings them closer together than any other two major poets of their time.

. 3 .

THE POET AND POETRY

Romantic Images of the Poet

Perhaps the most important difference between classicism and romanticism was the transformation of the concepts of art and artist. The artist became something more than a craftsman trying to achieve mimetic representation of a perfectly ordered universe. Nature now endowed him with inspiration, making him a genius whose goal was to express himself and his relationship with the universe through his arto He no longer acted as a mirror, dutifully and accurately reflecting its surraundings, but functioned rather as a lamp that cast its own light on everything it made visible.! Romantic art, therefore, often served as an expression of individualistic existential and metaphysical questions, rather than as a reflection of the didactic and moralistic concerns-based on "laws" of reason and nature-that inspired much of classicist literature.

As might be expected, Schelling's philosophy made a major \ contribution to the new romantic cuIt of art and the artist. In accordance with the pantheistic strain in his Philosophy of Identity, Schelling maintained that artistic creation must depict the divinity of the All, the divine idea that every existing thing nurtures within it. 2 Thus art reunites the real ("every existing thing") and the ideal ("the divine idea") and so functions as the vital link between the two basic aspects of the universe.

In nature one sees the real and the ideal united, but united only before the separation caused by philosophical consciousness. The reunification achieved through art after separation is,

96 THE POET AND POETRY

in one sense, superior to the original unity of nature because it incorporates this higher consciousness and actuaHy resolves the contradiction between the real and the ideal. 3 Art is the highest form of Indifferenz in which aH phenomena of the universe are reduced to their shared essence. 4 The reunification of the real :J:

1,and the ideal constitutes the realization of the infinite in the ;j

finite. This, in turn, constitutes Beauty, which is the basic at r .. {tribute of any work of art.'

When art itself serves such a high metaphysical purpose, the artist naturally takes on a very special role, the role of a "chosen one" or "genius." In reconciling the real and the ideal in his art, the artist manifests the same form of reconciliation within himself, for "genius" is the revelation of the inherent divine (ideal) element within (real) mano b Among aH the beings of the universe, only man has this capacity to partake of both the real and the ideal. He crowns the great chain of being. His higher consciousness is the supreme attainment of the cosmos because it is the cosmos' own awareness of itself: "In human reason Nature contemplates her past works; she perceives and recognizes herself as herself." 7

Schelling's ideas on art and the artist took on various colorations as they spread throughout Europe and Russia. In sorne cases the "new philosophy" coincided with a world view that had developed indigenously. In such cases, ScheHing's work serves mainly to give this world view added impacto In England, for instance, sorne of Wordsworth's poems in Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, expressed an outlook rather similar to that in Schelling's Ideas Toward a Philosop]¡y of Nature (Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur) published in 1797. But since Wordsworth did not know German and only one year separates the dates of publication, the possibility of immediate infiuence is highly unlikely.8

In Russia, on the other hand, Schelling's philosophy seems to have provided one of the early sources of theromantic concepts of art and the artist. Once the conceptual Kernelhad been planted, other thinkers interpreted the ideas in various ways, sometimes without knowing their original source. Because of the Narious aspects of this development, Russian romantic thought

h~1\hincorporates five major images of the artist or poet. AH these

THE POET AND POETRY 97

have sorne connection with Schelling's philosophy and each image is in sorne way related to the others; in fact, many romantic heroes are composites built around several of the images. Together, they serve as the inteHectual background for Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's concepts of the poet and poetry.

The image of the poet that relates most directly to Schelling's \\V. thought is the image of the eoet as philosopher or priest. According to Schelling, the higher know1edge gainedthrougñ art is complementary and equal to the knowledge gained through philosophical investigation, and the artist is therefore a philosopher in his own right. 9 The reconciliation of the real and the ideal attained by the philosopher through contemplation is equal in es- \ti sence to the reconciliation attained by the artist through art. The artist-philosopher also assumes the role of priest, for he is one of the few who knows and understands the divine essence of nature. The poet-philosopher and poet-priest constitute one and 'f1P' the same figure since the title depends only on the aspect of the higher knowledge that is emphasized-secular or divine.

In Russian literature the image of the poet-philosopher appears frequently in the works of the Lovers of Wisdom, who devoted at least as much of their time fo pltnosophy-usuaHy ScheHing's philosophy-as to poetry. One of the most dynamic members of the group, Venevitinov, explained the connection thus: "The true poets of all nations and of aH times have always been deep thinkers, philosophers, and, so to speak, the crowning glory of enlightenment." 10 This "crowning glory of eoJightenment" appears in Venevitinov's own poetic dialogue "The Poet and His Friend" (Poet i drug, 1827), in which the poet's second speech runs as follows:

TIpHpo~a He ~nR Bcex oqen TIORpOB CBOn TanH~n rro~~MaeT: M~ Bce paBHO qHTaeM B Hen, Ho RTO, qHTaR, rroHHMaeT? nHillb TOT, RTO C IDHOilleCRHX ~Hen E~n rrnaMeHH~M ~pe~oM HCRycCTBa,

TI cep~~a TperreT ~a~H~M cnyxoM, KaR Be~Hn ronoc, H3nOBHn:

Nature does not \ift her mysterious veil for aH eyes: we aH, eaeh alike, interpr~er, but who, as he reads, understands? Only he who has geen an ardent priest of art from his youth

t 1t:A ., J'r '. ).t'"

99

, .' J" " ; ,~ /~ .l,'" .'

98 THE POETRY ;' " !'~por AND

... and who with an ~ ear has heard the heart's beating . 111l"k h f1 e a prop e 1C VOlce. . n "" .' " . ~,

J;.. ~. w

Though Pushkin does not offer an o1J.Wght statement that the poet is a priest in the manner of Venevitinov, he nonetheless makes the same point by means of e~plicit relígious imagery in his well-known poems "The Poet" (Poet, 1827) and "To the Poet" ~ (Poetu, 1830). In the concluding stanza of the earlier work, the persona instructs the poet: Tak puskai tolpa ego branit / 1 pliuet na altar', gde tvoi ogon' gorit (So let the crowd abuse [your labors] and spit on the altar where your fire burns); and the later poem begins: Poka ne trebuet poeta / K svias/¡c/¡ennoi z/¡ertve Apol/on (Until Apollo summons the poet to sacred sacrifice).12

The main attribute of the poet as philosopher-priest is that he has a deeper and truer understanding of nature than others. He may use his knowledge in either of two ways: he may remain 1\ a private figure, devoting himself to his own ever deepening sense of communication with the universe, or he may choose to spread his knowledge and try to elevate the consciousness •of his fellow meno In the first case, the image of the poet as philosopher-priest borders on the image of the mystic poet

la.whose energy is directed toward his own relationship with the .IlJetal2hy,sical univer~~. In the second case, the public concerns

of the poet bring him into the realm of a different romantic image-t/¡e poet as prop/¡et and leader of nations. fIn Russian poetry, the best-known image of the poet as prophet undoubtedly occurs in Pushkin's "The Prophet" (Prorok, 1826), in which the voice of Cod sternly bids the poem's persona:

"BOCCTaHb, rrpopOK, H BHZ~b, H BHeMnH, HcrronHHCb Bonero Moell H, 06XO~H MOpH H 3eMnH, fnaronOM zrH cep~Qa nro~ell."

"Arise, prophet, and behold and harken¡ be filled with my will and, traversing sea and land, fire the hearts of men with the Word."13

Whereas Pushkin used the image of the prophet coupled with biblical, though not specifically relígious, connotations, the Lovers of Wisdom emphasized the secular, philosophical side of the image. In addition, they underscored the didactic results

'l

THE POET AND POETRY

achieved by the poet as teacher rather than focusing on the process of conversion portrayed by Pushkin. This can be seen, for instance, in Venevitinov's "Love the Child of Inspiration" (Liubi pitomtsa vdok/¡noven'ia, 1827), in which the persona assumes that the poet-prophet has a definite influence on his audience and warns the reader not to be taken in by just anyone who seems to speak convincingly, because:

He MHoro HCTHHHNX rrpopoKoB e rreqaTbro BnacTH Ha qene, e ~apaMH BNcrrpeHHHX YPOKOB, e rnaronOM He6a Ha 3eMne.

There are not many true prophets with the mark of authority on their brows, with the gifts of 10ftY teachings, with the word of heaven on earth. 14

The image of poet as prophet and visionary leader took on polítical connotations in the works of the Decembrist poets, and carried general social and polítical meaning in the works of many other poets. Lermontov, for instance, makes bitterly nostalgic reference to the relationship between the people and the poet-Ieader in "The Poet" (Poet, 1838):

ENBano, MepHNIT 3BYK TBOHX MoryqHX cnOB BocrrnaMeHHn 60ITQa ~nH 6HTBN,

OH HyzeH 6Nn Tonrre, KaK qarna ~nH rrHpOB, KaK ~HMHaM B qaCN MonHTBN.

TBorr CTHX, KaK 60ZHIT ~yx, HoCHnCH Ha~ Tonrrorr H, OT3NB MbICneIT 6naropO~HbIX,

3Byqan, KaK KonoKon Ha 6arnHe BeqeBOll Bo ~HH TopzecTB H 6e~ Hapo~HNx.

TIpocHernbCH nb TN orrHTb, oCMeHHHNIT rrpopoK:

The measured tone of your powerful words used to fire the warrior for battle¡ the crowd needed it as they need a chalice for feasts, as they need incense in hours of prayer.

Your verse floated over the crowd like the divine spirit and a response of noble thoughts rang out like the bell in the tower of the town hall on days of the nation's celebrations and misfortunes. .)

Will you awaken again, O ridiculed prophet! 15 (-:-:J c>.fl ; t

Byron, with his grand political gestures and genuine elí.8~ as an outcast poet, may well have served as a model in this sort of po


etry. Another model may have been Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish romantic poet and friend of Pushkin, whose life and poetry expressed a similar kind of visionary nationalism. ~ The poet-prophet and poet-philosopher share a certain kind of higher knowledge, and both are often associated with the image of an eagle, whose sharpened vision, majestic presence, and ability to soar aboye the humdrum of everyday life distinguish him from the ordinary creatures below. (The metaphor is present, for example, in Pushkin's Prorok and Paet, Shevyrev's Na smert' paeta, Khomiakov's Zhavaranak, arel i paet, and Mickiewicz's Oziady.) But unlike the poet-philosopher, the poet-prophet inevitably turns his energies outward in an attempt to create a new spiritual, social or political order. In so doing, he shows his kinship with another romantic type-the paet as creatar.

Schelling and Wordsworth developed markedly similar concepts of the poet as creator, postulating that both creative power and freedom characterize everything in nature, and that both find their highest, most conscious expression in mano Man's artistic power, then, is an extension of the creative force that transfuses aH of nature. 16 Schelling, of course, worked out his ideas in philosophical terms and developed an analogy involving Cod, the Creator, and the artist as creator: as Cod reconciles the real and the ideal in His Creation, the Indifferenz of nature, so the artist reconciles the real and the ideal in his creation, the Indifferenz inherent in aH true works of art. 17 Wordsworth similarly believed that the human mind was "in itself adequate to create out of the world of aH of us, in a quotidian and recurrent miracle, a new world . . . the equivalent of paradise." 18 Gr, as Wordsworth himself explains:

1 had a world about me-'twas my own, 1 made it; for it only lived to me, And to the Cod who looked into my mind. \9

In Russian literature the image of the poet as creator appears most often in the works of poets who had a strong orientation toward Schelling's philosophy. Khomiakov's "Two Hours" (Opa chasa, 1831), for instance, includes the lines:

Ho eCTb rr03TY 4ac CTpa~aHbH,

Kor~a BOCCTaHeT B TbMe H04HOH

(; ,,\

,. " ~ ~ ~ :XI G)


BCH poCKomb ~HBHaH C03~aHbH

rrepe~ 3a~YM4HBOH ~ymoH; Kor~a B rpY~H ero c6epeTcH MHp ~en~H o6pa30B H CHOB, H HOB~H MHp ceH K ~rr3Hrr pBeTCH, CTpeMrrTCH K 3BYKaM, rrpocrrT cnOB.

But for the poet there is an hour of suffering when, in the gloom of night, aH the wondrous opulence of creation arises before his brooding soul; when a whole world of images and dreams gathers in his breast, and this new world bursts into life, seeks sounds, and begs for words. 20

Venevitinov likewise speaks pointedly of the poet's sazdan'ia (creations) in two of his best-known poems, "The Poet and His Friend," mentioned aboye, and "1 feel burning Within me" (la chuvstvuiu, va mne garit, 1826-27).

AH three of the romantic types described above-the poet as 6iI philosopher-priest, the poet as prophet, and the poet as cre- " ator-are assumed to possess a higher knowledge that sets them apart from common men and allows them to remain immune to the rules that bind the rest oí society. It is this sense of not fitting in with the crowd and the accompanying sense of moral freedom that dominates another important romantic image of the poet, the paet as autcast.

In the role of the outcast, the poet is often actively antisocial, as is the case in Pushkin's "The Poet and the Crowd" (Paet i talpa, 1828). Here the poet gives vent to his hostility and scorn toward those who lack his special gifts:

Mon4rr, 6eccM~CneHHYH Hapo~,

rrO~eHmrrK, pa6 HY~~Y, 3a6oT: HecHoceH MHe TBOH porrOT ~ep3KrrH, Tu 4epBb 3eMnrr, He CUH He6ec.

Be still, thoughtless people, lowly laborers, slaves of poverty and toil! Your insolent grumbling is intolerable to me; you are the worms of the earth, not the sons of heaven. 21

The poet has not been forced to remove himself from the mainstream of life as much as he has chosen this destiny for himself. But the poet as outcast may also take on specificaHy demonic attributes and seek revenge against a society that has refused to accept him. This evil aspect oí the poet's self is personified by Lermontov in "1 am not for angels and paradise" (la ne dlia all

,

I

'


gelov i raia, 1837), which inc1udes the line Kak dernon moi, ia zla izbrannik (Like my demon, 1am the chosen one of evil),22 as well as in numerous other works. In sorne cases, the outcast poet simply accepts his solitary state. The persona of Pushkin's "To the Poet" urges the poet to assume an isolated and self-sufficient stance because the crowd will never appreciate his higher gifts. Likewise, the inspired poet in stanza 2 of Pushkin's "The Poet" becomes whole only when he leaves the crowd and loses himself in the resounding wildness of nature.

This version of the outcast poet as a would-be rec1use even.tually verges on the next image of the poet, th;;..pQ,t¡t~!!!.1isticwho

(i) is so engrossed in his own spiritual communication with the metaphysical universe that he has no dealings with society at all. The notion of the poet as mystic often has sorne connection with the late philosophy of Schelling, specifically his Inquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom. Schelling here moves away from his earlier proc1amations of man's exalted place in the universe and the divine nature of human genius and emphasizes the absolute necessity of the submission of human self-will to the universal will that is revealed in nature and in history.23 The goal of all existence is to merg; with n~ture and in so doing become part of the universal willL-; ".. " \." "

But the image might also have its roots in native Russian cul• ture, since this is one of the points at which ScheUing's philoso

l

, phy approaches a basic aspect of Russian Orthodoxy. ScheUing's notion of freedom through submission to the universal will parallels the Orthodox concept of freedom through submission to God's will, and the idea of divine mystic enlightenment pene-trates both systems of thought. The strong influence of hermit

...... monks in the Orthodox monastic tradition no doubt further i supported the concept of the poet as mystic, a figure living in

isolation from society's mundane cares and totaUy immersed in the quest for spiritual knowledge. • In the end, the image of the poet as mystic is almost no image

. ~t all, since the true mystic seeks aboye aU to lose his sense of ,

~elf and become one with nature. Zhukovskii, who was among the first Russians to come into contact with German romanticism, describes a temporary sense of oneness with the universe in his poem "DL~.a.m?: A Song" (Mechty: pesnia, 1812). The per

111,1

1 11

, "

103 '1,THE POET AND POETRY

1 ,

sona of the poem, an older, "mature" poet, recalls a certain pe- .\ ~ riod of his youth when nature "carne alive" in response to the,

, '1"fervent embrace" of his soul and "the whole world" existed \ " "

11within his breast. This, however, proves to have been only a \\ stage in that poet-persona's development and the poem ends on . 'ill'

a strong note of c1assicist didacticism: Friendship (Druzhba) and , ,',11 Labor (Trud) reveal themselves as the poet's truest friends be '1'

cause they help him nurture c1arity and tranquility (iasnost' i "1'

",1

pokoi) within his heart. 24 '. i

Another "impure" variant of the image of the poet as mystic 1

appears in Venevitinov's "The Poet and His Friend" (Poet i drug,

1827)' Here the image is coupled with the notion of the poet as priest, and the poet-persona still has a strong consciousness of himself as a speciaUy gifted individual. But he also manifests a sense of mystic otherworldliness in his prophetic insistence that his gifts come with the condition that he is not a creature of the world and cannot long exist in the world. He lives by intimations of another life, his true life, which will take place beyond

the grave. 11The only major Russian romantic poet who offers an un".1\

adulterated portrayal of the mystic poet totaUy at one with na ",,

ture is Tiutchev, whose metaphysical poems based on this image will be discussed later in this chapter.

These five romantic images of the poet ultimately form something like a circular continuum in which each image shares cer

, '11tain characteristics with the images on either side of it. The ' 11

,11philosopher-priest shares a higher knowledge and potentiaUy W 11sacred vocation with the prophet-Ieader. But the philosopher

priest is marked mainly by the depth of his understanding and , ',\

~otion, which may take either active or passive form, while 11

the prophet-Ieader is marked by his use of higher knowledge in ! 1

active attempts to enlighten other human beings and spur them "

to action. The creator, like the prophet-Ieader, also looks toward ,1

a stage of higher knowledge, but instead of merely espousing '1 11

this goal to other people, he achieves a specific result: he creates /,

a new world, be it in the form of a nation, a philosophy, or a work of arto The vision of a new or different world also dominates the life of the outcast. But instead of putting this vision to productive use as the creator does, the outcast spends his life in

105

..... ' ,.,. tr o' ",'§-Jir).0-.... ~

104 "le .' THE POET AND POETRY }

a state oí aci.l!.~consciousness oí his inability to fit in with society as it exists':--If the outcast is an active figure, his character tends to take on a demonic dimensiono If he is essentially passive, he comes eloser to the mystic who simply has no interactions with others and exists totally within the spiritual realm. The mystic, then, borders on the passive aspect of the philosopher-priest, and the cirele is complete.

Inspiration

Ginzburg is right when she observes that "it would be difficult to find an important lyric poet of the nineteenth century who wrote as little as Tiutchev in his verse about the poet, poetry, and inspiration."25 There are, in fact, only three major poems in which Tiutchev uses the word poet: "You saw him in society cireles" (Ty zrel ego v krugu bol'shogo sveta, 1829), "Oon't, don't be ;·m! lieve the poet, maiden" (Ne ver', ne ver' poetu, deva, 18}9), and '1"

"With a lively sense of greeting" (Zhivym soehuvstviem priveta, 1840). And in all three, Tiutchev takes a fairly standard view of 'f

~'

the poet as aman engrossed in his Own world, alien to the insensitive crowd, gi~n over to"'wild passions, and all-powerful in his creative potential. None conveys a concept of art that co

~ incides with the deeper concerns of Tiutchev's metaphysical ().¡ • poetry. '-- ". '1:,.1

.' TíüfCñev does consider the lot of the poet and inspiration in his metaphysical poems. But because he usually presupposes an image of the poet as a mystic merged or merging with nature, his treatment of the theme is sometimes so indirect as to be obscure. The creative process appears as a force inherent in nature, independent of the genius or talent of any individual human being. Once the involvement of the figurative poet is diminished, few elues remain to distinguish one kind of creativity from another. Often the peak experience portrayed can be interpreted in terms of spiritual regeneration, mystic transport, or sexual ecstasy as well as artistic inspiration. This chapter treats

PonlY three SUCh ... o... e.m.s. : "A. ~i.sio.n" (Videnie, 1829), '1\s the oceanIembraces the earthly spheie'" f'kak okean ob"emlet shar zemnoi, / na more, 18}6). But the poems( 18}0), and "Oream at Sea" (Son "Spring," discil"ssediti"-chapter 2, "How sweetly slumbers the

THE POET AND POETRY

dark green garden" (Kak sladko dremlet sad temnozelenyi, 18}6), and "Holy night has risen into the firmament" (Sviataia noeh' na nebosklon vzoshla, 1850), to be discussed in chapter 4, could also logically be ineluded in a discussion of the creative or regenerative experience.

'1\ Vision" is one of Tiutchev's most direct portrayals of inspiration because it includes specific mention of the Muse:

BI1)lEHI1E

ECTb HeKHM qac, B HOqH, BceMHpHoro MOnqaHbH, 11 B OHillM qac HBneHHrt H qy~ec

MHBaH KoneCHH~a MHpos~aHbH

OTKpillTO KaTHTCH B CBHTHnH~e

Tor~a rycreeT HOqb, KaK xaoc EecrraMHTCTBO, KaK ATnac,

]Hillb MYSill ~eBCTBeHHYID

B rrpOpOqeCKHX TpeBo~aT 60rH

A VISION

He6ec.

Ha Bo~ax,

~aBHT CYillY; ~ymy

cHax:

There is a certain hour, in the night, oí universal silence, and \\ at that hour oí apparitions and miracles the living chariot oí the universe roUs openly into the sanctuary oí the heavens.

Then night thickens, like chaos on the waters; unconsciousness, like Atlas, presses the land-only the Muse's virgin soul t¡ do the gods rouse in prophetic dreams.

, Although the Muse does appear, she does so only in the penultimate line of the poem, effectively leaving the experience portrayed in the opening three-fourths of the poem open to various interpretations. Even the title is ambiguous. The word videnie 1» (vision) might denote the visionary dreams of the Muse, or it V'\ might refer to the vision of the mystic poet-persona, a vision taking the form of the poem itself-or, of course, both phenomena at once.

No matter who the beneficiary of the vision may be, Tiutchev makes it clear that the vision depends on the setting-the coincidence of certain natural phenomena-rather than on any form of individual artistic consciousness. The important opening position of the verb est' emphasizes the existential fact that there is a certain hour. The second word, nekii, makes the statement more emphatic by repeating the stressed e sound in est'o And the third word, ehas, takes on additional force because of the recurrence of the eh sound in noehi, molehan'ia, the repetition of

,106 THE POET AND POETRY

the word chas itself in the second line, and the presence of both ch and s sounds in the word chudeso The three distindive features of this hour-its occurrence specifica11y at night (v nochi), its association with sorne specific form of sound or absence-ofsound imagery (vsemirnogo molchan'ia), and its association with the supernatural (chas iavlenii i chudes)-are a11 charaderistics that appear in a significant number of Tiutchev's metaphysical poems, especia11y those in which the powerful image of chaos is either explicitly or implicitly presento

The concluding lines of the first stanza continue the same train of thought. The fact that the chariot of the universe ro11s openly (otkryto) reaffirms the notion that the experience is not limited to specia11y gifted beings: it is there for anyone who may happen to be present during the certain houro The universality of the experience completely negates the fundion of the uniquely endowed visionary poet who takes such a prominent place in poems like Venevitinov's "Love the Child of Inspiration" and "The Poet and His Friendo"

The total absence of the first-person pronoun further confirms the relative insignificance of the poet's fundion. In this aspect "A Vision" contrasts sharply with poems like Pushkin's "The Muse" (Muza, 1821), in which the poet refers to himself eight times within fourteen lines, or with more typical second-rate romantic poems like Tumanskii's "The Muses" (Muzy, 1822), in which the poet refers to himself seventeen times in forty lines and closes the poem with a boast showing no mean estimate of his own role in the creative process: la slavil pesniami vysokikh dev liubov', / 1 sladko trepetal moi genii (1 praised the love of exalted maidens with songs, and my genius sweetly stirred)o2b Even the title "Videnie," which might at first seem to imply the presence of the poet, refers most directly only to the dreams (visions) of the Muse. Thus the only sure proof that the poet exists is the existence of the poem itself.

The second stanza of "A Vision" reaffirms the setting with the word togda (then)-meaning the certain hour just describedand by repetition of the word noch' (night)o It also introduces two more elements that figure prominently in Tiutchev's metaphysical poetry: the image of chaos and an assertion of the irrational nature of the basic functions of the universe. The word bespamiatstvo denotes something more than simple unconscious-


ness. It conveys the specific absence of consciousness of self, the obliteration of human feelings and human ratiocination associated with participation in the universal-godly life in "Spring." Bespamiatstvo also acts as a counterpart to chaos in the para11el similes that open the second stanza: Togda gusteet noch', kak khaos na vodakh, / Bespamiatstvo, kak Atlas, davit sushu (Then night thickens, like chaos on the waters; unconsciousness, like Atlas, presses the land). In this reversal of the usual concept of Atlas as the holder of the heavens, the weight of the heavens presses on Atlas' body, which in turn presses down on the earth like the weighty unconsciousness of deep sleep. Thus both unconsciousness and chaos represent night forces, one pressing on the waters, the other pressing on the lando Since land and water l1

comprise the earthly sphere, unconsciousness and chaos together subjugate the whole world to irrational forces.

The irregular arrangement of various stylistic elements supports the irrational aspect of the poem and contributes to the blurry visionary quality often associated with romantic poetryo Line length, for instance, varies from nine to thirteen sy11ables, and no two lines in one stanza have the same number of sy11abIes. In the second stanza, even the number of feet per line varies in a more or less irregular pattern, the fifth line of the poem having six feet, the sixth line five feet, the seventh line four feet, and the finalline five feet. This irregularity gives the poem a certain metrical vagueness in keeping with the hazy quality of the vision itself.

In addition, in both stanzas the tempo of the verse changes as the persona expresses himself in verbal waves that gather momentum, break, and then fa11 back. The pattern in both stanzas is the same: first a series of short phrases set off by commas that reflect the halting pattern of the images building up in the persona's mind. The pause between the images gives each one a distind and lasting presence:

[stanza 1] Est' nekii chas, 1v nochi, I vsemirnogo molchan'ia I

There is a certain hour, I in the night, Iof universal silence, I [stanza 2]

Togda gusteet noch', kak khaos na vodakh,I 1

Bespamiatstvo, I kak Atlas, I davit sushu; 1


Then night thickens, Ilike chaos on the waters, I Unconsciousness, Ilike Atlas, I presses the land; I

At a certain point, these accumulated images combine into one main image that carries through the rest of the stanza, mimicking the flash of inspiration portrayed by the poem as a whole: the commas disappear and the words come rushing out without a break as, in the first stanza, the living chariot of the universe rolls across the sky, and in the second, the soul of the Muse is roused by the gods in prophetic dreams.

The contorted syntax of the poem's concluding clause again shows the disordered quality of the persona's means of expression. If the clause is organized in accordance with the norms of Russian syntax, it still denotes the same phenomenon, but its impact differs from that in the poem.

Standard word order: Bogi trevozhat lish' devstvennuiu dushu Muzy v prorocheskikh

snakh.

In the poem: Lish' Muzy devstvennuiu dushu / V prorocheskikh trevozhat

bogi snakh.

Such details of syntax are impossible to translate accurately, but it suffices to note that if standard word order is represented by consecutive numbers from 1 through 9, the word order in the poem reads 3-6-4-5-7-8-2-1-9.

In the standard version, the subject and verb of the sentence-the gods and their rousing action-receive more syntactic weight than the other elements. In the poem, the situation is reversed: the words trevozhat (rouse) and bogi (gods) are buried in the middle of the line and obscured by syntactic confusion, while the more important elements stand out at the beginnings and ends of lines-the Muse, her soul, her dreams, and the visionary quality of the dreams. In one sense, however, analytic comprehension of the syntax is almost irrelevant, because the essential aspects of the persona's message emerge from the text of their own accord regardless of syntactic norms.

The classical concepts of the chariot of the universe and the tJ. sanctuary of the heavens as well as the references to Atlas, the ,~Muse, and chaos give the poem strong mythological overtones.


One particular myth may well have provided much of the material from which Tiutchev constructed the poem: the myth of creation. Since Tiutchev had a thorough training in the Latin classics, he was almost certainly acquainted with the myth as it 1 appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses. 27 Both this version and He- J siod's version, which Tiutchev may have known in tranSlation,/.: are centered on the role of chaos as the source of the universe. Hesiod says: "Verily at first Chaos carne to be, but next widebosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all.... From Cha-~

os carne forth Erebus and black night." 28 Ovid's version reads as)1

fol!ows: '

Before the sea was, and the lands, and the sky that hangs over aH, the face of Nature showed alike in her whole round, which state have men caHed chaos.... AH objects were at odds, for within one body cold things strove with hot, moist with dry, soft things with hard, things having weight with weightless things.

Cod-or kindlier Nature-composed this strife.... He set them each in its own place and bound them fast in harmony.29

The main ideas about creativity expressed in "A Vision" can readily be derived from the ancients' image of chaos. The op- i.) position to general order suggested by the nighttime setting, the ...{ mentions of dreams, unconsciousness, and chaos in the poem / appears as the extreme disorder of Ovid's chaos, juxtaposed as it I is to the concept of "e~nal order." Al! three authors view this Y disorder as a source of fernrrty: chaos gives rise to the creation of / the universe in Hesiod and Ovid, and to artistic inspiration in Tiutchev. At the same time, al! exclude any reference to a human contribution to the creative process. The universe simply comes to be: it evolves from chaos through the workings of a nature inhabited by supernatural forces as a matter of course. Likewise, Tiutchev's vision simply comes to be as a result of the natural presence of supernatural night forces, which significantly

cthicken "li~e c,haos on the waters." Thus the image of chaos, which at first seems to playonly a minor role as a part of a simile, contains virtually the whole conceptual framework on which the poem is based.

Tiutchev's poem "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere" contains no dired reference to inspiration: no muse appears to signal the precise meaning of the creative experience portrayed,

111 110 THE POET AND POETRY

and the imagery could suggest a number of equally plausible interpretations. But the movement of the poem remains the same. At the outset, the persona functions merely as an observer of the supernatural workings of the universe; but then, urged on by the voice of the Element, he is "carried away," and in the end finds himself in the very midst of the creativity and power omnipresent in the supernatural universe.

KaR OReaH 06neM~eT rnap 3eMHoti, 3eMHaH ~H3Hb RpyroM 06nHTa CHaMH; HaCTaHeT HOqb - H 3BYQHMMH Bo~HaMH

CTHXHH 6beT o 6eper CBOtl.

To r~ac ee: OH HY~HT Hac H rrpOCHT ... y~ B rrpHCTaHH Bo~rne6HMA O~H~ Qe~H;

rrpH~HB paCTeT H 6MCTpO HaC YHOCHT B HeH3MepHMOCTb TeMHMX BO~H.

He6eCHMA CBO~, ropH~Htl c~aBoA 3Be3~HoA

TaHHCTBeHHO r~H~HT H3 r~y6HHM,-M MM rr~MBeM, rrM~aID~eID 6e3~Hotl

Co BCeX CTOpOH ORPy~eHM.

As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere, earthly life is whol!y embraced by dreams; night fal!s-and in sonorous waves the Element pulses against its shore.

This is its voice: it compels and beseeches us ... The magic bark has already come alive at the wharf; the tide grows and carries us swiftly away into the immeasurability of the dark waves.

The heavenly vault, burning with starry glory, mysteriously glances from the depths-and we float, surrounded by the flaming abyss on al! sides.

The theme of inspiration is most directly symbolized by star imagery combined with the notion of contact with the metaphysical depths of the universe, notably in the first two lines of the last stanza: Nebesnyi svod, goriashchii sIavoi zvezdnoi, / Tainstvenno gliadit iz gIubiny (The heavenly vault, burning with starry glory, mysteriously glances from the depths). Certain striking similarities to "A Vision" further support the idea of inspiration by association. The simile that opens the poem, for instance, recalis the similes in the second stanza of "A Vision," with the same juxtaposition of water, land, and unconsciousness or dreams. Here, however, the connections between the various parts of the simile are stronger because of the repetition of the adjective

Ji

THE POET AND POETRY

zemnoi (earthly) and the overall chiastic structure of the two lines:

Kak okean ob"emlet shar zemnoi (that which (act of embracing) (that which is

embraces) embraced)

krugom ob"iataZemnaia zhizn' snami (that which (act of embracing) (that which

is embraced) embraces)

The rhyming of symbolically important words for water and dreams also occurs in both poems: snakh-vodakh in "A Vision" and snami-volnami here. FinalIy, here again night seems to be a necessary condition for the evocation of the forces of creativity. The usage of the perfective aspect of the verb in the phrase nastanet noch' indicates that the future action, repeated or not, will be completed, thus emphasizing the fact that night will have fallen, rather than the process of night's falling, as a prelude to the ensuing experience.

Another possible interpretation focuses on the poem as the portrayal of a sexual experience. Tiutchev had a number of intense and complex amorous involvements, and one can assume that sexual passion played a particularly strong role in his life. And despite the moral conventions of nineteenth-century society, Tiutchev wrote about this passion with varying degrees of directness in a number of poems, especially in the well-known cycle related to his relationship with Elena Aleksandrovna Oenis'eva. 30 The sexual motif in "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere" is stated most obviously through the repeated imagery of embracing in the opening simile, and less obviously through the imagery of the pulsing Element, which (like sexual desire) "compels and beseeches us," and finally "carries us swiftly away" into the immeasurable depths of experience.

The writings of Hesiod and Ovid on the creation of the universe once again serve as possible sources, in this instance suggesting a combination of metaphysical and sexual creative power. Ovid combines the imagery of surrounding and embrac


ing in a manner that para11els Tiutchev's usage. In his version, when nature evolved a cosmic order: "The fiery weighUess element that forms heaven's vault leaped up and made a place for itselt upon the topmost height. Next carne the airo ... The earth was far heavier than these and ... sank to the bottom by its own weight. The encircling sea took the last place of a11, and heId the solid land in its embrace." 31 As in the poem, an act of metaphysical creativity takes place with fiery heavens aboye and the ocean embracing the land below. In the cosmogony of Hesiod, "Earth ... is a disk surraunded by the River Oceanus," just as earth is surraunded by the ocean in the poem. But Hesiod then makes the sexual potential in the imagery explicit, for the contact between Earth and Oceanus results in offspring. 32

No matter which interpretation seems most valid-and these interpretations are by no means mutua11y exclusive-the essential characteristics of the experience remain the same. The first of these essential characteristics is that the experience fa11s outside the realm of the rational world. The opening reference to dreams and the imagery of embracing immediately suggest that the contro11ing forces stem fram the irrational side of man's existence, the subconscious part of his mind and his passions. The Element (stikhiia) comprises that part of the human psyche that has a voice (glas) and speaks out in dreams, which simultaneously compels andbeseeches us (nudit nas i prosit), and fina11y carries us away into"thed'arK; unfathomable depths of our own souls. It is this irrational aspect of man, his own internal chaos,•. '\, that forms a part of the pantheistic universe founded on chaos.

.;, 'Ir "'l" It brings him into communion with the supernatural force thati

mysteriouslygla.ns.es down fram the heavens, surraunding him ~ithstarry glory and giving rise to a sublime experience.

/", Secondly, this universe exists tota11y independenUy of man's } consciousness of it. The ocean embracing the land and the

'~, •¡~, .(1" dreams embracing rational (earthly) life are there whether man perceives them or noto If man lives in the middle of a desert, he may not believe that the ocean exists, but it does, and in fact it surraunds the continent on which the desert is located. Likewise, a person may not know that he has dreams, but they exist and surraund his waking life a11 the same. The fact that the entity that combines the ocean and dream imagery is ca11ed the El-


ement (stikhiia) shows its power as an irresistible force of nature that denies any possibility of interference by human consciousness. * Perhaps the most significant aspect of the poem is that the actual creative impulse, the height of the experience depicted, stems fram a downward glance of the starry heavens, and not fram the genius or upward striving of the persona. Creativity is a function of nature, not a function of the human presence.

The passive and unseltconscious stance of the persona reinforces the notion of nature's independence of mano Signified by the first-person plural pranoun, the persona is prabably meant to be mankind in general. At any rate, the figures involved never show any consciousness of themselves as distinct individuals; their whole consciousness is focused on the workings of nature. They are tota11y passive and appear only as they are acted upon by the supernatural forces at work within the poem. In grammatical terms, mankind, as represented by the firstperson plural pranoun (nas), is twice a direct object-nudit nas i prosit . .. bystro nas unosit (compels and beseeches us ... swiftly , carries us away). As such, it is acted upon by the subjects of the {I clauses, which are metaphysically symbolic forces of nature, the ~ Element (stikhiia) and the tide (priliv). And when the firstperson pronoun does occur as the subject of a sentence, my plyvem (we are floating), it is not the initiator of assertive action on nature but rather the subject of an intransitive verb suggesting something like a state of being. Even in this instance nature retains ultimate control, because as man floats he is surrounded on a11 sides by the flaming abyss of nature: the word okruzheny (surrounded) significanUy closes the poem.

The third characteristic of the creative experience is that it is an internal event portrayed in terms of external phenomena. The external metaphor allows Tiutchev to maintain the sense of objectivity, the same virtual denial of man's subjective point of view that we saw earlier in "A Vision." The opening simile establishes the two aspects, with the ocean, in reality a force outside man, equated with dreams, the praduct of the inner workings of

*1 have capitalized "Element" to emphasize the fact that the word signifies a force of nature; this is the primary meaning of the Russian stikhiia, which lacks the scientific and other more mundane meanings of the English "element."


man's soul. Although the dream imagery disappears after the first few lines, water imagery continues to the end of the poem. But since the opening simile has established a certain identity between the two, the water imagery takes on symbolic value for the internal process corresponding to the external process actually depicted.

This poem differs from "A Vision" in its indirect method of handling the theme of inspiration and the possible addition of

JI:the sexual motif, but the same concept of creativity and the t same poetic method underlies both poems. The notion of cre '~ ativity combines a typically romantic insistence on the irrational f

{origins of the creative process and an almost classicist portrayal of the creative forces of nature as objective phenomena totally independent of the subjective view of the poet. In accordance with these ideas, metaphors of the external world are used to portray an essentially internal experience.

Tiutchev's mystic persona remains Tiutchev's own creation, but the concept he represents and the method he embodies show a close relation to the fundamental precepts Schelling outlines in his System of Transcendental Idealism: "The first principIe of this philosophy is that a world of things outside us and independent of us exists. But in addition, our perceptions of things correspond so accurately to these things that they exist as we

i perceive them." 33 Tiutchev portrays the supernatural universe ¡ as a world of things outside human consciousness and independent of human consciousness. Yet at the same time, the consciousness of his almost invisible persona acts in such close conjunction with that universe that his poems show the universe "as it really is."

In addition, the poem might well be related to Schelling's theory of arto Although Tiutchev had little use for Schelling's early notion of the artist as an outstanding individual or genius, preferring instead his later views on the merging of self-will with the universal will, he was served well by Schelling's basic concept of art as the highest form of Indífferenz, the resolution of the contradiction between the real (material) and the ideal (spiriIí\ tual), and "the realization of the infinite in the finite." 3, The ar

\ JI tistic significance of Indifferenz appears here as the possibility of inspiration linked to the idea of being "surrounded on all sides"

"

',:".. I',ti,THE POET AND POETRY 115 ii,

by "starry glory" from the stars aboye and their reflection in the 'ocean below, or, in another description of the same phenomenon, being surrounded by "the flaming abyss."

The reflection fits Schelling's concepts in a number of ways. On one hand, one might claim that the stars are real and that their reflection in the water is only an image, hence associated with the ideal. The number of stars, therefore, is finite, while the number of reflections, which can repeat with an echo effect any number of times, is infinite. The artistic vision of the poem's personae, their dreamlike perception of the surrounding uni- '\n verse, thus encompasses and actually merges the real and the ti ideal, the finite and the infinite.

On the other hand, on the basis of literary tradition, one could reverse the interpretation, arguing that the stars are only a symbol of inspiration and therefore belong tothe realm of the spiritual, while the water reflecting the stars belongs to the realm of the material. Further, the stars, which exist in number beyond any human comprehension, represent the infinite, while the water and other earthly phenomena represent the finite. But here again the conclusion is the same and it relates to Schelling's principIes equally well: art is the reconciliation of the real and ~ the ideal, the realization of the infinite in the finite.

The image of the poet as creator in Tiutchev's "Dream at Sea" (Son na more, 18}6) acts as a foil for the mystic personae who lurk behind the scenes in the two poems just discussed. Nonetheless, the basic view of creativity expressed in the other poems eventually comes to the surface here also.

COH HA MOFE

H Mope H 6YPH Ka~anH Haru ~enH;

R, COHHUH, 6un rrpe~aH BceH rrpHxoTH BonH. ~Be 6ecrrpe~enbHocTH 6unH BO MHe, il MHOH CBoeBonbHO HrpanH oHe. BKpyr MeHH, KaK KHMBanH, 3By~anH cKanH, OKnHKanHcH BeTpH H rrenH BanH. R B xaoce 3BYKOB ne.an ornyrueH, Ho Ha~ xaoCOM 3BYKOB HocHnCH MOH COH. Eone3HeHHo-HpKHH, Bonme6Ho-HeMoH, OH BeHn nerKo Ha~ rpeMHmero TbMOH. B ny~ax orHeBH~H pa3BHn OH CBOH MHp 3eMnH 3eneHena, CBeTHnCH 8~HP, Ca~bI-naBHpHH~bI, ~epTorH, CTonrrbI, il COHMbI KHrrenH 6e3MonBHoH TonrrbI. R MHoro Y3Han MHe HeBe~oMbIX nH~,

3pen TBapeH Bonme6HbIX, TaHHCTBeHHbIX rrTH~,


TIo BillCHM TBOpeHhH, KaK Eor, H rnaran, H Mllp ITO~O MHOID He~Bll~HillH CllHn. Ho Bce rpe3ill HaCKB03h, KaK Bonrne6HllKa BOH, MHe cnillrnanCH rpOXOT ITyqllHill MOpCKOH, H B TllXYID 06naCTh Bll~eHllH II CHDB BpNBanaCH ITeHa peBY~llX BanDB.

GEAM":~ Both the sea and the storm.rocked our bark; I was sleepy and given over"'To every wlUiñ"~'rth~ waves. Two infinities were within me, and they played with me at will. The cliffs resounded around me like cymbals, the winds replied and the waves sango I lay deafened in the chaos of sounds, but aboye the chaos of sounds skimmed my dr'eam:"l'"afttfütty vivid, magically mute, it wafted lightly over the th~ring d~rk~ss. In the rays of a fever it unfolded its world-the earth shone green, the ether brightened, labyrinthine gardens, palaces, columns, and mxriads of silent crowds swarmed around. I carne to know ma~üpernatúrarCharactérs;'s'ifW'iñag¡cal"creatures and mysterious birds; I strode like Cod * along the summits of creation, and under me the motionless world glowed.

,1 But through all the dreams I heard the roar of the ocean's 'i abyss like a magician's howl, and into the silent realm of vi

sions and dreams burst the foam of the roaring waves.

"Dream at Sea" portrays the struggle between two sets of ele1 ments: those associated with the sea or chaos of sounds, which ¡ dominate the opening and closing sections, and those associ~ ated with the dream or inspiration of the persona-creator, which

dominate the middle section. The main strands of imagery fall clearly into two opposing categories:

dve bespredel'nosti (two infinities)

son (dream) more (sea) sonnyi (drowsy) buria (storm) grezy (dreams) khaos zvukov (chaos of sounds) oglushen (deafened) zvuchali (resounded) tikhaia oblast' videnii i snov oklikalisia (replied)

(silent realm of visions and peli (sang) dreams) valy, volny (billows, waves)

*The notes in F. 1. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (St. Petersburg: Marks, 1913), p, 382, confirm the capitalization of Bog (1. 7), thus making the correct translation "God" rather than "a god." Soviet editions print the word with a small b for ideological reasons, a practice that crea tes particular ambiguity in this poem.


volshebno-nemoi (magically volshebnika voi (magician's mute) howl)

pena revushchikh valov (foam of the roaring waves)

The lefthand column, with its emphasis on silence and supernatural phenomena, echoes the imagery of "A Vision" and creates a sense that recalls Tiutchev's "blissful world" (blazhennyi mir).35 This is a poetic realm permeated by a feeling of drowsy bliss and often identified with the warm, peaceful days of spring or summer, or with a southern locale. The words in the righthand column, on the other hand, clearly pertain to Tiutchev's "stormy world" (burnyi mir), a world of raging winds, billowing waves, and a deafening array of storm noises. 36

The persona's statement that two infinities (dve bespredel'nosti) are within him suggests that he has the ability to ally himself with either side. Within the context of this particular event, though, his main function is as the creator of the dream, and he sees himself as an integral part of the dream. His only mention of himself in connection with the sea casts him in the role of a victim, as a man in a boat, possibly seasick, and given over to "\ the whims of the waves; or, at the end, as a poet whose divine ..J vision is ruined by the roar of the sea.

The dream with which the poet allies himself is quite different from the dreams in the other poems discussed. First of all, the dream has specifically depicted content. The dreams of the Muse in "A Vision" and the dreams that embrace earthly life in "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere" are symbolic at most. Even more likely, they simply exist as totally amorphous irrational phenomena of unknowable content.

Second, this dream represents the rationa1. 37 Everything is clear and bright; things are identified, perhaps even classified to the extent that the verb uznat' carries implications of recognizing or getting to know something on the basis of its given characteristics. In addition, the content of the dream emphasizes form, with its labyrinthine gardens, palaces, and columns reminiscent of the rigidly geometric gardens at Versailles.

Third, the personae in the other poems take part in the dreams only insofar as they absorb the supernatural aura or intuit the indistinct significance of the dreams, Here the persona


is the creator of the dream. He actually takes on the role of Cod within his dream-po vysiam tvoren'ia kak Bog ia shagal (1 strode like Cod along the summits of creation)-and he never loses sight of that role as he refers to himse!f no fewer than eleven times in the twenty-two-line poem. 3H His constant focus on himse!f contrasts sharply with the extreme infrequency of se!freference by the personae in the other poems. In effect, this persona tries to make nature into the dream of mano This opposes

r the principie suggested in the other metaphysical poems and ~i expressed in a poem cited earlier, "Of the life that raged here"

that man exists only as a dream of nature. With his godly pretensions and his ever recurrent references

to himse!f, the persona commits the deadly sin of pride. Chaos.and the sea, in keeping with their usual roles in Tiutchev's poetry as ele'"iñents of a higher reality-not simply as symbols of the hustle and bustle of everyday life-quite literally serve the cause of poetic justice when they burst into the poet's vision and destroy it. Chaos acts as a threatening yet positive force, for in breaking through the egoism of the persona and destroying the false inspiration, it provides him with an opportunity for a rebirth akin to the regeneration depicted in "Spring." Once he is rid of the se!f-centered life represented by his dream, the poet will be free to merge with the sea of the universal-godly life and the fertile chaos below. 39

Two additional pieces of evidence support this analysis of the relationship between the persona and chaos. The first is a translation of "The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet" from Shakespeare's A Midsummer-Niglzt's Dream made by Tiutchev at roughly the same time he wrote "Oream at Sea." 41l The exclamation that opens the poem asserts that lovers, madmen, and poets are all cast from the same mold. This is abad portent for the poet in "Oream at Sea," but carries no direct link to him. A connection does become evident in the last four lines of the translation, which more or less parody both the diction and the content of lines 15-18 of "Oream at Sea," stating that the poet's imagination creates unheard-of creatures (suslzchestv nevedomykh) and that his staff gives auy-Sl1a.aows name and spatial form-thus emphasizing the utter folly of the poet's godlike pretensions.

\ r ~. ',:.

i l.'

'!

e 'f


It is certainly possible, even probable, that Tiutchev appropriated the term "two infinities" from Pascal, but the poem as a whole has far more to do with Schelling's philosophy than with Pascal's.41 The opening of Pascal's Pensées states that man can comprehend neither the infinitely large nor the infinitely small, and so must turn to Cod for his understanding of the universe; the persona in "Oream at Sea" deals neither with the infinitely large nor with the infinitely small, and he does not turn to Cod in the end. Rather, the situation in the poem embodies a number of basic precepts that Schelling expresses in his Inquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom.

Tiutchev's two infinities, for instance, could easily be seen as counterparts to the "h\.:o deepestm~taphysical<:~l1ters," the two extreme forms of the"'mocres~¿'(éxIsfeÍlce avanábr~"'to man, described by Schelling in the following passage: "The manifestation of the two deepest metaphysical centers occurs in no visible creatures other than mano In man appear the whole power of the Oark Principie and the whole power of Light. In him are the !1 deepest abyss and the highest heaven, or both metaphysicalf centers," 42 The principie of darkness is then identified with sur- ¡

re'nder to se!f-will, whereas surrender to the principie of light leads to merging with the universal will. Tiutchev's persona succumbs to the extreme form of se!f-will by creating a dream world to suit his own designs, and the u!timate destruction of his dream indicates that he has overstepped the proper bounds of human activity in this metaphysical universe.

Schelling provides a more explicit statement of the same notion as he explains that, when evil is engendered by man's attempt to become the ruling will, another spirit comes to occupy the place where Cod should be. This is "the Tempter" himse!f, who entices man into false pleasures and plants the ideas of things that do not exist in his imagination. In sum: "Sin begins when man ... steps over the boundary from Light into Oarkness, tries to become a creative principie of his own accord, and tries to rule all things with the power of the metaphysical centers he has within him." 43 Here, not only does Schelling speak of the false dominance of se!f-will, but, like Tiutchev, he makes specific note of its attempt to replace Cod, the true ruling will of Creation, with itse!f. In addition, Schelling's emphasis on the


unreality of the self as Cad and the deception of imagination relates to both Tiutchev's translation of "The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet" and, here, to his use of the dream or delirium as an image of unreal experience. The poet's dream, in which the ether brightens, silent crowds swarm, and supernatural characters, magical creatures, and mysterious birds appear, could easily be the wark of "the Tempter" described by Schelling, though for Tiutchev the poem's primary significance remains metaphysical rather than religious.

Schelling also likens the domination of self-will to sickness marked by a "burning fever" (Fieber), suggesting the "fever" (ognevitsa) suffered by Tiutchev's persona. But just as the poet hints that the self-satisfied poet-creator may be saved by a good dousing in the fertile waters of metaphysical chaos, the philosopher is also willing to give the sinner another chanceo He explains that it is impossible far man to remain in an ambiguous positian, balanced precariously between the two centers he has within him; therefore, a movement toward evil may be seen as an act that ultimately makes man conscious of goOd. 44

J In sum, Tiutchev's view of creativity, like that expressed in 1 Schelling's late philosophy, requires a totally passive stance on

. the part of the human being involved. In "A Vision" the mystic , persona becomes a part of the whole magical aura of the "certain

hour in the night," and in "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere" he is "carried away" by the complex of forces signified /.

'. by dl¡am and water imagery. The image of the poet that underlies Tiutchev's metapflyslcal poetry-if it can be called an image at all-hifs1'fó1'híngto do withfhe markedly active figure of the

f h philosopher, prophet, or rebellious outcast. Tiutchev's poet is ~ 1jí a quiet, contemplative mystic oblivious of everything but the , ¡ flarger metaphysical workings of the universe.

Unlike many other writers of the romantic period who symbolize the active poet as a keen-eyed eagle that soars aboye the chaos of daily life to glimpse the secrets of the universe, Tiutchev rarely uses any symbol at all. In one case in which he does use a symbol (but a rather vague one at that), a poem entitIed "The Swan" (Lebed', 1839), he rejects the image of the eagle and, by implication, the concept of the po~t usually associated with


it. The image of the swan here furnishes an alternative, representing a passive approach to metaphysical reflection:

]EEE~b

ITycKaH ope~ 3a o6~aKaMil BCTpeqaeT MO~Hilil rro~eT

H HerrO~BilEHUMil oqaMil B ce6ff BrrilBaeT cO~Hqa CBeT.

Ho HeT 3aBil~Hee y~e~a,

o ~e6e~h qilCTUH, TBoero H qrrCTOH, KaK TU caM, o~e~o Te6ff CTilxrreH 60EeCTBO.

OHa, MeE~Y ~BOHHOID 6e3~HOH, ]e~eeT TBOH Bce3pff~rrH COH H rrO~HoH c~aBOH TBep~rr 3Be3~HoH Tu O~OBCID~Y oKPYEeH.

THE SWAN

Let the eagle encounter the lightning's course beyond the clouds and drink in the sun's brightness with his fixed gaze.

But there is no lot more enviable, O pure swan, than yours-and the deity has clothed you in an element as pure as you yourself.

She nurtures your aH-seeing dream between the double abyss-you are surrounded on aH sides by the star-filled glory of the world.

Like "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere," which was written during the same period, "The Swan" has a nighttime setting on water, dreams, the presence of a mysterious force of nature called "the element," and a concluding image of an abyss of starry glary reflected on the water and completely surrounding the main figure. And once again it is passive acceptance and contemplation of nature, not active striving, that leads to an experience of the sublime.

Tiutchev's mystic poet lacks the consciousness of his own gifted condition that characterizes even the passive aspects of the images of the poet as philosopher and the poet as outcast. Indeed, the inevitable destruction of the poet-creator's vision in "Dream at Sea" shows the folly of artistic consciousness inflated at the expense of submission to nature's own creative powers. Nature, in Tiutchev's majar metaphysical poems, is a totally selfsustaining, inherentIy creative force. It exists as an objective en


tity, seemingly uninfluenced by the subjective views of any human figure. Even when the form of creativity clearly has associations with man's internal life, Tiutchev presents it through metaphors of the external world, thereby maintaining a fa<;ade of objectivity.

In terms of M. H. Abrams's metaphor of the mirror and the lamp, Tiutchev is a lamp pretending to be a mirror. Tiutchev's universe filled with supernatural forces certainly goes far beyond "reality" in the usual sense of the word, thus qualifying him as a lamp whose light projects a new dimension onto everything it reveals. Yet at the same time, Tiutchev's absolute rejection of the self-centered and self-conscious romantic poetpersona creates the illusion that the poet is a simple mirror, dutifully reflecting an irrationaL supernatural universe founded on chaos.

The Poet and Society

Tiutchev and Boratynskii handle the theme of the poet and poetry in very different ways. Tiutchev's metaphysical poems on poetry deal with the process of inspiration-the interaction between a mystic poet and the supernatural forces of the universe. This focus makes them closely akin to his metaphysical nature poems, a relationship underlined by his use of similar aspects of Schelling's thought in both instances. In such works, the poet's relations with society have no role whatsoever.

Boratynskii's metaphysical poems on poetry, on the other hand, virtually always involve interaction between the poet and society; they demonstrate the gulf between the world view of the poet and that of society at large, and ultimately show the poet as a social outcast. The evolution of the poet's inspiration has little relevance in this contexto And though Schelling's philosophy may underlie the notion of the poet as genius, the con ;{

}

cept was common enough in romantic circles that no specific Schellingian influence can be claimed. Indeed, the image of the l

(~genius-poet as a social outcast most likely filtered into Boratyn ';f.

skii's consciousness through the works of Pushkin and Lermontov, who were themselves influenced by the alienated persona in the works of Byron.

¡


When Boratynskii does treat the theme of inspiration, for instance in "Don't imitate: Genius is unique" (Ne podrazhai, svoeobrazen genii, 1828) or "A wondrous city at times takes shape" (Chlldnyi grad poroi sol'etsia, 1829):5 the poems are so programmatic as to eliminate the possibility of larger metaphysical meaning. And even these poems carry extremely heavy overtones of the conflict between the poet and society in addition to their concern with inspiration.

In the work of both Tiutchev and Boratynskii, the metaphysical stance bears a close relationship to the real poet's own life. Tiutchev's poetic experience was concentrated on the act of inspiration because inspiration was the only aspect of the role of the poet that he was willing and able to accept. He refused to view himself as a poet dramatically opposed to the kind of society life he so much enjoyed!6 He regarded himself as a social dilettante incapable of prolonged serious work, and his poetry (or "doggerel," as he sometimes called it) seems to have had almost no significant role in his self-perception!7 Tiutchev's first biographer,1. S. Aksakov, explained the phenomenon this way: "[Tiutchev] was a poet by force of a calling more powerful than he was, but he was not a poet by profession ... He wrote involuntarily, fulfilling a persistent and importunate need-because he couldn't not write. To put it more accurately, he did not write the poems, but only "transcribed" them." 4" In Tiutchev's work there is a total absence of poetic self-consciousness: one sees the force and direction of the poetic inspiration, but never an image of Tiutchev himself as a poet.

In the terms proposed by Schiller in "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry," Tiutchev is a "nai've" poet because "the object the poem possesses him utterly ... and therefore he ... is not visible in his work." 49 Boratynskii, on the other hand, provides an extreme example of Schiller's "sentimental" poet, always selfconsciously examining both himself as a poet and his relation to society. He seems to have found the role of social outcast suited to his temperament quite early in life-witness the comment in a letter he wrote to his mother from boarding school when he was only twelve years old: "1 thought 1 would find friendship, but all I've found is cold and affected cordiality, friendship based on self-interest: when 1 have an apple or something else, every


one is my friend, but afterwards it's as if all that had come before had vanished." 50

Boratynskii's expulsion from the school several years later magnified this early sense of alienation. And when the young Boratynskii seriously began to consider himself a poet at the age of eighteen, it probably would have been quite natural for him to focus on the image of the poet as outcast even without further extenuating circumstances. But at roughly the same time, he chose to enlist in the army in hopes of regaining the honor he had lost through the fiasco at school and was sent off to Finland for his tour of duty. The conditions of his military servicewhich included long leaves of absence in Petersburg-were hardly grueling, but Boratynskii felt himself brutally sundered from the mainstream of life and in much of his early poetry adopted the stance of the "Finnish exile." This constant posing and self-torment has led one scholar to make the ironic but essentially accurate observation that Boratynskii "was a close relation of Hamlet and had nothing at all to learn from Byron." 51

A brief surge of optimism marked Boratynskii's perception of the role of the poet just after he left the army, moved to Moscow, and became friends with the Lovers of Wisdom in the mid- and late 1820'S. Poems like "Don't irnitate: Genius is unique" and "The Muse" (Muza, 1829) still show a strong consciousness of the rift between the poet and society, but the figure of the poet is graced with a certain confidence that allows him to accept his position and sometimes actively take pride in it.

This stance was not destined to last, however. In the 1830'S, Boratynskii underwent sorne sort of psychological change, which involved the disintegration of his once intirnate friendship with Ivan Kireevskii and a marked intensification of his pessimistic outlook on life. His portrayal of the figure of the poet altered accordingly. The image of the poet as an outcast no longer took the form of the drarnatic poseur, the "Finnish exile." Nor did the figure of the poet show the quiet complacence that allowed the poet put fo~'Ward by the Lovers of Wisdom to bear the scorn and incomprehension of society with relative emotional immunity, or even pride. The image of the poet now projected by Boratynskii, like Boratynskii himself, was a figure whose soul had been shattered by anguish at the absolute irn-


possibility of finding a place for himself in the world at large. As Ginzburg remarks, "For the Russian followers of Schelling, opposition between the poet and society was the norm; for Boratynskii, it was a spiritual catastrophe." 52

It is this image that dominates much of Boratynskii's rnetaphysical poetry, especially the poetry in his last collection of verse, Twilight (Sumerki, 1842). The two poerns to be discussed here, the first and last poems in this volurne, frame the whole with the image of the alienated poet: "The Last Poet" (Poslednii Poet, 1835) establishes the presence of the tormented and spiritually defeated poet-persona, and "Rhyrne" (Rifma, 1840) closes the volume with a similar despairing irnage.

The theme that provides the foundation for "The Last Poet"the death of art in the industrial age-was almost a literary commonplace in the circles frequented by Boratynskii during the early 1830'S. 53 It is one of the themes of an essay by Ivan Kireevskii in the first of the two issues of his ill-fated journal The European. In this essay, "The Nineteenth Century" (Deviatnadtsatyi vek), Kireevskii lists the characteristics of his conternporaries as "coldness, prosaism, belief in progress, and an exclusive orientation toward practical undertakings." He then points out that "this is why many people think the age of Poetry is over, that a life of pragmatic enterprises is now dorninant." 54

The notion of the death of art was also one of the major concerns of the Moscow Observer (Moskovskii nabliudatel') run by several members of the former Lovers of Wisdom group, and it was in this journal that Boratynskii first published "The Last Poet." An essay by Shevyrev entitled "Belles Lettres and Business" (Slovesllost' i torgovlia) appears on the pages directly preceding the poem and brings the reader's attention to the topic at hand:

Ves, my friend, business now dominates our BelIes Lettres-and everything has been subordinated to its calculations.... The inspiration of our Poets has falIen silent. Only Poetry itseU will not submit to speculation. In this happy age when every line of verse is valued in rubles, verse refuses to come. BookselIers scatter jingling, glittering gold pieces before the eyes of the poet in vain: inspiration will not set his gaze afire; it does not harken to the sound of meta!.55

Boratynskii's poem shares the same basic point of view of these essays and even adopts sorne of their images and lines of


argumento But it makes its point with a richness and intricacy that are lacking in the essays; and the development of the ideas has the force of imagery and allusion possible only in poetry.

The poem, consisting of ten eight-line stanzas, can be divided into three parts. First comes an introductory section of three stanzas that establishes the main themes and symbolic forces; the next four stanzas center on the development of the poet and the modern age; and the last three stanzas depict the suicide of the poet and bring the poem to its conclusion. The meter alternates between iambic pentameter in the odd-numbered stanzas and, usually, trochaic tetrameter in the even-numbered stanzas.

ITOCJIE,II,Hl111 IT03T

BeK illecTByeT rrYTeM CBOHM ~eReSH~M,

B cep~~ax KOPUCTb, H 06 rnafl Me~Ta qac OT ~acy HaCyrnHUM H rrOReSHUM OT~eTRHBeH, 6eCCTU~HeH saHHTa. Hc~eSHYRH rrpu CBeTe rrpOCBerneHbH ITOSSUH pe6H~eCKHe CHN, H He o Hen XRorrO~YT rrOKOReHbH, ITpoMNillReHHUM sa60TaM rrpe~aHN.

,Il,RH RHKyrornen CBo6o~N BHOBb 3RRa~a O~URa,

Co6paRa CBOU HapO~N

H CTORU~~ rrO~HHRa;

B HeH orrHTb ~BeTYT HaYKH, HocHT rroHT ToprOBRH rpys, Ho He CRNillHU RUpN SBYKH B rrepBo6NTHOM pae MYS:

EReCTHT SHMa ~pHxnerornero Mupa, EReCTUT: CYPoB u 6ne~eH ~enOBeK; Ho seReHN B oTe~eCTBe OMupa XORMN, Reca, 6pera RasypH~x peK. ~BeTeT ITapHac: rrpe~ HUM, KaK B OH~ rO~N, 1

.,'KaCTaRbCKun KRro~ ~HBOH cTpyero 6beT; He~~aHHNn CNH rrOCRe~HUX CUR rrpupO~N

BOSHHK IToST,- H~eT OH ~ rroeT.

BocrreBaeT, rrpocTo~yrnHNn,

OH Rro6oBb U KpaCOTY, H HaYKU, HM ocnyrnHoH, ITYCTOTY H cyeTY: MHMoneTHue CTpa~aHbH

JIerKoM~CRueM ~eRH,

JIY~ille, CMepTH~H, B ~HU HeSHaHbH Pa~oCTb ~YBCTByeT seMRH.

ITOKRoHHUKaM YpaHHU XORo~HOH

IToeT, YBN! OH 6Raro~aTb CTpacTert; KaK rra~HTH 30A 6YPHorrorO~HNH,

THE POET AND POETRY

ITAo~oTBopHT OHH cep~~a Rro~ert; i 'c, '):~,:, mHBUTeAbHUM ~~xaHueM paSBHTa, waHTaSHH no~~eMneTCH oT HUX, KaK HeKor~a BOSHHKAa A~po~UTa Hs neHHCTon rrY~UH~ BO~ MOpCKHX.

H Sa~eM He rrpe~a~UMCH

CHaM YRN6~UBNM CBOHM? mapKUM cep~~eM rrOKopUMCH ,Il,YMaM XRa~HbIM, a He HM: BepbTe cna~KUM y6e~~eHbHM Bac AaCKarornUX o~ec

H OTpa~H~M OTKpOBeHbHM COCTpa~aTenbHNX He6ec!

CYPoB~rt CMex eMY OTBeTOM; rrepCT~ OH Ha CTPYHax CBOHX OCTaHOBHA, COMKHyn YCTa BernaTb rronYOTBepCTU, Ho rop~bIH rAaB~ He rrpeKnOHUA: CTorr~ CBOH OH B M~cnflX HarrpaBnHeT

CBeTB HeMYro rAYillb, B 6esAro~HNn KpaH; HO y~ rrpaS~Horo BepTerra He HBAHeT, H Ha seMAe ye~uHeHbH HeT!

qeAoBeKY HerrOKopHO Mope CUHee O~Ho,

H cBo6o~Ho, U rrpoCTOPHo, H rrpHBeTAuBo OHO; H Au~a He USMeHHno C ~HH, B KOTop~rt ArrOAnOH ITo~HHn Be~Hoe CBeTUAO B nepB~H pas Ha He6oCKAOH.

OHO rnYMUT nepe~ CKaRon JIeBKa~a. Ha HeH rreBe~, MHTe~HoH ~YMbI rronH, CToHT ... B o~ax 6necHyna B~Pyr oTpa~a: CUH CKana ... TeHb Ca~o! .. ronoc BoAH ... r~e rrorpe6na nro6oBHu~a waoHa OTBep~eHHort Aro6BH Hec~acTHbIrt ~ap, Tal' norpe6eT rrHTOMe~ AnonAOHa CBOH Me~TbI, CBOH 6ecrronesHbIrt ~ap!

H rro-rrpe~HeMY 6AucTaeT Xna~Hort pocKornuro cBeT, Cepe6puT U rrOSAarnaeT CBoH 6es~HsHeHHbIrt CKeneT: Ho B CMYrneHUe rrpHBo~HT

qeAoBeKa Ban MopCKorr, H oT rnYMHbIX BO~ oTXo~UT

OH C TocKyrorneH ~yrnort!

THE LAST POET

[1 ] The age moves along its iron path, there is greed in the hearts of men, and the dream they share focuses ever more distinctly and shamelessly on urgent pragmatic affairs. In the brightness

,ll__........-.........-_


of enlightenment, the childlike dreams of poetry have disappeared, and generations devoted to the concerns of industry do not trouble themselves with poetry.

[2] Hellas has come alive anew with jubilant freedom, gathered its peoples and erected capitals; the sciences flourish there once more, the sea bears the freight of trade, but the sounds of the Iyre are not heard in the primeval paradise of the muses!

[3] The winter of the senescent world sparkles, sparkles! Man is grim and pale; but in the fatherland of Homer, the hills, forests, and banks of the azure rivers are green. Parnassus blossoms! Nearby, as in bygone years, the Castalian spring pulses with its living stream; the unexpected son of nature's last strength-the Poet has arisen-he goes his way and sings.

[4] The simple-hearted one sings of love and beauty, of the emptiness and vanity of science disobedient to their caH: the earth, O mortal, senses joy better in times of ignorance, curing momentary sufferings with whimsy.

[5] He sings of the paradise of passions, alas! to worshippers of cold Urania: as storm-bearing Aeolus magnifies the yield of the pasture lands, passions fertilize the hearts of men; nurtured by life-giving breath, fantasy arises from them, just as Aphrodite once emerged from the frothy chasm of the sea's waters.

[6] And why not give ourselves over to our smiling dreams? We will submit our ardent heart to cool thoughts, not to dreams! Trust the sweet arguments of the eyes that caress you and the comforting revelations of the compassionate heavens!

[7] Harsh laughter was his answer; his fingers halted upon the strings; he elosed his lips, half-opened in prophecy, but he did not bow his proud head: in his thoughts he directs his steps into a forsaken wilderness, into a land devoid of men; but the world no longer offers idle refuge, and there is no solitude on earth!

[8] The blue sea alone will not submit to man's rule, and it is free and expansive and full of greeting; and it has not


changed its countenance since the day Apollo first raised the eternallight up the slope of the heavens.

[9] It roars along the eliff of Leucadia. On the eliff stands the singer, filled with stormy thoughts ... Suddenly joy sparks in his eyes: This eliff ... the ghost of Sappho! ... the voice of the waves ... Where Phaon's lover buried the unhappy ardor of unrequited love, there too the ward of Apollo will bury his dream, his useless gift!

[10] And as before, the world gleams with chilly splendor, and covers its lifeless skeleton with silver and gilt; but the sweH of the sea leads man into troubled confusion, and he turns away from the roaring waters with yearning in his soul.

The poetic energy of "The Last Poet" stems from the tension between two metaphysical forces: pragmatism and poetry. In the first part of the poem, each force acquires a cluster of symbols based on a specific time and a specific place, though toward the end these temporal and geographical distinctions fade away as the conflict is expressed more in terms of pure metaphysical states of being.

The modern age moving along its "iron path" embodies the pragmatic force, and is characterized by words like poleznyi (pragmatic, useful), promyshlellllye zaboty (concerns of industry), and prosveshchellie (enlightenment), which, as we saw earlier in "Omens," for Boratynskii means the destruction of man's instinctive ties with nature through overreliance on human reason. This pragmatic age may well represent the "present" day of the nineteenth century with all the modern accoutrements industry can bring, but at the same time it is a senescent, dying world associated with a glittering and sterile chilllike that of the winter setting in "Autumn." Even the people of this industrial age are grim and pale like the world around them.

The opposing element, the force of the childlike dreams of poetry (poezii rebiacheskie sllY) is symbolized explicitly by the continuity and vitality of nature, and implicitly through the imagery of Ancient Greece. Ancient Greece is brought back to life through the prism of Modern Greece newly freed from the Turks: Vnov' Ellada ozhila (Hellas has come alive allew); V Ilei opiat' tsvetut Ilauki


(the sciences flourish there once more); kak v ony gody, / Kastal'skii kliucll zhivoi strueiu b'et (as in bygone years the Castalian spring pulses with its living stream). References to the fatherland of Homer (otechestvo Omira) and to the primeval paradise of the Muses (pervobytnyi rai muz) further contribute to an aura associated with Ancient Greece.

Modern Greece, then, represents the forced marriage of the opposing forces of pragmatism and poetry that unexpectedly give birth to the ilI-fated Poet. The new Greece has the heredity of Ancient Greece, the remnants of its wondrous fertility. But at the same time, the new Greece cannot escape the mark of the modern age. If civilization and the pursuit of knowledge are carried to extremes, they constitute the kind of enlightenment (prosveshchenie) that destroys man's ties with nature. If trade flourishes to a point beyond certain bounds, it leads to the concerns of industry (promyshlennye zaboty) that deaden the human soul. In fact, the stage is already set for the death of the Greek

J1l',j'ideal, for the sounds of the Iyre are not heard in the primeval paradise of the muses (ne slyshny liry zvuki v pervobytnom rae muz).

The offspring of the unhappy union of the forces of pragmatism and poetry-the Poet-is doomed from the moment he appears. He bears the gift of poetry from the ancient world, but he is born into the modern age. Thus he is not the child of a robust and healthy mother, like the flourishing poetic force in Ancient Greece. Rather, he is the result of an almost negligible amount of vitality left in Nature after her strength has been sapped by greedy industry, and his birth is therefore unexpected. Even in Greece, the iron age does not expect poets.

Yet the very unexpectedness of the Poet's appearance makes his presence al! the more meaningful. The last line of the third stanza-Voznik Poet, -idet 011 i poet (The Poet has arisen-he goes his way and sings)-not only serves as a conclusion for the first section of the poem but also gives rise to a whole new set of possible answers to the poem's basic existential question, "How is one to exist?" If there is poetry, there is stil! hope that the iron age will not totally crush the human soul.

Formal elements reinforce the sense of surprise generated by


the literary fact of the Poet's existence. The dash that concludes the preceding line, Nezhdanllyi syn poslednikh sil prirody- (The unexpected son of nature's last strength-), abruptly breaks the rhythm, and this pause together with the sense of anticipation evoked by the word nezhdallnyi (unexpected) creates a state of suspense, which is quickly resolved with the words Voznik Poet (The Poet has arisen). Setting off these two words by dashes on either side implies that there is sorne kind of urgent importance associated with the appearance of the Poet, and the capitalization of the word Poet makes it clear that this is not a poet but the Poet. In addition, the internal rhyming of idet (goes his way) and poet (sings) and the orthographical and semantic relationship between Poet (poet) and poet (sings) provide a structural weight that helps to signal the conclusion of the first section and points ahead to the story to be unraveled-the story of what happens as the Poet goes his way and sings.

The fourth stanza begins with four lines describing the Poet's songo The poet, the narrator tells us, sings of everything opposed to the arder of the modern age described in the first stanza: lave and beauty, and the emptiness and vanity of science disobedient to their callo This is the same narrator who caBed the dreams of poetry "childlike" (rebiacheskie) in the first stanza, and here again he suggests his own superiority over the Poet, whom he characterizes as prostodushnyi (simple-hearted, simplesouled). The marked contrast between the weightiness of the iambic pentameter of the preceding stanza and the lightness of the trochaic tetrameter, here emphasized by the presence of only two realized stresses per line, further contributes to the childlike dimensiono Indeed, the combination of the bright, bouncy rhythm and the repetition of the u sound nine times in four short lines * makes this part of the poem sound much like a nursery rhyme and effectively trivializes the role of the Poet. When the Poet takes over his own case in the next four lines, he does not continue the silly-sounding repetition of u, but neither does he do much to dignify his stature. He speaks of "curing momentary sufferings with whimsy," and clases the stanza with

'Unstressed ti is counted as a strong vowel beca use its sound quality remains the same with or without stress.

/--/


the aphorism: "The earth, O mortal, senses joy better in times of ignorance ."

In the fifth stanza, however, the focus of the Poet's attention shifts from momentary sufferings (mimoletnye stradan'ia) to genuine passion (strast'). The persona speaks the first two lines and, if the exclamation uvy! (alas!) is not ironic, now indicates that his sympathies run more in the direction of the Poet than to the worshippers of cold Urania, the goddess of science. With the mention of the worshippers of Urania, the earlier distinctions of time and place become indistinct. These people could be the real worshippers of Urania in Ancient Greece, or they could symbolize the industrialists of the modern age. In point of fact, they are both because they are associated neither with time nor with place, but with the metaphysical force of pragmatism, which can appear at any time and in any place.

The Poet's own voice takes over and narrates the remaining portion of the fifth stanza and the sixth stanza in its entirety. The dissenting voice that breaks in with the declaration, "We will submit our ardent heart to cool thoughts, not to dreams!" may belong either to the worshippers of Urania or to the Poet, who, like the persona of "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?," presents both sides of the argument in his own narration. Ultimately the identity of tlí.e speaker is not of major importance; all that matters is the metaphysical force represented-poetry or pragmatismo Thus it is the voice of poetry that expounds upon the fertility of the passions, implicitly contrasting this fertility to the sterility of the senescent and wintry world of pragmatismo The same voice speaks of smiling dreams, the sweet arguments of caressing eyes, and the comforting revelations of the compassionate heavens, and is interrupted only momentarily by the voice of pragmatism in the sixth stanza.

The voice belonging to the original narrator returns in the seventh stanza and relates the denouement of the confrontation between the Poet and the worshippers of Urania. The Poet has failed in his mission. He cannot win the forces of pragmatism over to the side of poetry. He receives laughter as his answer, laughter whose harshness is heard in the repeated s and st sounds in the first three lines of the stanza. The rhythm ref1ects the Poet's reaction-his anguish and the jumble of sounds


caused by his fingers as they suddenly stop on the strings of his lyre. The importance of the confrontation is shown by the fact that this is the only stanza of the whole poem in which the established rhythm breaks down in any significant way. The semicolon in the first line gives rise to an irregular caesura that makes the listener hear surovyi smekh emu otvetom ( - ,/ -, / -, / -, - ) as if it were a complete line of iambic tetrameter. The trick is all the more effective because the listener's ear is still attuned to the four-foot line of the stanza immediately aboye. Following the irregular caesura, the word persty (fingers) juts out at the end of the line and begins a phrase that tumbles over the barrier of the line ending. The absence of stress in the first foot of the second line further contributes to the general metric obscurity.

In addition, the word order of the clause is so tangled that persty would stick out syntactically even if it fit perfectly into the rhythmic scheme. Compare the following standard word order with that found in the poem:

Standard: On ostallOl'il persty na svoikh strunakh.

In the poem: Persty on na strunakh svoikh ostarLOvil.

If each word in the standard version is represented by a con, secutive number, the clause reads 1-2-3-4-5-6; based on the sameI

1, assigned numbers, the syntax in the poem reads 3-1-4-6-5-2 .

The next disruption of the rhythm hinges on a similar irregular caesura signaled by the semicolon in the sixth lineo Here, however, the effects are not so drastiCo Because the listener's ear has by this time become adjusted to the iambic pentameter of the stanza, the caesura cannot so easily seduce the ear into hearing tetrameter. Still, the enjambment between lines 6 and 7 and the exaggerated pause before the words no svet underscore the contrastive power of no (but) and contribute to the general sense of rhythmic disorder. ~

Just as this second section of the poem opened with a strong line linked to the preceding section-Voznik Poet-idet on i poet (The Poet has arisen-he goes his way and sings)-it ends with a strong line that paves the way for the following section: 1 na zemle uedinen'ia net! (And there is no solitude on earth!). The ab

135 THE POET AND POETRY134

solute negation denoted by the word net (is no), which is reinforced by the repetition of the same 50ft n sound in uedinen'ia, effectively draws this section to a close, though not at the same time implying a real conclusion: we know that the 1055 of solitude is only part of the story. The Poet remains as he was, devoted to the cause of poetry. The worshippers of Urania remain as they were, devoted to the cause of pragmatismo The resolution of the conflict is yet to come.

The eighth stanza sets the stage for this resolution and opens the concluding section of the poem. Nature, represented by the sea, is shown to have all the qualities sought by the Poet but unavailable in a world dominated by the force of pragmatismo Nature is solitude. It is unsubjugated by man-free, spacious, and responsive. And it retains its ties with the force of poetry embodied in Ancient Greece, for it has neither changed nor betrayed itself (izmenilo carries both meanings) since the day Apollo, the god of poetry, first carried the sun into.the heavens.

The sense of gentle well-being conveyed by the text is reinforced by rhythm and assonance. Realization of stress occurs in either two or three feet per four-foot line, creating a more distinct sense of rhythmic movement than that conveyed by the iambic pentameter of the odd-numbered stanzas. But at the same time it avoids the rather overpowering bounciness created 1by realization of only two stresses per four-foot line in stanza 4. J

"The rhythm here comes in gentle swells like the swells on the sea being described.

The assonance results from repetition of the o sound. Of the twenty stressed vowels in the stanza, ten are 0'5, and of the stanza's eight rhymes, six incorporate the o sound. But here again a degree of moderation is observed and ridiculous excess like that in the first half of the fourth stanza is avoided by the interspersion of various other vowels among the 0'5. The sound structure, like the rhythm, reflects the measured, harmonious, cohesive force of nature's existence.

In the ninth stanza, the Poet comes into direct contact with the force of poetry as it appears in nature and in the spirit of Ancient Greece. He stands brooding on the cliff of Leucadia, but is suddenly comforted as he senses the presence of Sappho, who is said to have committed suicide by leaping off that same cliff.

THE POET AND POETRY

He hears the voice of the waves and realizes that he too would be better off leaving this world that has been so thoroughly permeated by the force of pragmatismo He has come to the point that he even calls his own gift bespoleznyi (useless, unpragmatic)-perhaps ironically, but more likely in outright bitterness and resignation.

In the final sentence (the last four lines) of the stanza, the Poet and Sappho are made parallel not only in the act of suicide but also grammatically and syntactically:

Gde pogrebla i liubovnitsa Faona I Otverzhennoi liubvi neshclzastm¡i zhar, ram pogrcbet I pitomets Apollona I Svoi mecllty, svoi bespoleznyi dar.

Where Phaon's lover Iburied IThe unhappy ardor of unrequited lave, There the ward of ApoUo I will bury I His dreams, his useless gift.

The notion of burying-that is, suicide-gains a certain extra emphasis metrically as well as through repetition. The first foot of each line is a pyrrhic, so that the first stress of the line, which falls on the final syllables of pogrebla and pogrebet, respectively, is made stronger by its delayed appearance.

In the concluding stanza, the Poet has disappeared. The battle between the forces of poetry and pragmatism has come to a standstill-not a truce, not a resolution by victory or defeat, but an uneasy equilibrium of power that only postpones the necessity of further struggle. The world of pragmatis~ carries on as before (poprezlznemu). The very regular trochaid tetrameter of this stanza, with stress most often realized in only the second and fourth feet, seems to reinforce the sense of monotonous continuation. The world sparkles with silver and gold, but this is only the cold glitter of money, and the once thriving civilization has become nothing but a lifeless skeleton (bezzhiznennyi skelet). The force of poetry also lives on, though it too exists only in a significantly weakened state. The Poet has fled and Ancient Greece is no more. Only the rolling sea keeps poetry alive in the modern age.

But a note of hope can still be found. This note of hope is man-not the Poet, but chelovek, the representative of humankind who appears "grim and pale" in the third stanza and to whom the sea will not submit in the eighth stanza. 56 Man is caught between the forces of poetry and pragmatismo He lives in


the pragmatic modern world, the world that led the Poet to suicide. But still man's soul has not perished, for the sea, the last remaining embodiment of the force of poetry, rouses his soul and leads him to a state of confusion and yearning.

In "Rhyme" (Rifma), which concludes the Sumerki collection, Boratynskii again juxtaposes an ideal of the poet's role in the ancient past with his Own despairing view of the poet's role in the presento Here, however, the conflict between the poet and society is stated with dramatic simplicity:

PH<IJMA

Kor~a Ha Hrpax o~HMrrHHcKHx,

Ha CTorHax rpeqeCKHX He~aBHHX ropO~OB,

OH rre~, rrHTOMe~ MYS, OH rre~ cpe~H Ba~oB

Hapo~a, ~a~Horo BOCToprOB MYCHKHrrCKHX.B HeM Bepa rro~Hafl B COqYBCTBHe ~H~a.

CBo6o~HUM H rnHpOKHM MeTpOM, KaK ~aTBa, su6~eMafl BeTpoM, Ero rapMoHHfl TeK~a.

To~rra BHHMaHHeM OKOBaHa 6u~a,

TIoKa, MoryqHM cOTpflceHheM B~Pyr rro6e~~eHHafl, rr~eCKa~a 6es KOH~a

H CTPYHU sByqHUe rreB~a

napH~a HOBUM B~OXHOBeHheM. Kor~a Ha rpeqeCKHrr aMBOH, Kor~a Ha PHMCKYro TPH6YHY

OpaTOp BOCXO~H~, H c~aBOC~OBH~ OH H~H orr~aKHBa~ HapO~HYro ~OPTYHY,

H YCTpeM~fl~HCfl Bce BSOpU Ha Hero, H CH~orr c~oBa CBoero

BHTHfl B~acTBOBa~ HapO~HUM rrpOHSBO~OM,

OH SHa~, KTO OH: OH Be~aTh Mor, KaKorr MoryqHrr rrpaBHT 60r Ero Top~ecTBeHHuM r~arO~OM.

Ho Harnerr MUC~H TOp~H~ HeT, Ho Harnerr MUC~H HeT ~opYMa~ .. Me~ Hac He Be~aeT rrOST, BUCOK rro~eT ero H~h HeT, Be~HKa ~h TBOpqeCKafl ~YMa.

CaM CY~Hfl H rrO~CY~HMurr, CKa~H: TBorr 6ecrroKorrHurr ~ap

CMernHorr He~yr H~h BucrnHrr ~ap~ PernH Borrpoc HepaspeillHMurr: Cpe~H 6eS~HSHeHHoro CHa, Cpe~h rpo60Boro x~a~a CBeTa, CBoero ~acKoro rroSTa Tu, pH~Ma: pa~yernh O~Ha. rrO~06HO ro~y6ro KOBqera, O~Ha eMY, C pO~Horo 6pera, EHBYro BeTBh rrpHHOCHillh TU; O~Ha C 60~eCTBeHHUM rropUBOM MHpHrnh ero TBOHM OTSUBOM H rrpHSHaernh ero MeqTU:


RHYME

When, at the Olympic games or in the squares of young Greek cities, he sang, the ward of the muses, he sang among the billows of people thirsting for musical rapture-he harbored fun faith in their understanding. His harmony poured forth in a meter free and broad, like the harvest waving in the wind. The crowd lis tened entranced until suddenly, overcome with powerful emotion, it applauded endlessly and gifted the resonant strings of the singer with new inspiration. When the orator ascended to the Greek pulpit, when he stepped out onto the Roman tribune and raised his voice in praise or bewailed the fate of the nation, and al! eyes turned toward him, and by the power of his word the speechmaker governed the will of the people-then he knew who he was; he could know how powerful the god who ruled his solemn word. But there are no marketplaces for our thought, but for our thought there is no forum! Among us the poet does not know whether his flight is a 10ftY one or not, whether his creative thought is great. You yourself, both judge and accused, ten us: your restless ardoris it a laughable affliction, or the highest gift? Answer the unanswerable question! In the lifeless sleep, in the deathlike chill of this world, you, rhyme! you alone bring the poet joy with your caress. Like the dove from the ark, you alone bring him a living branch from his native shore; by your response you alone reconcile him with the gusty moods of the gods and recognize his dreams!

The poem falls into two major sections of roughly egual length. The first section, lines 1-23, describes the role of the poet as a respected leader-in fact, almost a ruler-of the peopIe in ancient Greece and Rome. In this section, a series of conditions hinging on the word kogda (when; lines 1,14,15) leads to the triumphant conclusion that the poet knew his own importance, and by analogy, could know the power of the god who ruled his word. This is, of course, a prime example of the romantic image of the poet as an all-seeing, all-powerful prophet and leader.

The second section (lines 24-42) begins with an emphatic contrast in the alliterative repetition of No nashei ... net (But ... there are no). Here the focus shifts dramatically from the power and reverence accorded the poet in ancient times to the total absence of a prescribed position for the poet of the present day. Without a forum, without the applause of a respectful crowd, the modern poet cannot know whether his artistic ardor is the


highest gift or a laughable affliction. In the last ten lines of the poem, which can be taken as a smaller subsection, the persona, speaking with the voice of the modern poet, addresses rhyme directly and lauds it as his only consolation.

Unlike "The Last Poet," "Rhyme" involves neither a complex merging of past and present (indeed, the difference between past and present is all too distinct) nor an ambivalent attitude toward the image of the poet himself. A different kind of complexity makes this poem something more than a run-of-the-mill complaint about the place of the poet in the modern world: this complexity lies in a certain stylistic imitation of the rhetoric of the classical ideal being portrayed. In the opening lines, for instance, there is a sort of pairing repetition that becomes one of the distinguishing characteristics of the whole poem:

/na igrakh olimpiiskikh

Kogda

\na stognakh grecheskikh nedavnykh gorodov

/at the Olympic games

When

\in the squares of young Greek cities

The English rendering, which has to use two prepositions, "at" and "in," can only partly convey the striking rhetorical symmetry of the Russian, with the repeated preposition na and the parallellocative and genitive case ending -akh and -ikh.

In the third line, two occurrences of the phrase on pel (he sang) surround the appositive pitomets muz (the ward of the

~', muses), again creating a rhetorically balanced fragment: ~'~i

,1')

On pel, pitomets muz, on pel I I I

This carefully built rhetorical structure of the first three lines slows the tempo of the verse and carries so much verbal weight that it counterbalances the ten lines that follow. The first full sentence of the poem actually ends in line 5, but the effect of the built-up kogda conditional is felt through two additional

.~ sentences. .k.',


Lines 14 and 15 repeat the kogda conditional, this time in two syntactically parallel clauses that divide the locale symmetrically between Greece and Rome:

Kogda na grecheskii amvon, Kogda na rimskuiu tribullu

When anta the Greek pulpit, When anta the Raman tribune

The cumulative effect of the three kogda clauses is so strong that only a dash is needed to make the connecting thread of the whole section clear when the conclusion finally occurs in lines 21- 2 3: -On znal kto on; on vedat' mog, / kakoi moguchii pravit bog / ego torzhestvennym glagolom (He knew who he was; he could know how powerful the god who ruled his solemn word).

In contrast to the repetitive solidity of the first section, the opening part of the second section centers around a series of teetering antitheses and oxymoronic statements:

Vysok ego polet Whether his flight is a lofty one

Sam sudiia Yourself both the judge

Smeshnoi nedug A laughable affliction

Reshi Answer

il' net or not

i podsudimyi and the accused

il' vysshii dar or the highest gift

vopros nerazreshimyi the unanswerable question

This uneasy balance of contradictions ready to topple in either direction suggests the uneasy position of the poet in modern society. Without a set role, he has no way to evaluate his own talent and therefore suffers the tormenting insecurity of knowing that his talent is just as likely to be "a laughable affliction" as to be "the highest gift."

In the subsection of the last ten lines, the persona turns to rhyme for consolation. Like the dove that brought the olive branch back to the ark, rhyme flies free and then returns with something from its "native shore"-a sound of the same kind. Rhyme can also be understood as a symbol of poetry in general. When a poet writes a poem, he releases it into the world, as


Noah released the dove. Once released, the poem returns to the poet in spirit and carries with it a sign of the "native shore" of the poet's own soul.

The syntactic and conceptual parallelism that opens the final section is similar to that at the beginning of the poem:

Sredi bezzhiznennogo sna, Sred' grobovogo khlada sveta

In the lifeless sleep, In the deathlike chill of this world

But even consoling rhyme cannot re-create the conditions that gave the orator so much respect and security in the ancient world, and the salid oratorical style of the first section does not continue.

Poetic play stressing the words ty (you; familiar form) and odna (alone), both of which refer to rifma (rhyme), marks the conclusion of the poem, beginning with the exclamation in line 36: Ty, rifma! raduesh' odna (You, rhyme! You alone bring [the

~ poet] joy). When the word ty first appears, it receives stress as r. part of the emphatic spondee Ty, rifma! ( , '-). The stress is particularly notable because this is the only instance in the whole poem in which the first syllable of the line is stressed, and because in Russian verse the pronoun ty often remains unstressed. The second word, rifma, gains impact through alliteration with the following word raduesh', and through syntactic anticipation, as it provides the focal point for a clause beginning three lines aboye and furnishes the referent for the seemingly unconnected possessive pronoun svoi in line 35.

The word odna has a bit of extra impact because of its rhyme and because it concludes this line, which is unusually strong both metrically and conceptually. Subsequently odna is repeated twice in the second strongest position of the line, at the very beginning, thereby emphasizing the fact that rhyme alone responds to the poet's need for response. Ty, still referring to rifma, takes over the rhyme position in line 39, the y sound of ty is reinforced in the rhyme poryvom-otzyvom, and the poem ends on the ty rhyme within the word mechty (dreams). In short, virtually every formal device in this section underlines the exis-


tence and unique function of rhyme as the poet's only source of solace.

This last word, mechty (dreams), may even be interpreted as a pun on mee/J ty (sword you), thus placing even more marked emphasis on ty (you). Since the compound clause beginning in line 40 lacks a proper subject (the adjective odna serves as a surrogate subject), the inclusion of the nominative pronoun ty would be in keeping with the norms of Russian grammar. The fact that the clause would read, "And you alone recognize his sword," might seem a bit odd at first. But if one considers that Boratynskii compares poetic thought to a "naked sword" (nagoi mech) in "Thought, always thought! The poor artist of the word!" (Vse mysl', da mysl'! Khudozhnik bednyi slova!), which was written the same year as "Rhyme," the pun begins to make sense, and the meaning of the poem as a whole gains emphasis without actually changing: in a world in which people no longer appreciate the poet, rhyme alone recognizes, expresses, and reflects the "sword" (mech) of the poet's thought, just as rhyme alone recognizes his dreams (mee/zty). With or without the pun, the concluding portian of the poem is dominated by the two words that provide the focus of the persona's relationship to rhyme-ty (you; familiar form) and odna (alone).

Poetry

Both Tiutchev and Boratynskii wrote poetry that differed significantly from other types of verse that were in vague during the romantic period in Russia. But stilL the specific points of view expressed in the works of the two poets are by no means always the same, or even similar. Boratynskii's image of the poet as an outcast with a tormenting consciousness of his alienation from society clearly has very little in common with Tiutchev's mystic persona, who is so preoccupied with the metaphysical workings of the universe that he loses all consciousness of a distinct human self. And even when the poets attempt to convey roughly the same concept, differences in their poetic styles and in their personalities break through the fa<;ade of similarity. Two poems on poetry-Boratynskii's "Song healeth the afflicted spirit" (Bo

143 142 THE POET AND POETRY

liashchii dukh vrachuet pesnopen'e, 1834) and Tiutchev's "Poetry" j

(Poeziia, 1850)-furnish an example of this phenomenon:

EO~H~ilH ~yx Bpa~yeT rreCHorreHbe. fapMOHilil TailHcTBeHHaH B~acTb

TH~e~oe ilcKyrrilT 3a6~y~~eHbe

M YKPOTilT 6YHTYID~YID cTpacTb. nyma rreBQa, cor~aCHO H3~ilTaH,

Pa3pemeHa OT Bcex CBOHX cKop6eH; M ~ilCTOTY rr033ilH CBHTaH M Milp oT~acT rrpil~acTHilQe cBoeH.

Song healeth the afflicted spirit. The mysterious power of harmony will expiate grave erring ways and curb storming passion. Harmoniously pouring forth, the soul of the singer will be relieved of all its sorrows; and holy poetry will give purity and peace to its communicant.

- Boratynskii

rr03311H

Cpe~il rpoMOB, cpe~il orHeH, Cpe~il K~OKO~y~HX cTpacTeH, B CTilXilHHOM, rr~aMeHHoM pa3~ope, OHa C He6ec c~eTaeT K HaM He6eCHaH K 3eMHmM CmHaM, e ~a3YPHoh HCHOCTbID BO B30pe M Ha 6YHTYID~ee Mope RbeT rrpHMilpilTe~bHmH e~eH.

POETRY

Amidst the peals of thunder, amidst the fiames, amidst the boiling passions of this fiery elemental strife, she descends to us from the heavens-the heavenly one with azure clarity in her gaze descends to the sons of the earth-and pours the chrism of reconciliation on stormy waters.

-Tiutchev

The poems are similar in several respects. Both are short, to the point, and portray poetry as a calming force in a violent world. In both, the poetic situation involves religious connotations. "Song healeth the afflicted spirit" consists primarily of words and concepts that have strong biblical or religious overtones. These range from the notion of healing and the archaic tenor of the verb vrachuet, to the suggestion of the holy mystery in tainstvennaia, the concepts of expiation for erring ways (iskupit ... zabluzhden'e) and relief from sorrows (razreshena ot ... skorbei), the association of purity with holiness (chistotu poeziia

THE POET AND POETRY

sviata.ia), and the c~nnection between peace (mir) and participahan In the Euchanst (pnchastztse). Although Tiutchev does not saturate his poe~ with religi.ous voc.abulary the way Boratynskii does, two words m the last lme of hls poem cast a religious aura over aH that has come before: primiritel'nyi elei. Elei is holy chrism, the oil used for the Sacraments of Chrismation (Confirmation) and Extreme Unction. Primiritel'nyi (reconciling, of reconciliation) is based on the root mir (peace), used in its basic form in Boratynskii's poem, and suggests the same notion of religious reconciliation. And in both poems these religious elements counteract a chaotic world rife with passion (strast') and characterized by the adjective buntuiushchii (stormy).

In spite of such similarities, however, Tiutchev and Boratynskii show themselves as distinct and original poets. Boratynskii, as usual, manifests an unrelenting consciousness of the individual existence of the poet and the pain of this existence. He writes about the afflicted spirit and the soul of the singer in the singular, suggesting isolation. If the poem read, "Song healeth afflicted spirits ..." or in line 5, "The souls of singers ..." the afflicted poet would at least have company-but in Boratynskii's world, a person who thinks is always alone. And he suffers not only from aloneness but also fram consciousness of his sorrows and from a sense of grave moral error, both most likely stemming from his inability to integrate himself harmoniously with the rest of the world. The perfective verbs iskupit (will expiate), ukrotit (curb), and otdast (will give) provide a guarantee that the situation will be improved, but they do not guarantee the permanence of the better state. It is possible, and for Boratynskii highly probable, that the afflictions and error of the spirit wil! reappear after each celebration of the Eucharist of poetry, just as one may fal! into sin anew after each celebration of Holy Communion.

Another characteristic of "Song healeth the afflicted spirit" is the absence of imagery as such. The poem is laden with religious meaning, but it contains no symbolic images-for exampIe, no mention of the cross, the crown of thorns, the healing hands, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and so on. Boratynskii relies on the reader's ability to comprehend the poetic mate


rial directly in conceptual formo He is a true poet of thought, and his poem emphasizes the process of intellectual reflection more than the significance of a particular set of images.

Tiutchev's "Poetry" is the opposite side of the same coin. Poetry again acts as a sacre..9l...~iilining ..force. But whereas BoratynSKiiI6lIows FilsUsuaTte"ndency to focus on the role of the poet and his individual consciousness, Tiutchev, as usual, ignores both these aspects. The appearance of poetry relates neither to any particular kind of poetic consciousness nor to the existence of any particular individual: poetry simply descends from heaven to the sons of the earth (k zemnym synam), to mankind in general. There is no individual poet to suffer from consciousness of his own isolation or the accompanying sense of moral error. Even though the problems listed in the poem-problems centering around the violence of the passions, as demonstrated by words like grom (thunder), ogni (fires, flames), klokochushchii (boiling), stikhiinyi (elemental), and plamennyi (fiery)-did, indeed, torment Tiutchev in real life, they are portrayed, like inspiration, as objective universal phenomena having nothing to do with any specific human being.

Tiutchev's figurative poetic method also differs from the directly conceptual approach used by Boratynskii. The elements 1;1 that constitute Tiutchev's poem are images: thunder, flames, .14

boiling passions, fiery elemental strife, and a certain "heavenly f f

one with azure clarity in her gaze" who descends from aboye :;and pours oil on the stormy waters. Without the title, one would ~ ',(have no way of knowing specifically what the poem was about.

As in "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere," Tiutchev has created a type of archetypal myth that has the potential to suggest any number of meanings. Boratynskii's poem, on the other hand, has no title at all, but the imageless content leaves no doubt as to the precise message to be conveyed.

In the end, these two short poems reinforce the notions of the poet and poetry found in Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's other poems on the same theme. Both poets are concerned with the metaphysical essence of their subject matter, but they approach the subject matter from different points of view. Boratynskii naturally sees the role of the poet through the prism of human consciousness of self. He perceives the distinctive quality of the


poet's role in the world and all the pain and guilt that arise with consciousness and the concomitant sense of separation. Tiutchev, on the other hand, adopts a persona who is virtually devoid of consciousness of his own existence, thus denying the particular role given to the poet as well as the problems of individual human morality and thought. Tiutchev sees the workings \ \ of metaphysical nature and sees the possibility of poetry among the other creative forces omnipresent in the universe.

NOTES

1. The Context

1. Katenin cited in L. Ginzburg, "O probleme narodnosti i lichnosti v poezii Dekabristov," O russkom realizme XIX veka i voprosakh narodnosti v literature, ed. P. P. Gromov (Moscow-Leningrad: Goslitizdat, 1960), p. 60; V. G. Belinskii cited in E. A. Maimin, O russkom romantizme (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1975), p. 3·

2. Jacques Barzun, in Classic, Romantic, and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 98, gives a similar set of dates for European romanticismo

3. The most outstanding works on Russian romanticism are 1. 1. Zamotin's Romantizm dvadtsatykh godov XIX stoletiia v russkoi literature (Warsaw, 1903) and Romanticheskii idealizm v russkom obshchestve i literature 20-30-kh godov XIX stoletiia (St. Petersburg, 1907). E. A. Maimin's O russkom romantizme (1975) marks an advance in Soviet scholarship with its direct typological approach to the problems of Russian romanticism, and Bodo Zelinsky's Russische Romantik (Cologne: Bóhlau Verlag, 1975) is useful because of its broad encyclopedic nature, but neither matches the depth of analysis offered by Zamotin. Rudolph Neuhauser's Towards the Romantic Age: Essays on SeHtimental and Preromantic Literature in Russia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), as indicated by the title, focuses on the period just before the ful! development of romanticism in Russia.

4. These matters are discussed in more detail by Lidia Ginzburg in the first two chapters of O lirike (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1964; expanded ed., 1974). Al! references here are from the 1964 edition.

5. Cited in K. V. Pigarev, Zhizn' i tvorchestuo Tiutcheva (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1962), p. 201. See also Maimin, O russkom romantizme, pp. 146-47, and D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature (New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 107.

6. Mirsky, pp. 128-29. 7. Ibid., p. 102. 8. A. S. Pushkin, "Baratynskii" (1830), in A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe so

,

220 NOTES TO PAGES 5-7

branie sochinenií, 17 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1937-49), 11: 185; V. G. Belinskii, "Stikhotvoreniia E. Baratynskogo" (1842), in V. C. Belinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenií, 13 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1953-59), 6: 479·

9. Ginzburg, O lirike, chapo 2.

10. See Louis L. Martz, The Poem of the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).

11. One possible source of direct influence from England, a visit by the poet Andrew Marvell, seems not to have leH any traces at aH on Russian culture. This is hardly surprising, since very few people in Russia in the seventeenth century would have been acquainted with English literature, and Marvell came as the secretary of a diplomatic delegation rather than as a recognized cultural emissary. An amusing account of the journey, which involved numerous bureaucratic difficulties but concluded happily with the British delegation in possession of two live bears and the head of a sturgeon presented to Marvell by the tsar, can be found in John Dixon Hunt's Andrew Marvell: His Life and Writings (London: P. Elek, 1978), pp. 144-48. See also Hilton Kelliher, Andrew Marvell: Poet and Politician, catalogue for British Library Exhibition (London: British Museum Publications, 1978), pp. 82-83. It is perhaps worth noting that although Marvell is now recognized as a poet in Russian language reference books, his trip to Russia is not mentioned in either the Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediía or the Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediía, nor in the prerevolutionary Brokgauz-Efron Entsiklopedicheskií slovar'.

12. Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp. 4-13'

13· Martz, Poem of Mind, p. 33. 14. Martz, Poetry of Meditation, pp. 25-39. 15. Ibid., p. 14. 16. T. S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets," in T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays

(London: Faber, 1932), p. 287. 17. See Harold B. Segel, The Baroque Poem: A Comparative Survey (New

York: Duttun, 1974). 18. Definition of "metaphysics" in the Oxford English Dictionary. 19. See M. H. Abrams, "Structure and Stylc in the Creater Romantic

Lyric," in Essays Presented to Frederick A. Pottle: From Sensibility to Romanticism, ed. Fred W. Hilles and M. H. Abrams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 527-60; Martz, Poem of Mind.

20. See Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 312; Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clark, 1957), p. 42.

21. Ware, p. 74. 22. See the discussions of prayer in introductory essays about and se

lection by St. Nilus Sorsky, St. Tychon (often transliterated "Tikhon"), and "The Pilgrim" in George P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian Spirituality (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1975).

,

"

¡I( ." !It ~ " ,~;~

>i

í¡

í ~J <~

l }

221NOTES TO PAGES 8-11

23. Ware, p. 110. 24. Ibid., p. 129; Fedotov, pp. 182- 241. 25. Mirsky, p. 42; A. A. Morozov, "Vstupitel'naia stat'ia," in M. V.

Lomonosov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow-Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957), pp. 16-20.

26. Derzhavin's turn to the carpe diem theme at the end of the "Ode on the Death of Prince Meshcherskii," however, goes precisely against the English poets' intention to suffer like Christ through contempiation of death. See Martz, Poetry of Meditalion, chapo 1.

27. V. S. Solov'ev, "Poeziia F. 1. Tiutcheva," in V. S. Solov'ev, Sobranie sochinenii (St. Petersburg, 1895), 7: 117-34·

28. See V. la. Briusov, "Legenda o Tiutcheve," Novyi pul', no. 11

(190 3); also Temira Pachmuss, Zinaida Hippius: An Intellectual Profile (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961), pp. 362, 380.

29. Because there is a fine array of background material available, only brief outlines of Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's lives are given here. The most comprehensive studies of the poets' lives and works are in Russian, K. V. Pigarev's Zlzizn' i tvorchestvo Tiutcheva and Geir Kjetsaa's Evgenii Baratynskii: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo (0510: Universitetsforlaget, 1973)· Both are extremely weH researched and written with deep respect for their subjects. Richard Gregg's Fedor Tiutchev: The Evolution ofa Poel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), uses an approach grounded in the principIes of psychoanalysis, and offers a useful and convincing interpretation uf Tiulchev's life and thoughtful discussions of many of his poems. Benjamin Dees's E. A. Baratynsky (New York: Twayne, 1972) provides an adequate if somewhat cursory introduction to Boralynskii in English, though it in no way approaches the depth of Kjetsaa's study. Biografiia Fedora Ivanoviclza Tiutcheva (Moscow, 1886), by 1. S. Aksakov (who married Tiutchev's daughter Anna), P. P. Filippovich's ZI,izn' i tvorchestvo E. A. Boratynskogo (Kiev, 1917), and M. L. Gofman's Poeziia Boratynskogo (Petrograd, 1915) offer slightly idiosyncratic but lively and perceptive views of the poets. The authors share both the advantages and the disadvantages of being closer to their subjects and the people who knew them, but the sense of life and scholarly devotion conveyed by the works makes them well worth reading.

30. Aksakov (p. 23) calls these years "the must impurtant of Tiutchev's life-the period of his intellectual and spiritual formation."

31. F. 1. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii

pisatel', 1957), p. 376. 32 . There are several stories about Tiutchev casually jotting down

lines of poetry on scraps of paper while presumably giving his attention to other matters. One such instance was noted during a meeting of the State Censorship Committee, uf which Tiutchev was a member, in 1867= "Kapnist [a lesser known poet and also a member of the committee] noticed that Tiutchev seemed extraordinarily absent-minded and was drawing or writing something on a piece of paper that lay before him on the table. AHer the meeting, Tiutchev left, stiHlost in thought, leav

~ .,,~

/'

223 222 NOTES TO PAGES 11-18

ing the paper where it lay. On the forgotten piece of paper Kapnist found the poem Kak ne tiazhel poslednii chas." la. O. Zundelo'vich, Etiudy o lirike Tiutcheva (Samarkand, 1971), p. 48.

33· For details on the spelIing of Boratynskii's name see the folIowing: V. Valerianov, "Neobkhodimoe utochnenie: imia pisatelia (E. A. Boratynskogo)," Literatumaia gazeta, no. 50 (December 9, 1970); A. L. Boratynskii, "1 vse-taki Boratynskii!" Literatumail1 gazeta, no. 31 (July 28, 1971); V. V. Kozhinov, "Legendy i fakty ... Zhiznennyi podvig Boratynskogo," Russkaia literatura no. 2 (1975): 148-53.

34· Kjetsaa, p. 203. 35· S. P. Shevyrev, "Vzgliad russkogo na sovremennoe obrazovanie

Evropy," cited in Glynn R. Barratt, ed. and trans., Selected Letters of Evgeny Baratynsky (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), p. 108. ~~

36. Pigarev, ZIúzn', pp. 11-12; K. V. Pigarev, Muranovo: Putevoditel' (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1957), p. 122; D. Stremooukhoff, La ~~C'.

poésie et l'idéologie de Tiouttchev (Paris: University of Strasbourg Publications, 1937), p. 35.

37. Kjetsaa, chapo 1. 38. Del'vig cited in Gofman, p. 7. 39· D. E. Maksimov, "ldeia puti v poeticheskoa soznanii Bloka," in

Blokovskii sbomik: II (Tartu, 1972), pp. 28-29. 40. Kjetsaa, pp. 266-67; Gofman, p. 8. 41. See Friedrich Schiller, "Uber naive und sentimentalische Dich

tung," in F. Schiller, Werke, 43 vols. (Weimar: Bohlau, 1943-67), 20: 413-503.

42. For more on this matter see Norman Fruman, Coleridge: The Damaged Archangel (New York: Braziller, 1971); Thomas McFarland, Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 310- 16.

43· E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Wordsworth and Schelling: A Typologiml Study of Romanticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960).

44· It has, for example, been pointed out that Schelling "turned to electricity and its laws as the model for an entire metaphysic of existence." McFarland, p. 298; see also pp. 297-303. This aspect of SchelIing's thought had a striking resonance in England but faded rapidly out of focus in Russia after the initial influence of the Schellingian professors.

45· See Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter (Düsseldorf: Schwann Verlag, 1954)'

46. Ibid., p. 34; F. W. J. Schelling, Sdmmtliche Werke, 14 vols. (Stuttgart: Cotta'scher Verlag, 1856-61), Part 1, 3: 309; 4: 127-28. AlI citations from this edition of Schelling's Werke are fram Part I.

47· Schelling, 3: 272-73; 4: 129. 48. Ibid., 1: 149-244. 49· Ibid., 3:340. 50. Ibid., 7:13-14. 51. Ibid., p. 140. 52. Ibid., 2:13, 57-58. 53· Ibid., p. 14· 54. Ibid., p. 12. 55· Ibid., 3: 62T 5:269. 56. Ibid., 3:620.

NOTES TO PAGES 18-21

57· Ibid., p. 625. 58. Ibid., pp. 619, 623. 59· Ibid., p. 627; 5:460. 60. Fuhrmans, pp. 75-80; Robert F. Brown, The Later Philosophy of

Schelling: The Influence of B6hme on the Works of 1809-1815 (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1977).

61. Schelling, 7:331-416. 62. Fuhrmans, Part II; Alexandre Koyré, La Philosophie et le probleme

national en Russie I1U débllt du XIXe siecle (Paris: Champion, 1929), p. 150. 63. Wsewolod Setschkareff, Schellillgs Einfluss in der russischen Lite

ratur der 20er lllld 30er Jl1hre des XIX Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Schulze, 1939), pp. 99- 106.

64. Aksakov, pp. 42, 64; Gregg, p. 25. The prablem here is that the information handed down through several generations stems primarily from reports maJe to Aksakov by Tiutchev's father-in-Iaw, Baron Pfeffel, who describes a dispute between Tiutchev and Schelling on the relationship between Christianity and philosophy. Aksakov himself, however, occasionalIy questions Pfeffel's reliability (p. 318), and N. S. Popov, whose artic1e "Tiutchev i Shelling" unfortunately remains unpublished in the Muranovo Museum Archive (Archive Unit N-17), states flatly that as far as the alleged dispute is concerned. "there is every reason to deny the accuracy of Pfeffel's testimony."

65. Pigarev, Zhizn', p. 58. 66. Kjetsaa, pp. 138, 147, 412-13; Ginzburg, O lirike, pp. 76-78;

Dees, pp. 76, 135. There is a serious typographical error on page 76 of Dees's book: the quotation fram Boratynskii's letter to Pushkin should read "Not knowing German ..." rather than "Now knowing German .. .fI

67. These voices can be c1assified generally as folIows. (1) Affirm connection between Tiutchev's or Boratynskii's metaphysical views and SchelIing's philosophy: B. la. Bukhshtab, "Vstupitel'naia stat'ia," in F. I. Tiutchev, Polnoe (1957), pp. 10, 23; WilIiam A. Coates, "Tiutchev and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and Culture," dissertation, Harvard University, 1950, chaps. 4-6; N. S. Popov, "Tiutchev i Shelling"; E. N. Kupreianova, "Esteticheskie vzgliady Baratynskogo," Literatumaia ucheba, no. 11 (1936): 114; Wsewolod Setschkareff, "Zur philosophischen Lyrik Boratynskijs," Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 19 (1947): 380-89. (2) Deny connection: Stremooukhoff, p. 44; V. N. Kasatkina, Poeticheskoe mirovozzrenie F. l. Tiutcheva (Saratov, 1969), p. 12. (3) lntermediate position: Ginzburg (about Tiutchev), O lirike, pp. 89-101; D. Chizhevskii, "Tjutcev und die deutsche Romantik," Zeitschnft für slavische Philologie, 4 (1927): 299- 323; I. L. AI'mi, "ldeino-tvorcheskie iskaniia E. A. Baratynskogo kontsa dvadtsatykh-pervoi poloviny tridtsatykh godov," Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo goslldl1rstueIlllogo institllta illlelli Gertsena, 308 (1966): 3-31; I. L. Al'mi, "Lirika Baratynskogo," Kandidatskaia dissertatsiia, Leningrad, 1970).

68. Boratynskii reported that he did not know German in a letter

!

225 224 NOTES TO PACES 21- 27

written to Pushkin in the mid-182o'S (see note 66 aboye), and in the early 1830'S he lamented to Kireevskii that he could not read Karolina Pavlova's German translations of his own poems. Barratt, p. 99.

69· Ware, pp. 224-30; Vladimir Lossky, pp. 205-6, 217, 241. 70. Ware, pp. 217, 23T Vladimir Lossky, chapo 2. 71. Schelling, 3: 167, 258, 260. 72. Cited in P. N. Sakulin, Iz istorii russkago idealizma: Kniaz' V. F. /"

l.:Odoevsklí (Moscow, 1913), 1: 241, n. 2. See also Ivan Kireevskii's discus 1.'

sion of Schelling's later philosophy, "O neobkhodimosti i vozmozhnosti novykh nachal dlia filosofii," in I. V. Kireevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenlí, ed. Gershenzon (Moscow, 1911), 1: 223-64, translated by Peter Christoff as "On the Necessity and Possibility of New Principies in Philosophy," in James M. Edie, et al., Russian Plzilosophy (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 1:171-213. See also Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas 1and Official Nationú!ity in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 173-77; Koyré, pp. 187-88, 192-93; V. I. Sakharov, "O bytovanii shellingianskikh idei v russkoi literature," in Kontekst 77, Institut mirovoi literatury (Moscow, 1978), p. 216.

73· Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 4. 74. A. A. Galaktionov and P. F. Nikandrov, Russkaia filosofiia XI-XIX

vekov (Leningrad: Nauka, 1970), p. 14T P. V. Sobolev, Ocherki russkoi estetiki pervoi poloviny XIX veka (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'noekonomicheskoi literatury, 1972), p. 82.

75· E. Bobrov, Istoriía filosofii v Rossii, 5 vols. (Kazan, 1899- 1903),2: 3; Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 6.

76. Galaktionov, p. 154. 77. Sobolev, pp. 82, 120. 78. Zamotin, Romantizm, pp. 111-17; see Boratynskii's letter to Push

kin cited on p. 29 of this study. 79. Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 12. 80. The comment is Miliukov's, cited in V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of

Russian Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 1: 123. 81. Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 16. 82. Herzen cited in D. I. Chizhevskii, Cege!' v Rossii (Paris: Dom

knigi, 1939), p. 38. 83· Ibid., pp. 40-41; L. A. Ozerov, Poeziia Tiutcheva (Moscow: Khu

dozhestvennaia literatura, 1975), p. 12. 84. Peter K. Christoff, The Third Heart: Some Intellectual-Ideological Cur

rents and Cross-Currents, 1800-1830 (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), pp. 50 - 54; Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 32; Mirsky, p. 107; Maimin, O russkom romantizme, pp. 146-47,

85. A. I. Koshelev cited in E. A. Maimin, "Filosofskaia poeziia Pushkina i liubomudrov," Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. 6 (Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1969).

86. V. F. Odoevskii, "Neskol'ko slov o Mnemozine," cited in Zamotin, Romantizm, pp. 102-3.

NOTES TO PACES 27-34

87· Riasanovsky, pp. 57, 173· 88. James Billington, The leon and the Axe (New York: Vintage, 1970),

p. 312; N. O. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy (New York: International Universities Press, 1951), p. 15; Peter K. Christoff, An Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, vol. 2, l. V Kireevskij (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), p. 58.

89. I. V. Kireevskii, "On the Necessity and Possibility of New Principies in Philosophy," in Edie et al., p. 211.

90. Zenkovsky, 1: 153; Raymond T. McNally, Clzaadaev and His Friends (Tallahassee: Diplomatic Press, 1971), pp. 192-93.

91. Edward J. Brown, Stankevich and His Moscow Circle (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), pp. 15, 50; Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 87-90; Herbert E. Bowman, Vissarion Belinskii, 1811-1848 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 40; Chizhevskii, Cege!', p. 48; N. O. Lossky, p. 31; Sakharov, p. 216.

92. Kjetsaa, pp. 136-37, 168-69. 93. K. A. Polevoi cited in Kjetsaa, p. 139· 94. N. A. Mel'gunov cited in Kjetsaa, p. 169. 95. Cited in N. R. Mazepa, E. A. Baratynskii: Esteticlzeskie i literaturno

kriticheskie vzgliady (Kiev, 1960), p. 16. 96. Cited in Kjetsaa, p. 122. 97. Dees, p. 20; see also Koyré, pp. 131-32. 98. Kjetsaa, pp. 412-13' 99. V. Liaskovskii, Brat'ia Kireevskiia: Zlzizn' i trudy ikh (St. Petersburg,

1899), p. 31. 100. Kjetsaa, p. 155. 101. S. A. Rachinskii, Tatevskii sbornik (St. Petersburg, 1899), p. 26. 102. Ibid., p. 49. 103. Kjetsaa, p. 230- 31. 104. Cited in Rachinskii, p. 29. 105. See L. G. Frizman, "K istorii zhurnala Evropeets," Russkaia liter

atura, no. 2 (1967): 117-25. 106. Rachinskii, p. 40. 107. Ibid., p. 45· 108. Ibid., p. 51. 109. Ibid., p. 53· 110. Barratt, p. 12. 111. Liaskovskii, p. 45· 112. See, for instance, Boratynskii's letter to Kireevskii written on

June 20, 1832, in which he states: "The poetry of faith is not for uso ... We have cast down the old idols and have not yet gained faith in new ones." Rachinskii, pp. 47-48. See also Boratynskii's poems Posledniaia smert', Poslednii poet, and Osen'.

113. Kireevskii cited in Kjetsaa, pp. 198-99. 114. Both positive and negative reactions to Schelling's philosophy

provided bases for Boratynskii's poetry from roughly 1827 on. One of his last poems, Nas posev lesa, has been said to contain "a mystical, Schelling-like connection between nature and poetry." Dees, p. 127.

!

227

226 NOTES TO PACES 34- 52

115. See Pigarcv, Muranovo, p. 122; Stremooukhoff, p. 35. lIÓ. Pigarev, Zhizn', p. 17. 117. Pogodin cited in Briusov, "Legenda o Tiutcheve," p. 24. 118. P Y. Kireevskii, "Pis'ma," Russkii arkhiv, 2 (1905): 121. Thiersch

was head of the Department of Rhetoric and Ancient Languages at the University of Munich. See also P. V. Kireevskii, "Otryvki iz chastnykh pisem o Shellinge," Moskovskii vestnik, part 1, no. 1 (1830): 11-116.

119. P. V. Kireevskii, "Pis'ma," p. 122. 120. Ibid., p. 125; see also "Otryvki," p. 115. 121. G. Plitt, ed., Aus Scilellings Leben in Briefen, 3 vols. (Leipzig,

1870), 3: 39·

2. Nature

1. See M. H. Abrams, "5tructure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric," in Hilles and Abrams, cds., Essays Presented to Frederick A. Pottle; also Charles Peake, ed., Poetry of the Landscape and the Night: Two Eighteenth-Century Traditions (London: Arnold, 1967).

2. V. F. Savodnik, Chuvstvo prirody v poezii Pushkina, Lermontova i Tiutcheva (Moscow, 1911), pp. 166-67.

3. M. Iu. Lermontov, Mtsyri, in M. Iu. Lermontov, Po/noe sobranie socizinenii, 4 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1947-48), 2: 56.

4. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Wordsworth and Schelling: A Typ%gica/ Study of Romanticism, pp. 16-20,48-49.

5. William Wordsworth, The Recluse, 11. 800-811 (Oxford ed., ed. de Selincourt and Darbishire, 5: 4- 5)·

6. K. V. Pigarev, Zhizn' i tvorcilestvo Tiutcheva, p. 86. 7. Tiutchev, Lirika, 1:244· 8. F. W. J. Schelling, Stimmtliche Werke, 2:174. 9· Ibid., 7:363, 366. 10. A few other meanings also exist, none of them relevant here. See

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wiirterbuch, 16 vols. (Leipzig: Hirzel Verlag, 1854-1954).

11. Slovar' Akademii Rossiiskoi (1806-1822), vol. 5 (reprint, University of Odense, Denmark, 1971).

12. B. O. Unbegaun, Russian Versification (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 13.

13. Schelling, 2:70. 14· [bid., 3:351. 15. For more examples of est' see lines 3 and 4 of Ne to, cilto mnite vy,

priroda, line 10 of Silentium, and the poems Est' v oseni pervonacha/'nui, Est' v moem strada/'cheskom zastoe, Est' mnugo melkikh bezymiallrlikh ... , and Est' telegraf za neimen'em nog.

16. R. F. Gustafson, "Tjutcev's Imagery and What It Tells Us," Slavic and East European ¡ouma/, n.s., 4 (18), no. 1 (Spring 1960): 1-16.

NOTES TO PACES 53-94

17. Schelling, 3: 278-79, 18. Ibid., 5:465. 19. [bid., 7:363. 620. V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Plú/osophy, 1: 235-3 ; also

James M. Edie et al., Russian Philosophy, 1: 163. 21. Richard A. Gregg, Fedor Tiutchev: The Evu/utioll of a Poet, p. 234;

Friedrich Schiller, Die Rauber, act 4, scene 5, Werke, vol. ). 22. Tiutchev, Lirika, 2: 62, 344: see also William A. Coates, "Tiutchev

and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and

Culture," pp. 3°1-3·23. Heinrich Heine, Die Nordsee (Zweiter Zyklus), in H. Heine, Werke

und Briefe (Berlin: Aufbau, 1961 ), 1: 207-8. 24. Pascal, Pellsées, transo H. F. Stewart, Dual Text ed. (New York:

Pantheon, 19 5), p. 83. For further discussion of Tiutchev's relation to 6Pascal see Gregg, pp. 76-77, 97-99, 109, 1~ In his Essays on Mandel'stam (Harvard 5lavic Studies, vol. 6; Cambridge, Mass., 1975), pp. 5 - 5}, Kirill Taranovsky discusses the epithet "thinking reed" as it was 2passed along from Tiutchev to Mandel'shtam.

25. Pascal, p. 8}. 26. See ibid., pp. 21-29.27. For an explicit statement of this desire to merge with nature see

Tiutchev's poem Teni sizye smesilis', discussed in chapter 4, "Mystic Transformations," and Lidia Ginzburg's perceptive comments on the

poem in O Lirike, pp. 102-}. 628. Rousseau, Les Pensées de J. J. Rousseau (Amsterdam, 17 3), p. 17}, 6 68

cited by Ceir Kjetsaa, Evgenii Baratynskli: Zlúzn' i tvorchestvo, pp. 4 7

(my translation). 29. Schelling, 2: 12. JO. [bid., 7:}65- 66.31. V. F. OdoevskiL "Nauka instinkta," cited in Baratynskii, Po/noe so

brallie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957), p. }67

}2. Kjetsaa, p. 279·}}. Louis L. Martz, The Poem of the Milld, p. 7· 34. See Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation, pp. 35- }9·

35. Schelling, }:278-79; 5:465,}6. Cited in P. P. Filippovich, Zhizll' i tvorchestl'O E. A. BoratYllskogo,

¡ p·41.37. See Glynn R. Barratt, "Eighteenth-Century Neo-Classical French.~

Influence on E. A. Baratynsky and pushkin," Comparative Literature1 ¡, Studies, no. 4 (1969): 435- 61. ¡

}8. Schelling, 7: 363. ~ 39. [bid., 4: 91. 4 . See 1. M. Semenko, Poety pllsl1killskoi pory (Moscow: Khudozhe-J 0 267-68stvennaia literatura, 1970)' pp. .

41. Kjetsaa, p. 491. 42. Schelling, 2: 1}.1


3. The Poet and Poetry

1. The image is from M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Norton, 1958).

2. Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter, p. 37. 3. F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtliche Werke, 3:621. 4. Ibid., 5:380. 5· lbid., 3:620. 6. Ibid., s: 459· 7· lbid., 3: 626. 8. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Wordsworth and Schelling: A Typological Study of

Romanticism, pp. 1-14. 9· Schelling, 5: 348. 10. Cited in L. la. Ginzburg, "Opyt filosofskoi liriki," Poetika, no. 5

(Leningrad, 1929): 78. 11. D. V. Venevitinov, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovet

skii pisatel', 1960), p. 143. 12. A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 3: 65, 223· 13· lbid., p. 30 .

14. Venevitinov, p. 145· 15. M. lu. Lermontov, Polnoesobraniesochinenii, 1:34. 16. Hirsch, pp. 120-21. 17· Schelling, 3: 626- 27; 5: 640. 18. M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in

Romantic Literature (New York: Norton, 1971), p. 28. 19. Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book Third, 11. 144-46 (Norton ed.,

1979, ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, Stephen Gill). 20. A. S. Khomiakov, Stikhotvoreniia i dramy (Leningrad: Sovetskii

pisatel', 1969), p. 91. 21. Pushkin, 3: 141. 22. Lermontov, 1: 228. 23. Schelling, 7:331-416. 24. V. A. Zhukovskii, Pollloe sobranie socizinenii, 4 vals. (Moscow

Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1959), 1: 148.

25. Lidia Ginzburg, O lirike, p. 94. 26. V. I. Tumanskii, Muzy, in Poety lS20-1S30-kh godov, ed. L. la.

Ginzburg (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1961), p. 176. 27. See K. V. Pigarev, Zhizn' i tvorchestvo Tiutcheua, p. 11. 28. Hesiod, "Theogony" in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, transo

H. G. Evelyn-White (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943), p. 87·

29. Ovid, Metamorphoses, transo F. J. Miller (New York: Loeb Classical Library, 1933), pp. 2- 5.

30. See Richard A. Gregg, Fedor Tiutchev: The Evolution ofa Poet, chapo 7; also Tiutchev's poems Liubliu glaza tvoi, moi drug and Vchera, v mechtakh obvorozhennykh.

31. Metamorphoses, pp. 4- 5. Miller has translated circumfluus umor as

NOTES TO PAGES 112-20 229

"streaming water," but Innes's translation as "encircling sea" makes the parallelism clearer in this case. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, transo Mary M. Iones (Baltimore: Penguin, 1955), p. 30. Tiutchev could also have gleaned sorne of this imagery from the German romantics. Novalis, for instance, links sleep and ocean imagery, saying, "Sleep is nothing but the fiood tide of an invisible world sea, and awakening is the ebbing of the tide"; and Brentano links the night and the sea through the image of an embrace, saying, "The holy night embraces us like a gently moving sea." See D. I. Chizhevskii, "Tjuteev und die deutsche Romantik," p·312.

32. Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, pp. 130, 109. 33· Schelling, 3: 346. 34. lbid., pp. 620-21; 5:380. 35. B. la. Bukhshtab, "F. I. Tiutchev," in Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie

stikhotvorenii, pp. 29- 30. 36. lbid., p. 53. In addition to the "blissful" and "stormy" worlds,

Bukhshtab suggests a Tiutchevian "winter world" (zimnii mir) characterized by the cold deadness and stagnation of winter in northern Russia.

37. R. F. Gustafson, "Tiutchev's Imagery and What It Tells Us," Slavic and East European ¡ournal, Spring 1960, pp. 2, 9-10.

38. It is a curious coincidence that Boratynskii, in writing to his mother in 1824, expressed a similar concept of human genius ruling the seas and other elements: "1 feel that I always need something dangerous to occupy me, otherwise I am bored. Imagine me, my dear, on deck amid furious seas, amad storm-docile to me, a wooden board between me and death, and sea monsters marveling at the amazing occurrence-a product of human genius ruling the elements." Cited in G. Struve, "Evgeny Baratynsky," Slavonic and East European Review, 23, no. 62 (January 1945): 110.

39. Rolf Kempf, F. l. Tjuti'ev: Personlic/zkeit und Dichtung (Góttingen: University of Base!, 1956), p. 13.

40. F. I. Tiutchev, Liubovnitsy, bezumtsy i poety, in Lirika, 2: 104. Pigarey dates the translation "the end of the 1820'S or beginning of the 1830's/' and tentatively attributes Son na more to the year 1833. Tiutchev probably made the translation from a German or French version of Shakespeare since he seems not to have known English.

41. See Gregg, pp. 96-99. Gregg's discussion of Pascal's infiuence is usefuI, but his dismissal of Matlaw's interpretation and his failure to investigate other Schellingian overtones leave his analysis of the poem incomplete. See Ralph Matlaw, "The Polyphony of Tiutchev's Son na more:' Slavic and East European Review, 36 (December 1957-June 1958): 198- 204.

42. Schelling, 7: 363. 43. lbid., p. 390 .

44· lbid., p. 374·

231

,.. 23° NOTES TO PAGES 123- 56

45. Benjamin Dees, E. A. Baratynskii, p. 77. 46. 1. S. Aksakov, Biografiia Fedora lvanoviclza Tiutclzeva, pp. 2}, 41. 47· Tiutchev, Polnoe (1957), p. }76; Ginzburg, O lirike, p. 94. 48. Aksakov, p. 8}. 49· Friedrich Schiller, Werke, }: }99. 50. Geir Kjetsaa, Eugenii Baratynskii: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo, p. 14. 51. N. Kotliarevskii, Starinnye portrety (St. Petersburg, 1907), p. 18. 52. Ginzburg, O lirike, p. 71. 5}. See Baratynskii, Polnoe (1957), p. }66. 54. 1. V. Kireevskii, "Deviatnadtsatyi vek," Europeets, no. 1, part I

(18}2): 15. 55. S. P. Shevyrev, "Slovesnost' i torgovlia," Moskovskii nabliudatel',

part I (18}5): 19. 56. B. O. Korman, in his article "Sub"ektivnaia struktura stikho

tvoreniia Baratynskogo 'Poslednii Poet,'" in Uchenye zapiski: puslzkinskii sbornik, Leningradskii gos. pedo insto im. Gertsena, 48} (1972): 115-}0, suggests an aiternative interpretation in which the Poet (Poet) and man (chelovek) are taken as one and the same. This means that the Poet only talks of suicide and then reappears in the last stanza as "man." The poem thus acquires a strong ironic tone based on an image of the Poet as an indecisive figure prone to melodrama tic gestures and devoted to "childlike dreams" that he himself does not take seriously. I find Korman's interpretation interesting but not convincing because the word clzelovek is used twice earlier in the poem, both times with the meaning "mankind." It seems doubtful that Boratynskii would switch the identi ties of such specifically marked figures as mankind and the Poet, who is referred to as Poet or on (he) throughout the poem.

4. Mystic Transformations

1. Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter, p. 84. 2. Cited in ibid., p. 149. }. A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie soclzinenii, 1: 12}. 4. M. lu. Lermontov, Polnoe sobrame soclzinenii, 1: 9}-94. 5. lbid., pp. 250-51. 6. V. A. Zhukovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 6:}66. 7. P. A. Pletnev, Noch', in Ginzburg, ed., Poety 1820-1830-kh godov,

p. }45· 8. Titov, "Radost' i pecha!'," Moskovskii vestnik, no. 8 (1827): }}}-}4,

cited in E. A. Maimin, "Filosofskaia poeziia Pushkina i liubomudrov," Pushkin: lssledovaniia i materialy, 6: lO}.

9. See William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Modern Library, 1902), p. }71.

10. lbid. 11. The following passage from a letter written by Tiutchev to his

wife in 1866 shows sorne interesting parallels with the poems under


discussion here, especially "How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden" and "Gray blue shadows merged": "Twilight has come and I must finish [my letter). I sense the same twilight within my whole being and all impressions from the external world enter my being like the sounds of music fading in the distance (udaliaiushcheisia muzyki)." Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (1957), p. }51.

12. Aithough this emphasis on sound imagery might seem to counteract the universal silence characteristic of the creative experience described earlier, the mystic tenor of the poems under discussion resolves the seeming discrepancy. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James notes that "in mysticalliterature such self-contradictory phrases as ... 'whispering silence' are continually met with," and he offers the following selection from the writings of the early twentieth-century spiritualist and occuitist Mme Blavatsky to show how the concepts of silence and sound can be combined: "He who would hear the voice of Nada, 'the Soundless Sound: and comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dharana.... When he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the oNE-the inner sound which kills the outer.... For the soul will hear, and will remember. And then to the inner will speak THE VOlCE OF SILENCE ... THE VOlCE unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, from sin exempt, the seven sounds in one, the VOlCE OF SILENCE." In a similar manner, Tiutchev's "miraculous nightly hum" originates from the persona's gradual turn inward toward the night chaos that resides both within him and within the universe at large. See James, pp. 411-12.

1}. In Tiutchev, Lirika, pp. }65-66, Pigarev dates both poems simply "before 18}6:' thus leaving considerable room for speculation. He has, however, placed them on facing pages in the 1965 "Nauka" edition and the 1970 "Narodnaia biblioteka" edition, perhaps indicating that he sees sorne relationship between them.

14. Even in view of the parallels within Tiutchev's own work and Schelling's philosophy, it is, perhaps, the description of the mystic state of samiidhi achieved in the practice of yoga that comes closest to the portrayal of cosmic bliss so avidly sought by Tiutchev's persona. James describes samiidlzi in the following manner: "The mind itself has a higher state of existence beyond reason ... and when the mind gets into that higher state, then knowledge beyond reasoning comes.... There is another mind at work which is aboye consciousness, and which, also, is not accompanied with a feeling of egoism.... There is no feeling of 1, and yet the mind works, desireless, free from restlessness, objectless, bodiless. Then the Truth lies in its full effulgence, and we know ourselves ... for what we truly are, free, immortal, loosed from the finite, and its contrasts of good and evil altogether, and identical with the Universal Soul." In the portrayal of a state beyond consciousness involving no egoism, hence no sense of separation, a state of perfect peace and integration with the universal soul, one again sees the parallelism be

(

23 2 NOTES TO PACES 164- 90

tween Tiutchev's metaphysical world and the principies of mystic thought. See James, p. 391.

15. F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtlicize Werke, T359-60. 16. Ibid., p. 363. 17. For a more detailed discussion of this topie see Sarah Pratt, "The

Metaphysical Abyss: One Aspect of the Bond between Tiutchev and Schelling," Cermano-Slavica, vol. 4, no. 2 (1982), pp. 71-88.

18. Schelling, 7:359-60. 19. The notion of fertility inherent in this image might also be related

to the Bible, where the abyss is associated with the basis of creation. What is rendered in Genesis 1: 2 in the King James and Luther versions, respectively, as "darkness was upon the face of the deep" and "es war ' finster auf der Tiefe," is related more specifically to the concept of the abyss in the Church Slavonic version that Tiutchev could have known (i t'ma [byla] nad bezdnoiu) and in the Latin version that Schelling may have used, especially during his years of increasing religious fervor in Catholic Bavaria (et tenebrae erant super facium abyssi).

20. Here again Tiutchev's mystic tendencies foreshadow the consciously studied mysticism of the twentieth century in addition to paralleling certain mystic strains in Schelling's philosophy. Mme Blavatsky seems to be describing the same kind of experience portrayed in "Holy night has risen into the firmament" when she writes: "When to himself his form appears unreal, as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams; when he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the oNE-the inner sound which kills the outer.... And now thy Self is lost in SELF, thyself unto THYSELF, merged in that SELF from which thou first didst radiate.... Behold! thou has become the Light, thou has become the Sound, thou art thy Master and thy God. Thou art THYSELF the object of thy search." Here, as in Tiutchev's poem, man experiences a sense of unreality like that of dreams or visions, a sense of being lost in his own self, and the final revelation that he has returned to his original source-the essence of his own soul. See James, p. 412.

21. Schelling, 4: 259. 22. Ibid., p. 278. 23· Ibid., 7:361-62. 24. Ibid., p. 360. 25· Ibid., p. 380. 26. Ibid., p. 379. 27. For an interesting commentary on this poem related to other mat

ters see 1. M. Semenko, Poety pushkinskoi pory, pp. 263-66. 28. Schelling, 7: 406. 29. Charles Peake, ed., Poetry of the Landscape and the Night: Two

'6Eighteenth-Century Traditions, p. 54. A complete Russian translation of Young's "Night Thoughts" was published by Aleksander M. Kutuzov in 1785, and over twenty translations of various sections of the poem appeared in Russia during the last third of the eighteenth century. See Rudolf Neuhauser, Towards the Romantic Age: Essays on Sentimental and Preromantic Poetry in Russia, p. 71.

30. G. R. Derzhavin, Stikhotvoreniia (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1968), pp. 5-7.

r

NOTES TO PACES 19°-96 233

31. Ibid., p. 462. 32. Schelling, 7: 406. 33· Ibid., 6:57; 4:181 and 157· 34· Ibid., T3 63, 390-91. 35. F. 1. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie socizinenii (1913), pp. 296, 344. In an

other poem written in 1848, More i utes, Tiutchev portrays the waves of revolution as "hellish forces" temporarily turning the sea's abyss (puchina) upside down until they "tire" of crashing against the mighty cliff, which, of course, symbolizes Russia. Here, however, the abyss lacks the metaphysical meaning that it has in "Look, on the river's expanse" because the poetic statement is purely political.

5. Conclusion

1. For a different kind of discussion of the two poems see Wjatscheslaw Iwanow, "Zwei russische Gedichte auf den Tod Goethes," Corona, book 6 (1934): 697-703. See also Bodo Zelinsky, Russische Romantik, pp. 140-51.

2. William A. Coates, "Tiutchev and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and Culture," p. 227. Coates points out that Tiutchev tended to use a very free method of translation, so that the number of his works considered translations varies between 44 and 47 depending on one's understanding of the termo

3. D. Stremooukhoff, La poésie et /'idéologie de Tiouttchev, p. 121. 4. V. M. Zhirmunskii, "Gete v russkoi poezii," Literaturnoe nasledstvo,

4-6 (1932): 566. 5. A. S. Pushkin, Stsena iz Fausta, in Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie so

chinenii, 2:434-38; F. 1. Tiutchev, Iz Fausta Cete, in Tiutchev, Lirika, 1: 88-93 (we would have more of Tiutchev's translations of Faust if these had not been among the papers he accidentally burned in 1836); D. V. Venivitinov, Otryvki iz Fausta, in Venivitinov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, pp. 134-39; S. P. Shevyrev, Elena, in Shevyrev, Stiklzotvoreniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisateI', 1939), p. 40; A. A. Shishkov, Iz Ceteva Fausta, in L. Ginzburg, ed., Poety lS20-1S30-kh godov, 1 :417-18; M. D. Delariu, Mefistofeliu, in ibid., 1 :501-2; A. V. Timofeev, Poet, in ibid., 2:599- 637.

6. See André von Gronicka, The Russian Image of Coethe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968).

7. 1. 1. Zamotin, Romantizm dvadtsatykh godov XIX stoletiia v russkoi literature, p. 123.

8. Kuno Fisher, Istoriia novoi filosofii: Shelling, ego zhizn', sochineniia i uchenie (St. Petersburg, 190 5), pp. 44-45.

9. Heinrich Knittermeyer, Schelling und die romantische Schule (Munich: Reinhardt Verlag, 1929), p. 295.

10. For example, N. la. Berkovskii, in his article "F. 1. Tiutchev," in F. 1. Tiutchev, Stikhotvoreniia (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1962), and Stremooukhoff tend to emphasize Goethe's infIuence on Tiutchev's view of nature, while many other critics tend to view Tiutchev's thought in terms of Schelling's philosophy.


11. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Werke, 14 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1981), 1: 368-69.

12. See Vadim Liapunov, "Poet in the Middest: Studies in the Poetry ;; of E. A. Baratynskij," dissertation, Yale University, 1969, p. 33. 1

13. F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtliche Werke, 2:12.;' 14· lbid., p. 14; 3:627; 5:269. 15. von Gronicka, p. 95. 16. Schelling, 3: 619, 62T 5: 460. 17· lbid., 2:13;4:115-16. 18. lbid., 5:631, 635, 482. 19. Nonetheless, the assumption that the poem relates to Goethe's

death has never been disputed. See Pigarev's notes in Tiutchev, Lirika, P·356.

20. Emil Staiger, Goethe (Zurich: Atlantis Verlag, 1952- 59), 1: 497. 21. Ludwig Hansel, Goethe: Chaos und Kosmos (Vienna: Verlag Herder,

1949), pp. 46-47; H. Henel, "Goethe und die Naturwissenschaft," Journal o[ English and Germanic Philology, 48 (1949), no. 4: 507-33.

22. See Fritz Strich, Goethe and World Literature (London, 1949), P·299·

23. Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter, p. 23. 24. Many of Tiutchev's later patriotic and religious poems, of course,

are based on little but moral judgment. But with the exception of the transitional poem "Look, on the river's expanse," these poems cannot be counted among Tiutchev's metaphysical works.

25. 1. S. Aksakov, Biografiia Fedora lvanovicha Tiutcheua, p. 107.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The bibliography that follows is intended to be comprehensive in relation to Tiutchev and selective in relation to Boratynskii. Works not directly relevant to one or the other of the poets have been given full references in the notes but are not repeated here.

1 have been as thorough as possible in seeking and listing entries on Tiutchev because there is no recent comprehensive bibliography of literature on his life and works. Entries relevant to Tiutchev are marked with an asterisk. Thanks to the excellent bibliography in Geir Kjetsaa's Eugenii Baratynskii: Zhizn' i tuorchestvo, such treatment is unnecessary for studies of Boratynskii, and the entries here are limited to works cited in this book and works not listed by Kjetsaa (in most cases these appeared after the publication of his study).

1 have cited Tiutchev's poems from F. 1. Tiutchev, Lirika (Moscow: Nauka, 1965). According to the editor, K. V. Pigarev, this is the only complete annotated edition of the poems. (Most other editions omit a large portion of Tiutchev's political verse.) There are three major collections of Tiutchev's verse translated into English: Jesse Zeldin's Poems alld Political Letters o[ F. l. Tyutchev (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973), which contains a greater range of material than the other editions; Eugene M. Kayden's Poems o[ Night and Day (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1974); and Charles Tomlinson's Versions [rom Fyodor Tyutchev (London: Oxford University Press, 1960). Since no translation can match the rich subtlety of Tiutchev's Russian, the question of a preferred translation is largely a matter of taste. To some degree, however, Tomlinson's "versions" reproduce the spirit of Tiutchev's poetry with greater success than technically precise translations.

Boratynskii's poems are cited from E. A. Baratynskii, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii, Biblioteka Poeta, Bol'shaia seriia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957). To my knowledge, there are no major collections of Boratynskii's verse in English translation.

237 236 BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Quotations from Schelling are taken from F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmt*--- "Sotsiologiia tvorchestva Tiutcheva." Novyi mir, no. 6 (1931), r:¡iliche Werke, 14 vols. (Stuttgart and Augsburg: Cotta'scher Verlag, pp. 162-79· 1856-61). :¡ *---. "Tvorchestvo Tiutcheva" and "Tiutchev i viazemskiL" Tri veka,

*Aksakov, 1. S. Biografiia Fedora lvanovicha Tiutcheva. Moscow, 1886. AI'mi, 1. L. "E. Baratynskii: Vse mysl' da mysl'." In Poeticheskii stroi rus

skoi liriki, edited by G. M. Fridlender. Leningrad: Nauka, 1973. --~. "Ideino-tvorcheskie iskaniia E. A. Baratynskogo kontsa dvad

tsatykh-pervoi poloviny tridtsatykh godov." Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta imeni Gertsena, Issue 308 (1966), pp. 3-31

---o "Lirika E. A. Baratynskogo." Dissertation. Leningrad, 1970. ---o "O vnesub"ektivnykh formakh vyrazheniia avtorskogo sozna

niia v lirike Baratynskogo i Tiutcheva." Voprosy literatury: Khudozhestveflnyi metod-khudozhestvennoe svoeobraziia, Vladimirskii gos. pedo inst., Issue 9 (1975), pp. 68-85'

Baratynskii, E. A. Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957.

Barratt, Glynn R. "Eighteenth-Century Neo-Classical French Influence on E. A. Baratynsky and Pushkin." Comparative Literature Studies no. 4 (1969), pp. 435-61

---, ed. and transo Selected Letters of Evgeny Baratynsky. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.

*Bel'chikov, N. "Dostoevskii o Tiutcheve." Byloe, no. 5, book 3 (1925), pp. 155-62.

*Belyi, A. Lug ze1enyi, pp. 230-46. Moscow, 1910. *---. Poeziia slova, Part 1. Petrograd, 1922. *Berkovskii, N. la. "F. 1. Tiutchev." In F. 1. Tiutchev, Stikhotvorerziia,

pp. 5-78. Moscow-Leningrad, 1962. *---. "Kniga o Tiutcheve, izdannaia v Finliandii" (Review of Va

khros, Poeziia Tiutcheva: Priroda v lirike Tiutcheva). Russkaia literatura, no. 2 (1967), pp. 191-92.

*Bilokur, Borys. A Concordance to the Russian Poetry of F I. Tiutchev. Providence, R. l.: Brown University Press, 1975.

*---. "Statistical Observations on Tjutéev's Lexicon." Slauic and East European ¡ournal, vol. 14 (1970), no. 3, pp. 303-16.

*Binshtok, L. "K voprosu o mirootnoshenii Tiutcheva." Trudy Samarkandskogo universiteta, Issue 254, pp. 83-100.

*Bitsilli, D. M. "Derzhavin, Pushkin, Tiutchev i russkaia gosudarstvennost'." In Sbornik statei posviashchennykh P. l. Miliukovu, pp. 351 -74. Prague, 1930.

*Blagoi, D. "Genial'nyi russkii lirik (F. 1. Tiutchev)." In Literatura i deistvitel'nost', chapo 7. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1959.

*---. "Iz materialov o F. 1. Tiutcheve: Pis'ma F. 1. Tiutcheva k M. P. Pogodinu." Krasnyi arkhiv, vol. 4 (1923), pp. 383-92.

*---. Muranovo: Literaturnaia ekskursiia. Moscow, 1925.

pp. 180-235, 236-68. Moscow, 1933. Bonamour, Jean. "Contribution a l'étude des rapports entre le sujet et

le theme de la révolte métaphysique chez Baratynskij." Communications de la délégation fraru;aise, VIIe congres international des Slavistes, Varsovie, 1973. Paris: Institut d'études slaves, 1973·

Boratynskii, A. L. "1 vse-taki Boratynskii!" Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 31 (July 28, 1971).

*Borodkin, M. M. "O poezii F. 1. Tiutcheva." Mirnyi trud, no. 4 (1904), pp. 44-66.

*Brandt, R. F. "Materialy dlia issledovaniia: Fedor Ivanovich Tiutchev i ego poeziia." Izvestiia otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti lmperatorskoi akademii nauk, vol. 16, Book 2; vol. 17, Book 3. 1911

Brang, Peter. "Zur sprachschopferischen Leistung von E. A. Baratynskij." In Festschnft für Margarete Woltner zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by P. Brang, pp. 23-38. Heidelberg, 1967.

*Briskman, M. "F. 1. Tiutchev v komitete tsensury inostrannoi." Literaturnoe nasledstvo, 19-21 (1935): 565-78.

*Briusov, V. la. "F. 1. Tiutchev: Kritiko-biografischeskii ocherk." In F. 1. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Sto Petersburg: Marks, 1913.

*---. "F. 1. Tiutchev: Letopis' ego zhizni." Russkii arkhiv, 2 (1903): 481-98,641-52; 3 (1906): 310- 20.

*---. "Legenda o Tiutcheve." Novyi put', no. 11 (1903), pp. 16-30. *Bubnoff, N. von. "Tjutéevs philosophische Dichtung." In Festschrift für

Max Vasmer zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by M. Woltner and H. Brauer, pp. 91-104. Wiesbaden, 1956.

*Bukhshtab, B. la. "F. 1. Tiutchev." In F. 1. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii, pp. 5-52. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957·

*---. Russkie poety: Tiutchev, Fet, Koz'ma Prutkov, Dobroliubov. Leningrad, 1970.

*Chicherin, A. V. "Obraz vremeni v poezii Tiutcheva." !zvestiia AN SSSR, Seriia literatury i iazyka, vol. 28, no. 5 (1969), pp. 403-7·

*---. "Stil' Iiriki Tiutcheva." In Kontekst 1974, edited by N. K. Gei et al., pp. 275-94. Moscow: Nauka, 1975·

*Chizhevskii, D. 1. [Cyzevskyj]. "Das Nachtmotiv bei Tjutcev." Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 8 (1931): 51

*---. "Tjutcev und die deutsche Romantik." Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 4 (1927): 299-323.

*---. "Uraniia: tiutchevskii al'manakh" (Review). Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 7 (1931): 459- 67.

*---. Zu einem Gedicht Tjutcevs." Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, 14 (1937): 325-31

*Chopyk, D. B. "Schelling's Philosophy in F. 1. Tyutchev's Poetry." Russian Language ¡ourna/. 27 (1973): 17-23.

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*Cornil\ot, Franl;ois. Tiouttchev, poete-philosophe. Lil\e: l'Université de Paris, 1974.

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*Solov'ev, Vladimir. "Perechityvaia Tiutcheva." Nauka i religiia, no. 8 (1973), pp. 56-59,

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BIBLIOGRAPHY244

*--- [Tyutchev). Poems and Political Letters of F. l. Tyutchev.

;{l

_~

;,¡'3 (l'

~,

vols.

Tl lated by Jesse Zeldin. Knoxville: University of Tennessee 1973·

*--- [Tyutchev). Poems of Night and Day. Translated by Euge Kayden. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1974.

*---. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Sto Petersburg: Marks, 1913..)': *---. Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii. Leningrad: Sovetskii pi'

1957· *--- [Tyutchev). Versions from Fyodor Tyutchev. Translated by

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*Vakhros, 1. S. Poeziia Tiutcheva: Priroda v lirike Tiutcheva. Helsinki/1" Valerianov, V. "Neobkhodimoe utochnenie: imia pisatelia (E. A. B

tynskogo)." Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 50 (December 9, 1970). *Veidle, V. "Posledniaia liubov' Tiutcheva." Novyi Zhurnal, 17 (1

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Germano-Slavica, vol. 3, no. 5 (1981), pp. 307- 17. *Zakharkin, A. F. '''Tomov premnogikh tiazhelei': K 170-letiiu sO\~

rozhdeniia F. 1. Tiutcheva." Russkaia rech', no. 6 (1973), pp. 30-+~ Zhirmunskii, V. M. Gete v russkoi literature. Leningrad, 1937· ---o "Gete v russkoi poeziL" Literaturnoe nasledstvo,

(1932). *Zundelovich, la. O. Etiudy o lirike Tiutcheva. Samarkand, 1971.

INDEX

Abrams, M. H., 122 Aesthetic Discourses (Ansilion), 23 Aksakov, I. S., 20, 54, 123, 216,

221,223 Aksakov, K. S., 54 Angelus Silesius, 7 Ansilion, Friedrich, 23 "Anti-Criticism" (Antikritika; B),

31

Apocalyptic experience, 147, 170- 83, 193

Art and the artist, 18-23 passim, 95-97,100,114-15,207. See also Creator

"As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere" (Kak okean ob"emlet shar zemnoi; T), 104, 109-21 passim, 144, 155f, 166, 174-75, 215

"At the very beginning of autumn there is" (Est' v oseni pervonachal'noi; T), 89

Augustine, Saint, 146 Ausonius, 52 "Autumn" (Osen'; B), 80-94, 129,

204,208 "Autumn" (Osen'; Karamzin), 9,

40

"Autumn" (Osen'; Pushkin), 39, 148

11I11

Bednaia Liza, see Poor Liza Belinskii, V. G., 4, 28 "Belles Lettres and Business"

(Slovesnost' i torgovlia; Shevyrey), 125

Berkovskii, N. la., 233 Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, A. A., 2-3,

71

Blavatsky, Mme, 231f /

Bbhme, Jacob, 19, 22, 146 Boliashchii dukh vrachuet pesnopen'e,

see "Song healeth the afflicted spirit"

Boratynskii, Evgenii Abramovich (B), 4-5, 9-15 passim, 20-21, 24,28-37 passim, 217, 221- 25 passim, 229; and nature, 39, 43, 58-94 passim, 210; and the poet or poetry, 97, 122-45, 207, 230; and mysticism, 141, 17089, 193; and Goethe, 194-216 passim

Brentano, Clemens, 229 :1

Briusov, V. la., 10 !,I Brodskii, losif, 10 Bruno (Schelling), 169 Buhle, Johann, 23, 25 l'

Bukhshtab, B. la., 229 Byronic romanticism, 3, 7; Ler

montov and, 3, 12, 40-41,

il

11

244 BIBLIOGRAPHY

*--- [Tyutchev]. Poems and Political Letters of F l. Tyutchev. Translated by Jesse Zeldin. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973·

*--- [Tyutchev]. Poems of Night and Day. Translated by Eugene M. Kayden. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1974.

*---. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Sto Petersburg: Marks, 1913. *---. Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel',

1957· *--- [Tyutchev]. Versions from Fyodor Tyutclzev. Translated by Charles

Tomlinson. London: Oxford University Press, 1960. *---. "Zapisochka neizvestnomu." Novyi put', no. 11 (1903), p. 15. *Tiutcheva, A. F. Pri dvore dvukh imperatorov: Dnevnik. 2 vols. Moscow:

1928- 29. *Tynianov, lu. "Pushkin i Tiutchev," "Tiutchev i Geine," and "Vopros o

Tiutcheve." In Arkhaisty i novatory, pp. 330-98. Leningrad, 1929; reprint, Munich: Fink Verlag, 1967.

*---. "Pushkin i Tiutchev." In Pushkin i ego sovremenniki. Moscow: Nauka, 1968.

Usok, 1. E. "Filosofskaia poeziia liubomudrov." In K istorii russkogo romantizma, edited by lu. Mann, pp. 107-28. Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1973.

*Vakhros, 1. S. Poeziia Tiutcheva: Priroda v lirike Tiutcheva. Helsinki, 1966. Valerianov, V. "Neobkhodimoe utochnenie: imia pisatelia (E. A. Bora

tynskogo)." Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 50 (December 9, 1970). *Veidle, V. "Posledniaia liubov' Tiutcheva." Novyi Zhurnal, 17 (1948):

181-200. *---. "Tiutchev i Rossiia," Russkie zapiski, 18 (1939): 141- 57. *Vinokurov, E. "Paradoksy Fedora Tiutcheva." Moskva, no. 3 (1970),

pp. 198 - 205. *Volynskii, A. L., ed. Tiutchev: sbornik statei. Petrograd, 1922. *Weeks, Andrew. "Tiutchev, Schelling, and the Question of Influence."

Germano-Slavica, vol. 3, no. 5 (1981), pp. 307-17. *Zakharkin, A. F. '''Tomov premnogikh tiazhelei': K 170-letiiu so dnia

rozhdeniia F. 1. Tiutcheva." Russkaia rech', no. 6 (1973), pp. 30-36. Zhirmunskii, V. M. Gete v russkoi /iterature. Leningrad, 1937. ---o "Gete v russkoi poezii." Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vols. 4-6

(1932). *Zundelovich, la. O. Etiudyo lirike Tiutcheva. Samarkand, 1971.

"r···.!:.!.! "1/

~;'

INDEX

Abrams, M. H., 122 Aesthetic Discourses (Ansilion), 23 Aksakov, 1. S., 20, 54, 123, 216,

221, 223 Aksakov, K. S., 54 Angelus Silesius, 7 Ansilion, Friedrich, 23 "Anti-Criticism" (Antikritika; B),

31

Apocalyptic experience, 147, 170- 83, 193

Art and the artist, 18-23 passim, 95-97,100,114-15,207. See also Creator




204, 208 "Autumn" (Osen'; Karamzin), 9,

40 "Autumn" (Osen'; Pushkin), 39,

148


(Slovesnost' i torgovlia; Shevyrey), 125


71

Blavatsky, Mme, 231Í ,/

Bohme, Jacob, 19, 22, 146 Boliashchii dukh vrachuet pesnopen'e,

see "Song healeth the afflicted spirit"

Boratynskii, Evgenii Abramovich (B), 4-5,9-15 passim, 20-21, 24,28-37 passim, 217, 221- 25 passim, 229; and nature, 39, 43, 58-94 passim, 210; and the poet or poetry, 97, 122-45, 207, 230; and mysticism, 141, 17089, 193; and Goethe, 194-216 passim

Brentano, Clemens, 229 Briusov, V. la., 10

Brodskii, losif, 10 Bruno (Schelling), 169 Buhle, Johann, 23, 25 Bukhshtab, B. la., 229 Byronic romanticism, 3, T Ler

montov and, 3, 12,40-41,

r ~ 12;.;""' '~ \.

~ " J 'Jo.' .')t

~ í ~

('rJ·t f-' .; .... 'It".. .....~ -.''"-. - ~ ~ ",;{--;"

¡/' - ,lO

..

-.('>- ':) :" _1 1 '" \~- ... ',,

....._~ ~JL"".~'t.~~_.&_' ~>,; j¡-~ ~" -Ji .t,. ) 11, "

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JCONTENT5 Yi,":'" " , ~ ¡ \ ~" .

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1. The Context 1 -~-

'trrRussian romanticism, 1. The metaphysical tradition, 5. Tiutchev and Boratynskii, 10. Schelling's philosophy, 15. Schelling's 2 .. 1" 'l'> \V:o ~ philosophy in Russia, 19. The poets' contact with Schelling, 29.

2. Nature 38

Five concepts of nature, 38. Living nature, 44. Separation from nature, 51. Return to unity.. 71. Nature in Boratynskii's "Autumn," 80.

3. The Poet and Poetry 95

Romantic images of the poet, 95. Inspiration, 104. The poet and society, 122. Poetry, 141.

4. Mystíc Transformatíons 146

Concepts of night, death, and mystic experience, 146. Mystic transport, 152. The apocalypse, 170. The ultimate resolution, 183.

5. Conclusíon 194

Two poems on the death of Goethe, 194. Alternatives in Russian romanticism, 213.

Notes 219 Bíblíography 235 Index 245

· 1 .

THE CONTEXT

Russian Romanticism

Literary movements rarely progress in as orderly a manner as we might like to believe, and Russian literature presents an even less orderly picture than mosto Because it developed relatively late, Russian literature barely mimicked the chronological states of development common to most European literatures. Strains of classicism, sentimentalism, and what is commonly called romanticism all fell into one tangled mass of literary movements during roughly the first half of the nineteenth century. Any attempt to define one of these movements in distilled form is doomed to failure, since each strain constantly interacted with the others. Russian critics themselves were acutely aware of the problem. In 1830 one critic wrote that the division between classical and romantic literature was "pure rubbish and not founded upon any clear set of differences"; and as late as 1843 another asserted that romanticism remained a "mysterious and enig- \' matic subject." I -' J

In view of this complexity, it would be foolish to assume the role of a magician using intellectual sleight-of-hand to conjure up a perfectly formed monolithic model of Russian romanticismo I have chosen rather the method of the alchemist, who, by painstaking studies of individual elements, may arrive at an understanding of the seemingly miraculous composition of the whole. It is through sueh techniques of close examination and analysis that this study attempts both to elucidate certain works of two particular authors and to come to grips with a literary epoch that spans roughly the first half of the nineteenth century.2

2 3 THE CONTEXT

The recognition of the composite nature of the phenomenon by no means invalidates the term "Russian romanticism," since arguments about romanticism-what it was, whether it was a good thing or abad thing, whether it could be "Russianized" or not-served as a major focal point for literary discussion throughout this time. 3

The Russian literary world faced a crisis in the early 1820'S. The kind of poetry that had flourished during the first two decades of the century, sometimes called the "school of harmonious precision" because of its insistence on perfect poetic diction, was gradually engulfed by an increasing number of vulgar imitations. 4 The original balance of style and sense was distorted until there was a very real danger that the predominant form of verse might become an artfully constructed poetic shell devoid of serious emotional or intellectual contento Alternative forms of Russian romanticism offered a number of partial solutions and one immediately effective solution to the problem.

One means of providing meaningful content was found in the revolutionary romanticism of Decembrist poets like Ryleev, Kiukhelbeker, and Raevskii. This alternative existed only briefly, for the censorship, naturally, had never approved the expression of revolutionary sentiments, and literature of this type quickly disappeared after the brutal suppression of the Decembrist Revolt. The seeds of revolutionary romanticism had come to Russia through the poetry of the French Revolution, and the works of the Decembrists occasionally bore traces of the French classicism they knew so well. Nonetheless, the fervor inherent in the revolutionary themes, the frequent focus on questions of national independence, and the time at which this strain appeared all make it a part of the multifaceted phenomenon of Russian romanticismo

Ethnic romanticism, the focus on the Volk that contributed so much life and color to the German movement, and historical romanticism, the rediscovery of the national past that created a similar impetus in England, provided only a limited corrective to the emptiness of the epigones who sought to continue the "school of harmonious precision." Zhukovskii, Lermontov, and others wrote ballads in an attempt to inject Russian literature with the life-giving spontaneity of folklore; Bestuzhev-

THE CONTEXT

Marlinskii, Pushkin, and others wrote tales based on Russia's past and national minorities. But a significant number of such efforts failed in sorne crucial aspecto Sorne of them were abandoned as incomplete fragments by authors who felt that their compositions simply did not function as "literature." Others were published as finished products, but somehow seemed to bear the indelible stamp "imported" in spite of the author's efforts to capture the Russian spirit. Though ethnic and historical concerns did playa certain role in the literature of the romantic period in Russia, they never determined the main direction of its literary currents.

The most immediately successful solution to the problem of finding a new source of inspiration, a replacement for the waning "school of harmonious precision," lay in the creation of the flamboyant and alienated persona who dominates the writings of Lermontov. This aspect of Russian romanticism was, of course, greatly influenced by the English poet Byron, whose style was tested by Pushkin as well. The persona's intense experience of life, his adventures, passions, anguish, and aboye aB his unshakable sense of himself as a unique human being, provided ample and lively content for any number of works by Lermontov and others. lt was, in fact, this Byronic-or Lermon- ~.

tovian-romanticism that nourished Russian literature until the ); rise of Gogol and the transition to the great age of realism in the .. middle decades of the century.

In the realm of poetry, the metaphysical romanticism that provides the main focus of the p¡'eseñ1~stuay exerted an influence lesser than that of the Byronic form, yet somewhat greater than that of the revolutionary, ethnic, or historical alternatives. For the brief period immediately before the Decembrist Revolt, a group that called itself the Society for the Love of Wisdom (Obshchestvo Liubomudriia, the latter word being a Slavonic rendering of the Greek philosophoi), set out to give Russian poetry more meaningful content and to spread the teachings of the

Ger~aJ.l~~!Dª~.!~SP~~~?s0E.~.dri.ch.Sd1e~sa part of this endeavor. lts mem5ers, often known simply as the Lovers of Wisdom (Liubomudry), caBed for the creation of a new philosophical lyric, and those among them who were poets duly turned out works based on Schelling's thought. Although sorne

5 4

..'THE CONTEXT

of their po~try shows a measure of taJént and subtlety, a good deal of it slips into the realm of 12!~nt allegory or philosophizing in verse. The terms "philosophical poetry" and "philosophical lyric," when applied to the work of the Lovers of Wisdom, must be accompanied by a corollary awareness that the erriphasis frequently falls on the word "philosophical" rather than on "poetry."

In contrast, the term "metaphysical poetry" as it will be used here identifies poetry informed by concern for the metaphysical workings of the universe, but not distorted by adherence to a specific philosophical system. This is the kind of poetry written by Tiutchev and Boratynskii.* A. S. Khomiakov, an occasional member, or at least associate, of the Society for the Love of Wisdom, recognized the difference between the two types of poetry and offered the following comparison of his own work with Tiutchev's: "1 know that my verses, when they are good, are held together by thought. This means that the prose writer is

ll.lways peeping out throu~h the verse and therefore ~ill ultil:mately smother the poet. Tmtchev, on the other hand, 1S a poet ''fhrough and through." s

D. S. Mirsky, author of the standard history of Russian literature in English, makes a similar distinction and uses the term "metaphysical" with the same sense it carries in this study. Of Tiutchev he writes: "as is the case with every metaphysical poet, Tyutchev's philosophy cannot be stripped of its poetic form without loss of meaning." 6 And in the same vein, he calls Boratynskii's poetry "a shortcut from the wit of the eighteenthcentury poets to the metaphysical ambitions of the twentieth." 7

1 have consciously avoided the term "poe1ry oqhought," a direct translation of the Russian phrase poeziia myslí), which stems most likely from Pushkin's statement thatBoratynskii "is original in our literature because he thinks" (on u nas originalen, ibo myslit), or from Belinskii's description of Boratynskii as a "poet of thought" (poet mysli).8 The reason for this avoidance is twofold. First, the term has been used in connection with the general movement away from the 11 school of harmonious precision" to

• Although many scholars spell Boratynskii's name with an a in the first syllable, there has been a recent move back to the spelling in accordance with the poet's own signature. See note 33 below.

THE CONTEXT

ward a more intellectually informed poetry in the 1820's-hence to describe the poetic efforts of the Lovers of Wisdom as well as those of Tiutchev and Boratynskii. 9 It therefore tends to minimize the distinctions drawn aboye, distinctions that are of prime importance in defining the nature of this study. Second, the term carries the potentially misleading implication that poets like Pushkin, Lermontov, and others not regarded as "poets of thought" wrote poetry devoid of any major intellectual impulse. l' \

The terms \,!eflective poetry" and "meditative poetry/have also been tested and rejected. Although English parallels suggest that the terms can be used effectively to describe poetry much like Boratynskii's,lO they cannot define the common essence of both Boratynskii's and Tiutchev's poetry because Tiutchev rarely depicts the meditative process; his works are built around the poetic events themselves, not around poetic meditation on the events.

Ultimately, then, we can leave "poetry of thought" to define the larger attempt to infuse the Russian lyric with greater intellectual meaning, leave "philosophical poetry" to describe programmatic works like those of the Lovers of Wisdom, leave "meditative poetry" and "reflective poetry" to categorize works that show the poet's thought processes, and keep "metaphysical poetry" as the functional definition of the particular kind of poetry written by Tiutchev and Boratynskii that provides the focus for this study. \ l' . 1,vo.. \t....,"' -1.(, f ~..R, ," A" ....., ,t 4ó' !J\.",

The Metaphysical Traditioll i... ( i·-~ -d_!'~..t" /)

This choice of nomenc1ature naturally suggests a common ground linking the Russian tradition with the metaphysical po- ; etry of Donne, VaughaI1, Herbert, Marvell, and a number of t

other poets of seventeenth-century England. Though the possibility of direct influence is virtually nonexistent, the use of poetry as a means of expressing, examining, and, on occasion, resolving greater spiritual issues is typical of both the English Metaphysicals and of a certain number of Russian poets of whom Tiutchev and Boratynskii are the most s~ examples. 11

In both England and Russia the metaphy~icalstrain had its origins in the practice of sorne kind of religiou~ meditation. The En

,.,.

6 THE CONTEXT

glish poets transformed the practice of religious meditation, as defined, for example, in Saint Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises or Lorenzo Scupoli's Spiritual Combat, into lyrics often of the

A/ highest poetic quality. 12 The act of religious meditation practiced '" in accordance with such sources utilizes all the human faculties

to promote greater understanding and faith:

The mind engages in acts of interior dramatization. The speaker acses himself; he talks to Cod within the self; he approaches the love of

Cod through memory, understanding and will; he sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches by imagination the scenes of Christ's life as they are rep~ented on a mental stage. Essentially the meditative action consists of an interior drama, in which aman projects a self upon an inner stage, and there comes to know that self in the light of adivine presence. 13

A threefold structure based on the orderly progression from the faculty of memory, to the understanding, to the will is an essential trait of this kind of meditation. The initial step consists of using the memory to recall an appropriate scene-often a scene from Christ's life-and trying to take in that scene with all one's senses, thus setting the interior stage for the drama that is to follow. The next step is understanding, analyzing the scene and making it relevant to one's own life. The final step is a statement of will, the "colloquy" confirming the convictions that lie at the base of the meditation, or an exclamation of profound belief or ecstasy. 14

Sometimes retaining a devotional orientation, sometimes taking a purely secular stance, the Metaphysical Poets often followed structural patterns established for religious meditation. In any case, they consistently utilized the same process of "thinking deliberately directed toward the development of certain specific emotions." 15 As T. S. Eliot once observed, these poets carne to "feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose." 16

N\r Many European countries developed sorne form of metal ~ physical. ~oetry d~ring the b~o~ue period. 17 Certain aspects of

the tradltlOn, for mstance t1'teearly tt'miency to "us.e a substructure of specific religious precepts, and the use ofwitas a stylistic norm, were altered over the years. But a type of'jJÜetry involving the fusion of thought and feeling and concerned with the basic issues of metaphysics-"the first principIes of things, including such concepts as being, substance, essence, time, iden

~"~7-

THE CONTEXT 7

tity"-continued as an important part of European literature. 1R

Taking England, where the tradition was especially strong, as an example, one sees a metaphysical strain passing from Donne's generation through Edward Young, Thomas Parnell and other , Graveyard Poets, through the "greater romantic lyric" created by Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Byron. 19

In Germany, the Gedankenlyrik (ly~ic()f thought), though less renowned than the English line, dealt '~iül -similar issues at roughly the same time. The Gedankenlyrik passed from the religious poetry of Opitz, Gryphius, and Angelus Silesius through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the works of Klopstock, Wieland, Schiller, Goethe, and Novalis.

In Russla-;-:Wñich"ñeverexpérlenced the baroque in the maflner of most European countries, the metaphysical strain began more hesitantly and blossomed latero Sorne of its inspiration carne from the Gedankenlyrik, but as in Europe, the true origins of the strain lie in devotional practices. Although Orthodox scholars are careful to point out that religious meditation by the specifically prescribed methods that gave rise to English metaphysical poetry has never been a part of Eastern Christian spirituality, they acknowledge a certain parallel in the function of Orthodox prayer of the heart. 20 In this method, every aspect of the self participates and contributes to the essence of the prayer:

When aman begins to pray, at iLr~l\1eErays with the lips, and has to make a conscious intellectual effort in" oraer tctréaliú the meaning of what he says. But if he perseveres, praying continually with recollection, his intellect and his heart become united: he "finds the place of the heart," his spirit acquires the power of "dwelling in the heart," and so his prayer becomes "prayer of the heart." It becomes something not merely said by the lips, not merely thought by the intellect, but offered spontaneously by the whole being of man-lips, intellect, emotions, will, and body. The prayer fills the entire consciousness, and no longer has to be forced out, but says itself. 21

Prayer of the heart, which often takes the form of repetition of the short Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner," lacks the explicitly ordered dramatic structure of Western religious meditation; yet it calls upon the faculties of memory, understanding, and will to achieve the transition from a conscious intellectual effort to a deeply felt experience of prayer by the whole being. 22

~'~ l. '.. "

'i

8 THE CONTEXT

This similarity ha~)ed to a certain confluence of Eastern and Western Christian endeavor. For example, the function of the Jesus Prayer is empllasízed in one of the most important books in the Orthodox canon, the Philokalia, an anthology of spiritual writings from the fourth through fifteenth centuries published by Nicodemus the Hagiorite in Venice in 1782. Not only did Nicodemus make use of Roman Catholic works of devotion in his own writings, but also he published editions of works by two of the major proponents of Western religious meditation, Lorenzo Scupoli and Ignatius Loyola. 23 Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724- 1783), Bishop of Voronezh, though unquestionably loyal in both spirit and fact to Orthodoxy, also allowed himself certain borrowings from the West. In his writings, he drew upon German and Anglican books of devotion, and his detailed written meditations upon the physical sufferings of Jesus were more typical of Roman Catholicism than of the Eastern Church. 24

The first well-known Russian poet with significant metaphysicalleanings was Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765). He was known mainly as a theoreticiañ'"üI'RüSs"i'añ language and versification, as a scientist, and to a somewhat lesser extent as a poet. The majority of his poetic works fell into the various categories of court poetry: panegyrics and odes for coronations, weddings, military victories, and the like. It was, however, Lomonosov's morning and evening meditations on the glory of God (Utrenee razmyshlenie o Bozhiem velichestve, 1743, and Vechernee razmyshlellie o Bozhiem velichestve pri sluchae velikogo severnogo siianiia, 1743) and his paraphrase from the Book of Job (Oda, vybrannaia iz lova, glavy 38,39,4° i 41, 1743-51) that began the line of metaphysical poetry in Russia. In all these poems, meditation on the

(~~~o~,E~oof _~~t~~c!§,~t.2••~~\i~~.R~ ..mtfJ$ctual and emotional understanding of the greatness of the Creator.

Furthermore, it was through Lomonosov that the Russian metaphysical tradition first felt the influence of the German Gedankenlyrik, which was to nourish the Russian school all the way through the nineteenth century. From 1736 until 1741 Lomonosov studied philosophy, physics, and chemistry at Marburg, and mining and metallurgy at Freiburg. But more important for the development of Russian literature, he used the prosody introduced by Opitz and found in the Gedankenlyrik of Opitz

~ THE CONTEXT 9

and Gryphius as a model for his reform of the Russian metrical 25system.

After Lomonosov, the Russian metaphysical strain parallels the work of the English Graveyard Poets in the contemplative approach to death expressed in such poems as Derzhavin's "Ode on the Death of Prince Meshcherskii" (Na smert' kniazia Meshcherskogo, 1779) and "The River of Times" (Reka vremen, 1816), Karamzin's "Autumn" (Osen', 1789) and "The Graveyard" (Kladbishche, 1792), and Zhukovskii's "Ode on the Death of Her Majesty the Queen of Württemberg" (Na konchinu ee velichestva korolevy Virtembergskoi, 1819).26 These poets all had sorne acquaintance with German language and culture. And, like their predecessor Lomonosov, they were aH known less for their contributions to the metaphysical line of poetry than for their work in other areas. The Russian literary public knew Derzhavin for his sometimes satirical court poetry, Karamzin for his prose fiction and History of the Russian State, and Zhukovskii for his ballads and translations from German and English, including a translation of one of the most important works of the

I~Graveyard Poet Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a Country j: 0Church-yard." o·_.oo.o~"""o.._.•_·_·,o o_o .... "Oo' o",." ." ..".N.' "",.,..""

All the preceding figures were eventually overshadowed in this area of endeavor by Tiutchev and Boratynskii. One can hardly claim, of course, that Tiutchev and Boratynskii wrote only metaphysical poetry, or even that such poetry predominates in their work from a quantitative point of view. Tiutchev wrote a number of third-rate political and occasional poems, as well as many fine love and nature lyrics that cannot be considered metaphysical in outlook. Boratynskii, likewise, used a good deal of his creative energy on occasional verse such as epigrams and anacreontic commemorations of birthdays. His elegies took i,

on the characteristics of metaphysical poetry only when he carne under the influence of the R~~~}a~follower~.<?o!2Ch~lliDg~Dt~o~ mid-1820'S. But in spite of all the aboye conditions, it can justifiably be maintained that metaphysical poetry comprises one of the most important parts of each poet's oeuvre, and that the significance of each in Russian literature rests largely on his role as a metaphysical poet.

After Tiutchev and Boratynskii, the tradition passed to a few

10 THE CONTEXT

of the early Russian Symbolists. Specifically, it was carried on by Vladimir Solov'ev, the philosopher, poet, and "godfather" of

(RusSian Symbohsm, who began the rescue of Tiutchev from his \.previous obscurity.27 Among the Symbolists themselves, Briusov

and Gippius in particular valued Tiutchev's poetry and did much to bring it to the attention of the educated reading publie. 28 Although Russian metaphysical poetry has never recaptured the concentrated form it possessed in the nineteenth century, the same thread can still be seen running through the works of a few tweñl:ié"th-century poets like Nikolai Zabolotskii and Iosif Brodskii. 1.-'",,"',

• f\AC;

Tiutchev and Boratynskii 29

r,..\ Fedor Ivanovich Tiutchev (1803-1873) was in Germany, not 11Russia, during the years that formed his poeITé-world view. 30

¡ These were the same years when controversy over the decay of the "school of harmonious precision" and the meaning of Russian romanticism dominated Russian literary concerns. After graduating from Moscow University in 1822, Tiutchev went off to Munich, where he remained, for the most part, unti11844. He heId a position as a minor diplomatic functionary, worked little, and lived as a mondain known more for his witty conversation than for his poetry. He had little contact with Russian literary life, generally refused to play the role of a poet in public, and exhibited a careless, almost disdainful attitude toward his own verse. He wrote the following to his friend and editor 1. S. Gagarin in 1836:

As far as my versified scribblings are concerned, do whatever you want with them without any limitations or conditions attached, because they're al! yours.... What 1sent you constitutes only the tiniest part of a whole heap of them accumulated over a period of time but lost by the will of fate, or more accurately, sorne kind of predestination. After my return from Greece, 1 settled down to sort my papers at twilight and somehow destroyed the majar part of rny poetic exercises in the process, noticing it only much later. At first 1was slightly vexed about it, but then consoled myself by thinking about the fire in the library at Alexandria. 31

In spite of Tiutchev's seeming indifference to his own work and the loss of these "poetic exercises," Gagarin did persuade

THE CONTEXT 11

him to submit sorne poems to Pushkin's journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary). But the "Poems Sent from Germany," as they were called, went virtually unnoticed and the identity of the poet who signed himself "F. T." remained a matter of little concern to Russian readers. Russian literature had found its new directions in the romantic hero created by Lermontov, the fantasies of Gogol and the early Dostoevsky, and the ever widening '¡

stream of realistic prose fiction. Thus Tiutchev remained a more .. or less obscure figure until he was discovered by the Symbolists

i just before the turn of the century. After Tiutchev returned to Russia in 1844, he continued his

habitually active sociallife and continued to write poetry almost as if by accident. 32 As he got older, his political views became increasingly conservative and nationalistic. Political verse eventually took on significant proportions in his work, but never completely replaced the lyricallove poetry, nature poetry, and metaphysical poetry for which he is best known.

Boratynskii, in opposite fashion, began his career quite consciously as a poet. Evgenii Abramovich Boratynskii (1800-1844) was counted as a member of the Pushkin Pleiad, a group of young poets linked to Pushkin by friendship and certain similarities in literary outlook. 33 In 1820 Boratynskii joined the army in the hope of acquiring the social rank he had been denied owing to an unfortunate incident during his boyhood. At the age of sixteen he had been expelled from the Corps of Pages (Pazheskii Korpus), a boarding school for boys of noble birth, for stealing money from one of the school offices. In addition to depriving Boratynskii of social status, the expulsion is said to have had a profound effect on his sensitive psychological nature. The young poet served his tour of military duty in Finland and adopted the pose of an exile, even though he made frequent trips to Petersburg and continued to see his old friends regularly. During these years he enjoyed a period of relative fame. He was accorded the respect due any member of the Pushkin Pleiad, or perhaps even more than most, for his pose as "the Finnish exile" (finliandskii izgnannik) served equally well for the persona óf classical elegies, of which he was a master, and for the new Byronic hero, whiCh he tested as it was ushered in with the mainstream of Russian romanticismo

12 THE CONTEXT

Boratynskii left the army in 1824 and in January 1826 moved to Moscow, where he became friends with Ivan Kireevskii and a number of other literary figures who sought to spread the ideas of German romanticism, especially the principIes of Schelling's philosophy, in Russia. Together Boratynskii and Kireevskii took a lively part in the literary debates of the times. This friendship cooled, however, in the mid-1830's, when Boratynskii moved to his country estate and gave up participation in day-to-day literary affairs. He continued to consider himself a poet, though a poet total1y disillusioned and alienated from contemporary society, until his death in Naples in 1844.

It was during this later period of Boratynskii's transformation into a ful1y developed metaphysical poet that his popularity began to wane. The last col1ection of verse published during his lifetime, Sumerki (Twilight, 1842), was considered a failure by contemporaries. 34 While the critics were seeking a new kind of

! philosophicallyric, Boratynskii was writing c1assical elegies and ¡tryinK.()ut :?~~,~ti~~~ll:).,pf a J3yroDi-s~~in. ~y the time t~e ~r~tics 1fo"uñCrI:e'fmontov"Ys portrayal of the Byromc hero to theu hkmg,

Boratynskii had abandoned that alternative and turned to poetry of a more intel1ectual nature. With his death in 1844, Boratynskii, like Tiutchev, was consigned to relative oblivion until he regained a certain amount of popularity in the last decade of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.

Although Tiutchev and Boratynskii established the place of metaphysical poetry in Russian literature together, they were far from being a monolithic poetic force. Owing primarily, it would seem, to the difference in character of their literary backgrounds, they did not have the same relation to the Russian romanticism of which their metaphysical poetry was a part. In the terms suggested by one of their contemporaries, who remarked, "One may justIy divide al1 educated Russians into two camps: the French and the German according to one or the other type of education," Tiutchev belonge¡;ttº,theGerman camp, and Boratynskii to the French.35-- .. ,.

Tiutchev's early education was founded on the writings of Latin and Greek antiquity as well as areas of French and Italian literature. 36 He also learned German, seems to have felt himself quite at home in Germany, and even took a German woman for

THE CONTEXT 13

his partner each of the two times he married. In Munich he ab- , sorbed certain aspects of German romanticism and created his ,j own unique style synthesizing the weightiness of c1assical my- j"

thology and the loftiness of romantic idealismo Boratynskii was nurtured on a different sort of "c1assical" tra

dition-the c1assicism of eighteenth-century France. 37 As one of his friends put it in a letter to Pushkin: "Boratynskii has just become acquainted with the romantics-but he imbibed the rules of c1assicism with his mother's milk." 38 Thus, although Boratynskii's works certainly constitute a part of the temporal phenomenon of Russian romanticism and t!1f,.ScheUmgiªIl anci6yronic themes of hi~oefrytan'wé'nwithi~the bounds of narrower definitions of romanticism, his constant reliance on intel1ect and his preoccupation with finding a precise means of expression set him apart from the standard notion of the romantic poet.

Another difference between Tiutchev and Boratynskii lies in the manner of their development as writers. Tiutchev may be cal1ed a "positional writer" (pisatel' pozitsii); Boratynskii must be considered a "developmental writer" (pisatel' razvitiia). As explained by D. E. Maksimov, the creator of the terms:

The position of a writer is his credo, his chosen moral, philosophical, and aesthetic direction.... A positional writer, like any other writer• and like any other human being, goes through sorne sort of evolution. But ... this evolution does not appear as a demonstrative characteristic of the writer, and does not constitute a spedal theme in his work. The main thing is not development or change, but the persona, the angle of refraction of reality, the poetic universe or system of values. 39

.~'~ ' " !f>.

Tiutchev grapple'd with" one particular set of problems and even used roughly the same vocabulary throughout his creative life. Where changes occurred, they were not so much those of development as those due to the philosophical and ideological tossing and turning that was itself a constant feature of his outlook. Tiutchev was also a "positional writer" in respect to single poems: each poem reflects a single intel1ectual and emotional position. Although his universe is always changing, his poems I ., are like flashes of lightning that let the reader perceive this uni- ,j; verse only in separate split seconds of stasis.

Both Boratynskii's poems and his career make him a "developmental writer." Just as his thought develops and unwinds

THE CONTEXT14

within each single poem, his world view changes and develops ayer the whole span of his career. His career can indeed be viewed as a series of two or three developmental stages. For our purposes, two stages will suffice: an early period, from about 1820 to 1826, marked by works in the spirit of the classical elegiac school and a few traces of Byronic romanticism; and a second period, from 1827 until his death in 1844, marked by a greater number of metaphysical poems and fewer and fewer poems of the earlier sort.

Sorne scholars have broken Boratynskii's development into three periods (1819-27, 1827-35, 1835-44), in an attempt to single out the years between the publication of Boratynskii's books of poetry in 1827 and 1835 as the time when the poet came under the influence of Schelling's philosophy.40 Such a distinction is, in this case, unnecessary and even slightly misleading, since a significant number of poems written after 1835 show a marked Schellingian impulse. But no matter which form of periodization one accepts, Boratynskii's poems must be viewed within the context of a specific evolutionary process, whereas Tiutchev's can be taken as manifestations of a moral and philosophical position that remained more or less constant throughout his life.

Another point of comparison is that both poets were concerned with the problem of man's separation from nature as posed in the philosophy of Schelling. Tiutchev, however, had the ability to sense the existence of a world undistorted by ratiocination. His acceptance of the mixture of natural and supernatural elements in ancient mythology allowed him to en

" vision a re-merging of the human spirit with the rest of the uni{' verse. This world sometimes, but not always, offered blissful an

nihilation of his consciousness of a self apart from nature. In his happier moods, Tiutchev fits into Schiller's category of a "nalve" poet, one who unconsciously acts as part of the great unity of nature, never stopping to reflect on his own specifically human condition. 41 In his darker moods, he shares Boratynskii's pessimistic prognosis of man's fate in the universe. Boratynskii wanted to enjoy the hope of an eventual return to unity, but as a child of the Enlightenment he could not bring himself to truly believe the vague promises of German idealism or admit the

THE CONTEXT 15

workings of supernatural forces-both of which frequently served to bolster Tiutchev's metaphysical outlook. Many of Boratynskii's metaphysical poems, and a few of Tiutchev's, fit Schiller's classification of "sentimental" poetry, poetry based on self-conscious reflection on the separabon of man and nature. And because of the major role played by reflection, much of Boratynskii's poetry derives its structure directly from the intellectual process of the writing of the poem.

Yet, though Tiutchev and Boratynskii differed in educational background, poetic method, and poetic vision, both gave voice to the relatively rare metaphysical strain in Russian poetry, and gave \1 i voice in ways that suggest some connection with Schelling's phi- /' losophy. In fact, the relationship of each poet's thought to Schel- ' ling's philosophy serves as one of the most important measures of both the similarities and the differences between the two poets.

Sehelling's Philosophy

If the romantic movement had one main philosopher, that philosopher was F~chgI1i.J1g.In his philosophical system Schelling combined his own original ideas with others common to German romanticism in general, thus simultaneously shaping and articulating the major tenets of romantic thought. His philosophy influenced the intellectual atmosphere well beyond the bounds of his native Germany. It reached as far west as England, where Coleridge, after visiting Germany in 1798 and 1799, came perilously close to plagiarism by incorporating Schelling's ideas directly into his own works, sometimes without appropriate references. 42 Wordsworth's poetry certainly embraces a world view much like Schelling's, though in this case the similarity of ideas can be viewed from various angles. 43 And as far east as Russia, the Lovers of Wisdom adopted Schelling's philosophy almost as a bible, while Tiutchev and Boratynskii integrated certain aspects of the philosophy into their own poetic perceptions of the world.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling was born the son of a Lutheran pastor in Württemberg in 1775. He attended theological seminary in Tübingen, and in 1798 he became a professor in the University at Jena. There he was involved in the circle of Jena

THE CONTEXT16

Romantics that included Novalís, Tieck, Wackenroder, and August and Friedrich Schlegel. Schelling married August Schlegel's former wife, Karolíne, and in 1806, after short periods of residence in Würzburg and Berlín, he moved with her to Munich, where he took a sinecure position with the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. After Karoline's death in 1809, he ceased publishing altogether, though he continued to write and lecture, eventually becoming a professor at the University of Munich. In 1841 Schelling moved to Berlin, and soon thereafter fell into a professional decline that lasted until his death in 1854.

Schelling's interests ranged over a wide spectrum. Here, for the sake of intellectual clarity as well as for reasons of space, we are concerned only with those of his ideas that found particular resonance in the culture of Russian romanticismo His ventures into the borderlands between philosophy and science are best left to the attention of others with greater knowledge in the appropriate areas. 44 Furthermore, Schelling's philosophy underwent such dynamic and constant evolution that neither a definitive statement of his thought nor a detailed periodization of his philosophical development is possible. One can, however, delineate two major periods characterized by fundamentally different points of departure. 45 The first period, the period of the Philosophy of Identity (Identitatsphilosophie), runs roughly from the beginning of Schelling's career until his move to Munich in 1806. The second period, the period of the Philosop~~Revel~~, (Philosophie der Offenbarung), includes a certain tulle of transition and then continues until Schelling's death in 1854.

The period of the Philosophy of Identity includes such works as Ideas Toward a Philosophy of Nature (Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, 1797), System of Transcendental Idealism (System des transzendentalen Idealismus, 1800), and The Philosophy of Art (Die Philosophie der Kunst, 1802). The principIe of identity on which all these works are based stems from the concept of the Absolute, which is the source of the whole universe, both its material as

/,\! pect and its spiritual aspecto Nothing exists in a purely real (ma,,11 terial) or purely ideal (spiritual) state; everything partakes of

both aspects. Thus everything is, at base, qualítatively the same. When things seem to differ, it is only because we fail to see the whole picture. Differentiation is only temporary; everything be-

THE CONTEXT 17

gins and ends in a state of undifferentiation (Indifferenz) in the

Absolute. 46

Schelling further explains the way the form of his own system of philosophy corresponds to the identity of all things. His transcendental philosophy subordinates the real to the ideal; the idea of the thing comes filtering down to the materiallevel. His philosophy of nature, on the other hand, explains the ideal by means of the real, and the metaphysical point of view, completing a full circle, returns to its starting point. The transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of nature, with their movements in opposing directions, come together again to comprise one philosophy, the Philosophy of Identity, which describes the closely integrated relationship of all phenomena of the universe. 47

During the period of the Philosophy of Identity, Schelling stressed the workings of nature as a unified whole to the point that neither man nor God played a truly significant role in the universe he depicted. In his deliberate lack of emphasis on the role of man, Schelling was refuting Fichte's assertion that the ego serves as the beginning for all comprehension of the universe, hence for the universe itself. 48 Schelling maintains that nature exists independent of any other being's perception of it: "Nature would exist ... even if there were nothing at all to perceive its ~ i' existence." 49 '.,

God exists only to the extent that He is present in nature. We see and know of the existence of Cod "neither outside of nor aboye nature, but in nature" as a real, perceptible divine presence, "the ultimate synthesis of the real and the ideal." 50 Cod plays a minor role since the highest knowledge is not knowl,edge of God per se, but knowledge of the godliness of the whole c.~~.51 According to this sort of pantheism, divine knowl

... :1 ,~~ be achieved by anyone in touch with nature. God is )) .t\')tWlU,QilJi4iately acc~d ol:?.vious in na.tw:e. '\~ .:~allpws himself to become separate from nature through

ti' ~-q>nscious reflection, he loses the sense of divine harmony ,inherent in natural existence. 52 But since Schelling was a philosopher and, during this period, also an optimist, he provided a specific means by which man could regain his lost unity with nature-philosophy. Not only does philosophy reunite man with nature, but it does so in a state of freedom, whereas before the

17 16 THE CONTEXT

Romantics that included Novalis, Tieck, Wackenroder, and August and Friedrich Schlegel. Schelling married August Schlegel's former wife, Karoline, and in 1806, after short periods of residence in Würzburg and Berlin, he moved with her to Munich, where he took a sinecure position with the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. After Karoline's death in 1809, he ceased publishing altogether, though he continued to write and lecture, eventually becoming a professor at the University of Munich. In 1841 Schelling moved to Berlin, and soon thereafter fell into a professional decline that lasted until his death in 1854.

Schelling's interests ranged over a wide spectrum. Here, for the sake of intellectual clarity as well as for reasons of space, we are concerned only with those of his ideas that found particular resonance in the culture of Russian romanticismo His ventures into the borderlands between philosophy and science are best left to the attention of others with greater knowledge in the appropriate areas. 44 Furthermore, Schelling's philosophy underwent such dynamic and constant evolution that neither a definitive statement of his thought nor a detailed periodization of his philosophical development is possible. One can, however, delineate two major periods characterized by fundamentally different points of departure.4s The first period, the period of the Philosophy of Identity (Identitatsphilosophie), runs roughly from the beginning of Schelling's career until his move to Munich in 1806. The second period, the period of the Philosop~~Revelation (Philosophie der Offenbarung), includes a certain tuñe of ~:¡¡,a¡~",_..

transition and then continues until Schelling's death in 1854. The period of the Philosophy of Identity includes such works

as Ideas Toward a Philosophy of Nature (Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, 1797), System of Transcendental Idealism (System des transzendentalen Idealismus, 1800), and The Philosophy of Art (Die Philosophie der Kunst, 1802). The principIe of identity on which all these works are based stems from the concept of the Absolute, which is the source of the whole universe, both its material as

,""; pect and its spiritual aspecto Nothing exists in a purely real (ma;1¡ terial) or purely ideal (spiritual) state; everything partakes of

both aspects. Thus everything is, at base, qualitatively the same. When things seem to differ, it is only because we fail to see the whole picture. Differentiation is only temporary; everything be-

THE CONTEXT

gins and ends in a state of undifferentiation (Indifferenz) in the j'

Absolute. 46

Schelling further explains the way the form of his own system of philosophy corresponds to the identity of all things. His transcendental philosophy subordinates the real to the ideal; the idea of the thing comes filtering down to the materiallevel. His philosophy of nature, on the other hand, explains the ideal by means of the real, and the metaphysical point of view, completing a full circle, returns to its starting point. The transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of nature, with their movements in opposing directions, come together again to comprise one philosophy, the Philosophy of Identity, which describes the closely integrated relationship of all phenomena of the universe. 47

During the period of the Philosophy of Identity, Schelling stressed the workings of nature as a unified whole to the point that neither man nor Cod played a truly significant role in the universe he depicted. In his deliberate lack of emphasis on the role of man, Schelling was refuting Fichte's assertion that the ego serves as the beginning for all comprehension of the universe, hence for the universe itself.4s Schelling maintains that nature • exists independent of any other being's perception of it: "Nature would exist ... even if there were nothing at all to perceive its i i

existence." 49

Cod exists only to the extent that He is present in nature. We see and know of the existence of Cod "neither outside of nor aboye nature, but in nature" as a real, perceptible divine presence, "the ultimate synthesis of the real and the ideal." 50 Cod plays a minor role since the highest knowledge is not knowledge of Cod per se, but knowledge of the godliness of the whole universe. 51 According to this sort of pantheism, divine knowledge can be achieved by anyone in touch with nature. Cod is )) immediately acc~"s}~iJJl~.,!1)_C!9.!?y.i.~tI..~.LI!_!l-ªtlJ,[e.

If man allows himself to become separate from nature through self-conscious reflection, he loses the sense of divine harmony inherent in natural existence. 52 But since Schelling was a philosopher and, during this period, also an optimist, he provided a specific means by which man could regain his lost unity with nature-philosophy. Not only does philosophy reunite man with nature, but it does so in a state of freedom, whereas before the

18 THE CONTEXT

separation, man's unity with nature wa~:'-J.i:le result of pure necessity.53 ,..._-)

Thus man is offered not one but t~-&tates of yh.ity with nature, which together comprise thq"great circl~or more accurately, the great spiral-of existen'ce:-Theoriginal state of the universe is a state of unity by necessity. In this state man exists without the problem of self-conscious intellectual reflection, but also without the good of higher philosophical consciousness. Man may remain in this state forever if he is not corrupted by external influences. 54 If man becomes overly reflective and therefore separate fram nature, he finds two possibilities open to him: he can continue to live this "false life" of separation, or he can

. turn his newly developed consciousness back toward nature/'and in doing so regain the state of unity on a higher level that is

based on freedom rather than necessity. Art and the artist-specifically the artist as genius-play a

special rale in the philosophy of identity. A true work of art embodies the very concept of identity, in Schelling's sense of the termo A work of art is based on a representation of the real and finite world, but at the same time it also expresses the essence of the ideal and infinite precisely because it is a representation, a set of symb~ls, and not the real thing. 55 As philosophy begins with the"ld.eal and achieves absolute truth, art begins with the real and achieves absolute beauty, for the realization of the in

. finite in the finite is beauty.56 In this sense, art reflects the resolution of the contradiction

between the real and the ideal in a manner that can be achieved by no other activity. It reflects "the absolute identity that disappears as soon as man becomes conscious of his ego, the identity fram which the philosopher is separated by his first act of consciousness." 57 Unlike the philosopher, the artist goes beyond the realm of conscious intentions when he creates a work of arto Purely on the basis of instinct, he depicts the infinite in addition to his chosen finite subject. Thus he accomplishes something that is beyond the capabilities of the finite intellect. This is the

¡/ work of genius. SR Since a work of art rests on the same reconciliation of the real and the ideal as the universe at large, the artist becomes a creator analogous to God in his act of creation. 59 Like God the Creator, the artist-creator is governed not by the laws

. ~- ~ ,. l' l

r~ '~}'

./

THE CONTEXT 19

that govern the minds and actions of ordinary human beings. but by the laws of his own "divine" genius... - ' \l'

Schelling's move fram Jena to Munich in 1806 was followed by a personal and philosophical crisis typical of many German ramantics. Undoubtedly influenced by the religious tenor of intellectuallife in Catholic Bavaria as well as by the death of his wife and the spiritual evolution of his contemporaries, Schelling began to dwell on the darker side of existence. He became fervently religious and took increasing interest in the work of the sixteenth-century mystic Jacob B6hme. nO Gradually, the pantheist was transformed into an ardent theist, and his Philosophy of Transcendental Idealism was turned into a credo of mystic Christian revelation. In the last work Schelling published during his lifetime, Illquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom (Un tersuchungen über das Wesell der mellschlichen Freiheit, 1809), the entity he had earlier called "the Absolute" was more and more often identified specifically as God. 61 The prablem of man's separation from nature and fram "the Absolute" took on the characteristics of man's fall from grace and became a matter of sin rather than a purely metaphysical problem.

In the Philosophy of Revelation, worked out in lectures and writings that remained unpublished until after his death, Schel- \ ling played down his earlier assertions of the accessibility of God !: ,¡¡...I in nature and the godlike creative power of genius. Instead, he stressed the importance of total submission to God's "1.il.LAnd;' ) in a turn that paralleled general ramantic thought, Schelling posited that, just as the life of each individual revealed something of the will of God, so the lives of whole nations revealed a divine national destiny. Thus it was no longer philosophy that would save mankind (though Schelling, of course, never actually refuted his earlier position on the use of philosophy); rather, it was faith in God and acquiescence to His ways as revealed in history that would bring salvation and true freedom to both the individual and the world. 62

Schelling's Philosophy in Russia

Schelling's philosophy penetrated Russia with considerable force. The journals of the 1820'S and 1830's, and in particular the

20 THE CONTEXT

philosophical poetry of the Lovers of Wisdom, resounded with statements of or about Schelling's philosophical system. Yet the relation between this system and the metaphysical stances of Tiutchev and Boratynskii remains an open question.

In the absence of definitive statements on the poets' exposure to Schelling's ideas and in the face of poetic passages that might or might not be construed as Schellingian, scholars frequently contradict one another as they affirm or deny infiuence. Wsewolod Setschkareff, the author of the only book devoted primarily to the question of Schelling's infiuence in Russia, finds a Schellingian subtext in many of Tiutchev's most important poems. 63

On the other hand, Tiutchev's first biographer, 1. S. Aksakov, maintains that Tiutchev met Schelling and repudiated his philosophy to his face; and Richard Gregg, who has written the most comprehensive study of Tiutchev in English, follows Aksakov's lead with the bold assertion, "... it is a matter of historical fact that Tiutchev never believed in Schelling's philosophy at all." 64 Yet the Soviet scholar K. V. Pigarev, whose book on Tiutchev's life and works was written at about the same time as Gregg's, conc1udes that Schelling "had an acknowledged effect on Tiutchev's spiritual consciousness," and laments the fact that "we do not have any details at our disposal as to Tiutchev's relations with the philosopher." 65

As for Boratynskii, Geir Kjetsaa, the author of the standard book on the poet's life and works, affirms Schelling's infiuence; Ginzburg and Frizman deny it in their studies; and the author of the only book on Boratynskii in English, Benjamin Dees, avoids taking a definitive position on the matter. 66 These voices, moreover, are only the leads in a general chorus of debate; there are many more behind them-and there is c1early room for further discussion. 67 Because the philosophical and poetic issues are so various and complex, however, the degree and manner in which Schelling's philosophy resurfaces in the poetry of the two men will have to await analysis in later chapters. The first problem to be tackled is the identification of the means by which each poet became acquainted with the philosophy.

Boratynskii's exposure to Schelling's philosophy was typical of that of many educated Russians of his generation. Having been raised on French c1assicist literature, the poet maintained strong

THE CONTEXT 21

ties with the French-oriented literary circ1es of Sto Petersburg well into ad'..llthood. He did not visit Germany, nor did he know German well enough to read Schelling's works in the original. 60

But like many of his contemporaries, he acquired knowledge of Schelling's philosophy secondhand as it gained popularity in the 1820'S. A brief survey of the general reception of Schelling's thought in Russia will help illuminate the phenomenon of which Boratynskii was a parto

Several aspects of Russian culture made Russian intellectual circ1es particularly responsive to the philosophy: namely, the powerful tradition of Russian Orthodoxy, which accorded surprisingly well with certain aspects of Schelling's thought, and; the spiritual search and growing sense of nationhood that inten-; . sified after the War of 1812 and took on almost grotesque propartions in reaction to the Decembrist Revolt. The powerful but vaguely defined spirituality of Schelling's thought had a strong attraction for those who were disaffected by the dogmatism of the official Church yet aware of spiritual needs established and nourished by eight hundred years of Orthodox culture in Russia. The philosophy was made both appealing and comprehensible, for example, by the fact that Schelling's description of the spiral path of human existence from an original state of uncon, . scious union with nature, through a stage of conscious separation, on into a higher, freely chosen union with nature, parallels the Orthodox understanding of the path to salvation. According to Orthodox thought, every human being is born a potentially perfect creature naturally endowed with the image of God. Man may separate himself from God, thus existing in a state contrary to nature through free will. But by means of this same free will and the grace of God, man can change his course, seek out the image of God within himself, and realize the potential far perfection with which he was born. Like Schelling's return to a union with nature, this final state is at once related to the original condition before separation, yet also somehow higher than the original condition, for it is freely chosen. 69

The tendency toward pantheism inherent in Schelling's organic concept of nature also has a parallel in Orthodoxy. Even though Orthodox theologians deny pantheism per se with the premise that God's essence is unknowable and therefare cannot be

23 THE CONTEXT22

known in nature, Orthodox thought nonetheless holds that Cod's energies permeate every aspect of creation; man therefore experiences Cod through nature, in addition to reaching out to Him through prayer. 70

One could also, though with sorne hesitation, relate Schelling's concept of the artist as genius to Orthodox belief in the existence oí the image of Cod within every human being. The artist as

, /r~tor and genius would simply amplify the quantum of divine • j energy from Cod the Creator with which he was endowed at

birth. Obviously, such an assumption of divine power by human beings has no place in official Orthodox doctrine. Nonetheless, this kind of para11elism with Orthodox thought made Sche11ing's influence easily accessible to the Russian mind, at a time when the spiritual upheavals of the modern age were prompting inte11ectuals to search for the meaning of life beyond the confines of traditional Orthodox theology. Schelling's inquiries in the natural sciences and his use of scientific analogyfor instance, tracing the property of polarity from magnetism through electrical and chemical phenomena and on into organic nature-provided an appealing aura of objectivity even as the philosophy met the needs of the irrational side of the human soul. 71

Early manifestations of the Russian national spiritual quest can be seen in the mysticism of Alexander 1and the continuing popularity of Freemasonry among certain segments of the educated populace. Based in significant measure on the same writings by Jacob Bóhme that inspired Schelling's later philosophy, Freemasonry paved the way for acceptance of certain specific premises in Sche11ing's thought and accustomed the public to the notion of a partially secular system of moral and philosophical values. After the Decembrist Revolt-which implicitly questioned the identity of Russia as it explicitly questioned the autocratic authority of the Russian Orthodox tsar-the forms of the quest were altered, but the same basic questions continued to trouble the Russian soul, and Schelling's philosophy, for a time at least, supplied the answers.

The greatest contribution of Schelling's philosophy was the portrayal of an integrated universe, the creation of a sense of metaphysical wholeness that had been seriously croded among

THE CONTEXT

the educated elasses. Sche11ing's assertion of the existence of an indissoluble bond between the spiritual and material realms and U) the validity of each offered comfort to those who had been forced by political circumstances to retreat to the world of intelledo In more limited areas of concern, Schelling's philosophy of nature appealed to poets through its discussions of the sublime beauty of nature, and to scientists through its analytical investigations of natural phenomena. The notion of the artist as genius appealed not only to those who were interested in the fine arts but also to others who used it to extract a premise for calling any visionary leader "genius." And finally, the Philosophy of Revelation-especially as it was reflected in Schelling's comment to Petr Kireevskii: "Russia is fated to have a great destiny; never until now has she realized the fullness of her strength"-bolstered the sense of a particular Russian mission fostered by various figures in Russian polítical cireles. 72 Indeed, the fact that this aspect of Schelling's work remained unpublishcd, and therefore existed mainly in the form of rumor, made it a11 the more open to the formative influence of the Russian intellectual elimate.

The political and literary potential of the philosophy was not immediately recognized in Russia, however. The first propagators of the philosophy were professors, and their concerns were academic. They regarded Schelling's work in terms of the history of philosophy, aesthetic theory, and the development of the sciences. The first public notice of the "new" philosophy carne in 1805, when the Moscow Acade111ic Gazette (Moskovskie uchenye vedo111osti) published a review of Schelling's Lectures on the Methodolagy af Acade111ic Study (Vorlesungen über die Methade des akade111ischen Studiu111S, 1803) by Johann Buhle, a Cerman who had been invited to Moscow in 1804 to publish the gazette. 73 Buhle was soon followed by other Cerman professors who joined the faculties of the universities of Moscow, Petersburg, Kazan, and Kharkov over the next decade. These men usually propounded a mixture of the idealist teachings of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and sornetimes Coethe and other lesscr members of the "Cerman school." Cradually the studies narrowed to concentrate mainly on Schelling, and in 1813 a newly published translation of Friedrich Ansilion's Aesthetic Discourses offered the Russian public more information on Schelling's theory of aesthetics. 74

I

~,

24 THE CONTEXT

Eventually the Russians themselves took over as the propagators of the German philosophy. Scholars generally maintain that of the four Russian professors who were instrumental in the ,1

early stages of this endeavor-D. M. Vellanskii, A. 1. Galich, 1. 1. Davydov, and M. G. Pavlov-only the first was a "true Schellingian," that is, believed in the philosophy and remained true to its principIes. The others showed a definite interest in Schelling and were willing to present his ideas to their students, but were limited in their sense of a personal commitment to the cause. Vellanskii, on the other hand, had attended Schelling's lectures in Jena and Würzburg between 1802 and 1805, and returned to Russia ready for a major campaign: "A considerable amount of time has passed," he wrote, "since Schelling's flaming pen began to scorch the idle villages of decrepit scholarship [in Europe], but in my homeland one sees not even a spark of this healing fire." 75 Vellanskii presented Schelling's ideas in courses he gave under the auspices of the Botany Department of the St. Petersburg Medical Academy and in a series of publications written in abstruse language that only further compounded the difficulty of the philosophy. Perhaps because of this, his efforts evoked little response in Russian society.

Galich, like Vellanskii, studied philosophy in Germany during the first decade of the nineteenth century and returned to academic life in St. Petersburg. 76 His contributions to the development of Schellingian thought in Russia-beginning with the publication in 1819 of a work entitled Toward a History of Philosophy (Opyt istorii ftlosofti)-drew the attention of a wider publiCo This volume contained a whole chapter on Schelling and acguainted Russian readers with his Philosophy of Identity and Philosophy of Art. 77 Six years later Galich published a study of aesthetics, Toward a Science of the Fine Arts (Opyt nauki iziashch/logo), which, like the earlier work, was heavily based on Schelling's ideas and aroused lively interest in the literary cireles of the time, ineluding the interest of the young Boratynskii. 78 This success eventually led to Galich's forced resignation from the faculty of the new University of St. Petersburg, however: the rector of the university called his works "putrid poison" and charged him with preferring "the godless Kant to Christ, and Schelling to the Holy Ghost." 79

THE CONTEXT 25

Ultimately the ineffectiveness of Vellanskii's work, the dismissal of Galich, and the dominance of elassicist culture prevented St. Petersburg from becoming the center of Schellingian thought in Russia. It was Moscow that was destined to assume this role. The philosophy first took hold in the Moscow University Boarding School for the Nobility, where an atmosphere influenced by Masonic mysticism provided fertile ground for the seeds of Schelling's thought. Davydov, who had studied with the German professor Buhle, began teaching at the boarding school in 1815. Although he has been described as "an opportunist totally lacking in talent" who taught Schelling's philosophy only because it "became fashionable," Davydov nonetheless presented Schelling in a way that had a lasting effect on many of his pupils, ineluding those who would go on to found the Schelling-oriented Society for the Love of Wisdom. 80 In 1822 Davydov took a position in the Department of Latin Literature at Moscow University, and in 1826 he was transferred to the newly reactivated Department of Philosophy. Soon thereafter, however, the authorities found his discourses in the spirit of Schelling subversive, and instituted aban on lectures in philosophy at the university that was to last for twenty years. 81

Despite the government's increasingly predictable pattern of overreaction in its struggle against "depraved" foreign influences, Russian professors managed to find ways of making philosophy relevant in unexpected fields. They were perhaps even aided by the exotic aura acguired by philosophy in the face of the governmental prohibition. Thus after Davydov's removal and the elosing of the Department of Philosophy, the fourth of the Schellingian professors, M. G. Pavlov, who had been at the university since 1820, continued to lecture on the philosophy of Schelling and his follower Oken in his courses in physics and agronomy. One of Pavlov's most famous students, Alexander Herzen, was later to reminisce: "It was difficult to learn physics from his lectures, and impossible to learn anything about agriculture, but his courses were extremely useful. Pavlov would stand on the threshold of the department ... stopping students with the challenge: 'You want to know nature-but what is nature? What is knowing?'"82 Though Pavlov in his writings made no original contribution to the Schellingian line of philosophy,

26 THE CONTEXT

he was known for the striking c1arity of his disquisitions and, like Davydov, he had a significant infiuence on the minds of the younger generation through his lectures and artic1es.

As conditions for the overt propagation of 5chelling's philosophy became worse, the task was taken over by groups outside the university, the philosophical cireles that were to dominate Russian intellectual life for much of the nineteenth century. It was within these circ1es that the philosophy was truly assimilated into Russian culture, often forming part of the larger debate on romanticism and sorne times becoming so "Russianized" that the original inspiration of the German philosopher was no longer evident. Indecd, the philosophy eventuaUy provided part of the ideological basis for two opposing groups: the Westernizers, many of whom passed through a 5chellingian stage on their way to embrace the philosophy of Hegel, and the 51avophiles, who adapted 5chelling's Philosophy of Revelation to support their own visions of Russia's historical destiny.

The first of the cireles was the Society of Young Lovers of Literaturc (Obshchestvo molodykh liubitelei literatury) headed by S. E. Raich. The group was made up of teachers and former students from the Boarding School of thc Nobility as well as several of Raich's private students, occasionaUy ineluding the young Tiutchev, and its members spent long evenings discussing their own compositions and translations as well as the philosophy of Schelling and other German idealists. 83 Out of this group devoted primarily to intellectual conversation grew another, smaller and so-caUed "secret" society devoted specifically to the study and dissemination of Schelling's philosophy, the aforementioned 50ciety for the Love of Wisdom. 5cholars disagree as to the exact composition of the society's membership, but it seems probable that V. F. Odoevskii, D. V. Venevitinov, 1. V. Kireevskii, A. 1. Koshelev, and N. M. Rozhalin made up the core of the group, while P. V. Kireevskii, A. S. Khomiakov, S. P. 5hevyrev, and M. P. Pogodin seem to have been associated with the society at various times and with varying degrees of intensity.84 One member described the group's activities as follows:

\\'Ve studied German philosophical texts more than anything else.... German philosophy, especially the creations of Schelling, engrossed us

THE CONTEXT 27

to the point that we were negligent in our other studies and devoted all our time to the Gennan philosophers. We engaged in evenings of conversation that lasted long past midnight, and we considered these conversations far more fruitful than aH the lessons we had with the professors at the university."'

In 1824 and 1825 the Lovers of Wisdom published a journal called Mnemosyne (Mnemozina). As stated retrospectively by its chief editor, V. F. Odoevskii: 'The main goal of our publication was to disseminate certain new ideas that had sparked up in Germany ... to put a limit to our weakness for French theoreticians.... Mnemosyne has, in fad, forced the Russian public to come to grips with Schelling." ", FoIlowing this lead, for a brief period other journals began to take part in the discussion of the new German philosophy, diverting attention fram the Frenchoriented literary culture that had dominated Russia since the time of Catherine the Great.

After the Decembrist Revolt in 1825, however, the atmosphere of oppression becamc so severe that the Lovers of Wisdom not only ceased publishing their journal but thought it best to disband and burn all records of their meetings as well. Yet Schelling's thought continued to infiuence Russian culture in spite of the adverse conditions, for the members of the defunct society regrauped as the staff of the Moscow Herald (Moskovskíi vestnik) from 1827 to 1830 and propagated the same basic ideas as before only in a more veiled formo Later the same men carried Schelling's philosophy with them as they established their separate careers. In accordance with thcir shared philosophical background, each played a role-sometimes a greater role, sometimes a lesser one-in the formation or expression of the Slavophile ideology, which had at least sorne of its raots in the rich mixture of Schelling's thought and Orthodox theology.

Pogodin, for example, who as a young man dreamed of approaching Schelling and saying, "1 love learning-enlighten me," eventually became a staunch supporter of Nicholas 1's nationality policy on the basis of his own "Russianized" reworking of Schelling's elÜ,losgpby @i ~velation.R7 Shevyrev and Khomiakov, who had used Schelling's thought in their efforts to create a new kind of philosophical poetry, went on to the area of expository prase, Shevyrev as a literary historian and critic and

28 THE CONTEXT

Khomiakov as a theologian and major praponent of Slavophile ideology. Odoevskii's cycle of philosophical conversations, Russian Nights (Russkie nochi, 1848), and a good portion of Venevitinov's writings in both poetry and prase offer more successful examples of absorption of the philosophy in literature, as they are saturated with Schelling's ideas, yet still convey a sense of motion and inspiration fram within the authors' own minds.

Ivan Kireevskii, who pravides the most interesting case for study, had become acquainted with Schelling's thought thraugh his stepfather, A. A. Elagin, himself the author of a translation of Schelling's Philosophical Letters. The young Kireevskii then learned more about Schelling fram Pavlov's lectures in Moscow and fram the letters of his brather Petr, who was attending Schelling's lectures in Munich. Finally, as part of an extended trip to Europe in 1830, he went to Munich himself with the goal of meeting Schelling. He achieved his goal, and returned to Russia somewhat frustrated by what he perceived as a lack of dynamism in the latest development of Schelling's thought (a lack of dynamism that may have existed more in the relations between the ardent young Russian and the aging Cerman philosopher), but still enthusiastic enough that he included a bust of Schelling among his souvenirs and soon undertook the publication of a journal that would, among other things, spread Schelling's thought in Russia. All of this eventually carne to nourish Boratynskii's interest in the philosopher as welJ.88 Although Kireevskii's increasing devotion to Russian Orthodoxy and Slavophilism gradually tended to obscure his early fascination with Schelling, the last article he wrate before his death nonetheless praised Schelling as "one of those thinkers who are born not

j\ once in a c~ntury, but once ,in a mill~n~ium."89

¡l,! i By the rnlddle of the 1830 s, Schellmg s thought had become an ¡i J lintrinsic part of the Russian cultural milieu. As Petr Chaadaev,

the man who was in many ways the precursor of the Westernizers, noted, Schelling's ideas "opened up a new world." 90 Such leading figures among the Westernizers as Stankevich, Herzen, and Belinskii passed thraugh a period of intense interest in Schelling before their conversion to Hegelianism; and at least eleven significant figures in Russian intellectual history sought and established personal acquaintance with the philosopher-

THE CONTEXT 29

Chaadaev, Pogodin, Me!'gunov, Rozhalin, Titov, Khomiakov, > A. 1. Turgenev, Tiutchev, and the Kireevskii brathers, Petr and /

Ivan. 9l

The Poets' Contact with Schelling

Boratynskii became a part of the Schelling phenomenon when he carne into contact with the Lovers of Wisdom after he left the army and took up residence in Moscow in 1826. There he was especially close to Odoevskii and Ivan Kireevskii, the most fervent disciples of Schelling in the graup.92 Accounts by contemporaries leave no doubt that philosophy pravided one of the most frequent topics of discussion at Elagin's and other salons. One of Boratynskii's acquaintances reports that philosophy was "very much in vogue," and further that Boratynskii "loved to expound the most difficult philosophical questions and amazed our young philosophers by his clarity of mind."93 Another member of the graup wrote: "Even the flu doesn't keep us fram gathering every Friday at the Sverbeevs', every Sunday at the Kireevskiis', on occasional Thursdays at the Koshelevs', and from time to time at Boratynskii's place. We all get together two or three times a week ... and we have a great time: Khomiakov argues, Kireevskii lectures, Koshelev tells stories, Boratynskii poeticizes, and Chaadaev sermonizes or just ralls his eyes." 94

The habitually melancholy Boratynskii responded to his new surraundings with interest. In a letter to Pushkin written just after his move to Moscow, he made the following observation on Calich's newly published work, Toward a 5áence of the Fine Arts:

I rnust tell you that the younger generation in Moscow has gone crazy over transcendental philosophy. 1 don't know if this is good or bad; 1 never read Kant and I have to adrnit that 1 don't really understand the latest aestheticians. Galich has put out a theory of poetics of a German sort. In it, Plato's ideas are revivified with a few additions to the systern. Not knowing Gerrnan, I was very glad to have the chance to learn sornething about Gerrnan aesthetics. llike the particular kind of poetry it has, though I think you could probably refute its basis philosophically. But what's this to you-keep creating beauty and let other people wrack their brains over the theory of it. 95

In this short statement Boratynskii pravides a strikingly accurate characterization of his relation to the philosophy. He con

30 THE CONTEXT

firms both the inability to read German that prevented him from reading Schelling in the original and the interest that prompted him to seek out translations and discussions of the philosophy such as those by Galich; he indicates his attraction to the "po

i ¡ etry" of this kind of thought, but hints at the doubt that inevitably arose in his own rationalistic mind, and at his ultimate sense of separation from the "younger generation" that accepted the philosophy wholeheartedly. Still, for a time the poetic aspect proved almost irresistible. One can sense the charm of the new way of thinking in a letter Boratynskii wrote toward the end of his first year in Moscow to a friend with whom he had served in the army in Finland. (The "Nastenka" mentioned in the letter is Nastasia Lvovna Engelgardt, to whom Boratynskii had just become engaged.)

1 was like a sick man who wants to visit a beautiful distant land, knows the best road to take, but can't get out of bed. The doctor comes, brings him back to health, the man gets on his horse and leaves. The distant land is happiness; the road-philosophy; the doctor-my Nastenka.

'ro How's that for an allegory? Do you recognize your old friend fram Fini,' land in this passion for metaphysics?96

During this period lvan Kireevskii became Boratynskii's intellectual mentor and nourished his newfound "passion for meta

';' physics" not only through philosophical conversations but also ¡ \ by guiding his reading. Under Kireevskii's tutelage, Boratynskii

read the works of Villemain and Cousin, French popularizers of Schelling's thought who enjoyed considerable fame in Russia. 07

Kireevskii himself initially took a great interest in Cousin's works, but eventually carne to regard his philosophy as so derivative that he was prompted to wonder whether there was "even one significant thought in Cousin's lectures that he hasn't borrowed from the Germans."98 It was, of course, this very failing that made Cousin's works so well suited for Boratynskii's philosophical education.

Toward the end of the 1820'S, Boratynskii worked closely with the staff of the Schelling-oriented Moscow Herald. In 1830 his ties to the philosopher became a little more direct when Ivan Kireevskii met Schelling in Munich. Petr Kireevskii introduced Ivan to Schelling (and also to Tiutchev) and accompanied him to Schelling's lectures. Ivan was so up to date in his knowledge of Schel

')1; THE CONTEXT 31

ling's work, and perhaps so(~ager:for new philosophical revelations, that the lectures weré'a oit of a disappointment: in his opinion they contained "very little new in relation to the system of philosophy taught by Schelling last year." 90

During this time Ivan Kireevskii did not forget his friend Boratynskii. In letters to his parents he often sent greetings to "dear Boratynskii" and wrote enthusiastically about continuing their conversations on German philosophy when he retumed. On one occasion he actually complained that he was so overwhelmed by all that he wanted to say "to Boratynskii in particular" that he could not even put pen to paper. 100

Boratynskii responded eagerly to Kireevskii's reports; in one letter he urged him to "put down on paper everything [he knew] about Schelling and the other excellent people in Germany." 101 And several years later, writing to his mother about a planned trip to Eurape, he mentioned his intention to visit Munich, which he considered "the Athens of Germany" because it was "the dwelling place of Schelling, MenzeL and almost all the eminent figures of our epoch." 102 Boratynskii's plans for the trip remained unfulfilled unti11844, when, in accordance with the seriousness of his goaL he set out on what he called his "pilgrimage" to Europe .103 He never got to "the Athens of Germany" to see Schelling, however, because he died in Naples on

June 29, 1844. In 18}2 Kireevskii undertook the creation of yet another new

joumal to publicize his Schellingian world view, Evropeets (The European). Boratynskii was one of the chief collaborators in the venture, publishing a number of pieces in the first two issues: an article in defense of his narrative poem Nalozhnitsa (The Concubine) entitled Antikritika (Anti-Criticism), the beginning of a short story called Pasten' (The Ring), and the poem Poslednii Poet (The Last Poet). Boratynskii's concem for the Schellingian line of the joumal is evident in the following passage from a letter he wrote to Kireevskii expressing certain doubts about Antikritika: "Look over my Antikritika and cut everything that seems superfluous. I'm awfully afraid that 1 don't hold the line of German orthodoxy [ne derzhus' nemetskogo pravoveriia] and that sorne kind of heresy has crept into the article." lO.

Here again the way Boratynskii writes of the philosophy re

33 32 THE CONTEXT

veals something significant about his relation to it. While hinting at the less than perfect accord between the "poetry" of the philosophy and the rationalistic world view that was natural to him, he underscores his interest in the philosophy and even indicates a desire to believe in it by the very fact that he strives to present it "correctly" in his article. Indeed, his use of the term "orthodoxy" (pravoverie), with its roots meaning "right-believing," and [he word "heresy" shows both the sense of moral urgency with which he regarded the issue and his sense that the German philosophy was not rationally workable, but had to be taken specifically as a matter of faith. Boratynskii's faith was never put to the test, because the journal was suddenly shut down by the censorship after the first two issues. 105 Apparently its position refuting the cold pragmatism of the modern age and its propagation of Schelling's pantheistic world view-the German "orthodoxy"were too much for a regime that prided itself on its new industrial progress and strict Russian Orthodoxy.

Both Boratynskii and Kireevskii were shaken and deeply grieved by this evento In a letter dated March 14, 1832, Boratynskii wrote to his friend lamenting that he could not get the banning of the journal out of his mind and claiming that he had been robbed of any incentive for literary endeavor. He concluded on a positive note, underscoring the depth of their friendship: "We can only thank Providence that we are friends, that each of us found a truly understanding person in the other, and that there are still a few people left akin to us in mind and heart." lOb

Relations between Boratynskii and Ivan Kireevskii seem to have cooled in the middle 1830's, and a certain change in tone can be detected in Boratynskii's letters to Kireevskii. In May 1832, Bor¿ltynskii was still expressing himself warmly and fervently: "Writing to you has become an absolute necessity for my soul." IU7

A little less than ayear and a half later, things still seem to be fine. Boratynskii writes thanking his friend for his portrait and complaining only that it lacks the depth of the real subject. lOR But seven weeks after that, Boratynskii, showing signs of weariness, writes in a more detached way:

You belong to the new generation that thirsts for excitement, l-to the old generation that prays to Cod to be spared fram it. You caH flamboyant

THE CONTEXT

action happiness; flamboyant action frightens me, and 1see happiness in peace and res.t instead. Each of ~s.drew.t~eseopinions fr~m his own age. But this isn't Just a matter of opmlOns, ItS a matter of feehngs. Our organisms were formed in accordance with the concepts that nourished our minds. If each of us accepted the system of the other in theory, we still couldn't change in essence. The needs of our individual souls would remain as they are. 109

Perhaps, as has been suggested, Boratynskii's friendship with Kireevskii, aman six years his junior, not only emphasized Boratynskii's deep capacity for friendship "but also faithfully reflected the imperfect sympathy that existed between an aristocrat of the old stamp and the Lovers of Wisdom."!lO Certainly the ideological and psychological differences between the two men were increasing. Kireevskii was becoming more and more deeply imbued with the nationalistic, religious, and fundamentally optimistic world view of the Slavophiles. His marriage to an extremely religious woman in 1834 no doubt intensified the existing tendencies and perhaps further limited the time he had to spend with old friends. 1]1 Boratynskii, on the other hand, was never a particularly nationalistic or overtly religious persono Now disillusioned by the banning of The El/rapean and the increasing encroachment of politics and business on literature, he moved in the opposite psychological direction from Kireevskii, becoming ever more skeptical and pessimistic in regard to absolute systems of faith or ideology.1l2 It is known that during the late 1830's Boratynskii spent almost all his time on his country estate and at sorne point began to drink heavily. This was bound to magnify the sense of isolation that had come to dominate his life.

Perhaps the drawing apart of the two once-clase friends was more circumstantial than anything else. None of Kireevskii's or Boratynskii's friends ever mentioned a falling out between them, and certainly the two obituaries Kireevskii published on Boratynskii's death indicate a heartfelt sense of loss that bears out Kireevskii's statement that Boratynskii was "one of my most treasured friends." 113 But regardless of the direction that the relationship between Boratynskii and Kireevskii eventually took, Kireevskii gave the poet one of the most precious and lasting gifts he ever received. By encouraging and nourishing Boratyn

35 34 THE CONTEXT

skii's interest in Schelling's philosophy, Kireevskii provided his friend with material that enriched his poetry in one way or another until his death. 114

Whereas Boratynskii's understanding of Schelling's philosophy necessarily carne from indirect sources, Tiutchev had ample opportunity to get acquainted with Schelling's works and even with the philosopher himself, since Schelling lived in Munich for fifteen of the twenty-two years that Tiutchev spent in residence there. Sorne writers on the subject think that Tiutchev met Schelling and accepted the major aspects of his philosophy; others think he met Schelling but refuted his ideas; and still others claim that whether or not Tiutchev actually met Schelling, he absorbed Schelling's philosophy from the German atmosphere in which he lived.

Whatever position one takes, it is important to remember that Tiutchev's propensity for metaphysics of the type found in German idealistic philosophy had developed well before he moved to Germany. Various factors combined to lead his thinking in this direction. One may have been his familiarity with classical Greek and Latin literature, in which the combination of metaphysical scope and supernatural elements prefigured the basis of the new German philosophy.115 Likewise, the increasingly Germanoriented atmosphere of the Moscow literary circles would certainly have been transmitted to the young Tiutchev by his tutor S. E. Raich, the head of the Society of Young Lovers of Literature. In addition, Tiutchev began attending lectures at Moscow University in 1817 and enrolled officially as a student in 1819. Since Schelling's ideas had been propagated at the university beginning in 1815, Tiutchev could have been exposed to the new philosophy when he was quite young. And because he passed university entrance examinations in a number of subjects including German, he would not have had to rely on Russian or French translations of Schelling's philosophy."6

A direct indication that Tiutchev had at least heard of Schelling during this early period can be found in the diary of M. P. Pogodin, subsequently associated with the Lovers of Wisdom and one of Schelling's most ardent followers in Russia. In an entry made during the summer of 1821, Pogodin wrote that he went to visit Tiutchev in the country, talked with him about German,

THE CONTEXT

Russian, and French literature, and about numerous philosophers, including Lessing, Rousseau, Pascal, and Schelling. 117

After graduating from Moscow University, Tiutchev joined the diplomatic service and was sent to Munich. There he spent the years that constituted the most important period of his development as a poet-and coincidentally, the period with the greatest likelihood of exposure to Schelling's philosophy. Though none of Tiutchev's own letters mentions Schelling-or indeed very much about his own literary activities-the letters of sorne of his acquaintances are more informative. Petr Kireevskii, for exampIe, writing to his brother Ivan from Munich, described his visits to Tiutchev and Schelling, mentioning several times that the two men knew each other. In September 1829, he noted: nI just got back from Thiersch's. He talked about Tiutchev as if he knew him quite well and praised him a loto He said that Schelling was also intimately acquainted with Tiutchev." 118 Later in the same letter Kireevskii discusses the problem of getting permission to attend lectures at the university. Here he states with apparent certainty that he will have the opportunity to get to know Schelling and to request his permission to sit in on his lectures through Tiutchev. 119

A little less than a month later, Kireevskii had managed to make Schelling's acquaintance and wrote the following report to his brother: nI just got back from Schelling's.... He said that he's heard quite a bit about our Zhukovskii. . . . He praised Tiutchev a lot, saying among other things: 'he is a very distinguished man, a very well-educated man with whom it is always a pleasure to converse.''' 120

And finally, in a letter apparently overlooked in previous scholarship, Schelling himself provides evidence that he knew Tiutchev. On November 27, 1828, he wrote to Victor Cousinthe same Cousin read by Boratynskii as, under Kireevskii's tutelage, he strove to understand the "new" German philosophy; indeed, the same Cousin ultimately scorned by Kireevskii for his seeming inability to do anything other than paraphrase German idealistic philosophy. Perhaps somewhat flattered by Cousin's adaptations of his ideas, Schelling writes: nI have already had the pleasure of seeing your first lectures, which were published in a series of brochures. Mr. de Toutchef brought them to

37 36 THE CONTEXT

THE CONTEXT

Civen the facts that '''1'lOUtepé"me; he lacks only the last one." 121 . the would be a standard French or Cerman transliteration (JI ¡lO Russian Tiutchev, and that there were, to our knowledg~: to other Tiutchevs in Munich at the time, it would seem fa¡rre_, clail1l that this passage provides the form of proof that had r~ar_ viously been lacking: direct acknowledgment by one of the r,jth ties involved that Tiutchev and Schelling were acquaint<:,d ,11~tly eac~ ~ther. In addition, it. indicates that they :-vere on s~ftIc1~j,)st ' familIar terms to be lendmg each other readmg matenals, ',ten interesting, however, is the implication that the contact bel l \ the Tiutchev and Schelling may well have involved more tha¡llJn standard intellectual banter of Munich salon life, the ~mplie.:t~e_ that there may have been a serious intellectual relahonsh1r,[,ed tween the two men. Certainly the fact that Tiutchev subscr~hel_ to the lectures at all indicates a conscious interest in the Sl,/S lingian ideas propagated by Cousin. Thus, in spite of Tiutc!l:¡es own silence On the matter, in spite of the paucity and some t1 \n questionable nature of relevant evidence, it appears tha tIllg

e

Russian poet was directIy and actively involved with Schell and his thought. ,ra-

In their exposure to Schelling's philosophy, Tiutchev and 8l.Iy tynskii followed paths at once seemingly divergent yet striklr~th

ht \\1SIml. '1aro Bor~tynskii, who reacted to Schelling's thou~ "ny open enthuslasm, acquired all his knowledge of the phIlos' fhef

.. 11rom sources at least one degree removed from the onglD' )"J

read French or Russian translations and exegeses of the ph¡J,¡ .1_ phy, not the original Cerman texts, and learned about S·'thttl · , , tI I mg s lectures only through letters and conversahons .\',f

. lf. I'lllnends, never directly from the philosopher himse T'!U l, t'on the other hand, remained silent on the subject of 11I~:'r_ quaintance with Schelling. Yet with his knowledge of the ~~e man language, his stay in Munich, the reports of others, aPll,¡o

í corroborating evidence of Schelling's Own letter, it is possll,It _ Jiassert with reasonable certainty that Tiutchev not only had.t,¡,r_

rect exposure to the philosophy but also probably enjoyed ,1 f sonal and intellectual relationship with the philosopher. ,-ht

Both poets had their initial encounters with Schelling's thetl::,t in Russia, Tiutchev's encounter occurring in the late teens orP':r years of the 1820's, Boratynskii's sorne six or seven years .Jlit'

howing that the philosophy had become firmly established in ~ussian intel1ectual cireles and was proving rather durable. In addition, both instances involve the Kireevskii brothers. In one set of circumstances, Tiutchev aided Petr Kireevskii in his attempt to become acquainted with Schelling and sit in on his lectures; in another, Ivan Kireevskii's friendly guidance and the information passed on in the brothers' correspondence aided Boratynskii in his attempt to come to grips with Schelling's thought. And finally, Victor Cousin plays a role in eaeh case. It was Cousin's published lectures that prompted the letter from Schelling mentioning "Mr. de Toutchef" as the source of the materials; and it was Cousin's writings-perhaps even the same series of lectures-that provided a significant part of Boratynskii's philosophical education. Taken together, these figures form the constellation of inf!uence that became dominant once Schelling's philosophy moved beyond the confines of the academic community. Translators, popularizers, intel1ectual pilgrims, and poets-all established points of contact with Schelling's philosophy; all absorbed aspects of the philosophy and returned them to the larger world of ideas, transformed to one degree or another by the prisms of their own minds; and by this process, all contributed to the vitality and, perhaps paradoxically, to the originality of Russian culture.

One may speculate on what sort of literary aIliance might have sprung up between Tiutchev and Boratynskii. Had Boratynskii lived to achieve his goal of meeting Schelling and returned from abroad in 1844 as planned, the poets might have met, for Tiutchev returned to S1. Petersburg the same year. The two shared not only a certain talent for poetry but also the specific ability to write poetry of exceptional philosophical depth and vigor, poetry in sorne cases inspired by an interest in Schelling's philosophy. But such an encounter was not to be. And in any event, whatever the similarities between the two poets, the transformation of Schelling's ideas in their poetry remains the ultimate measure of their relation to the philosopher.

36 37 THE CONTEXT

me; he lacks only the last one." 121 Given the facts that "Toutchef" would be a standard French or German transliteration of the Russian TiutciJev, and that there were, to our knowledge, no other Tiutchevs in Munich at the time, it would seem fair to elaim that this passage provides the form of proof that had previously been lacking: direct acknowledgment by one of the parties involved that Tiutchev and Schelling were acquainted with each other. In addition, it indicates that they were on sufficiently familiar terms to be lending each other reading materials. Most interesting, however, is the implication that the contact between Tiutchev and Schelling may well have involved more than the standard intellectual banter of Munich salon life, the implication that there may have been a serious intellectual relationship between the two men. Certainly the fact that Tiutchev subscribed to the lectures at all indicates a conscious interest in the Schellingian ideas propagated by Cousin. Thus, in spite of Tiutchev's own silence on the matter, in spite of the paucity and sometimes questionable nature of relevant evidence, it appears that the Russian poet was directly and actively involved with Schelling and his thought.

In their exposure to Schelling's philosophy, Tiutchev and Boratynskii followed paths at once seemingly divergent yet strikingly similar. Boratynskii, who reacted to Schelling's thought with open enthusiasm, acquired all his knowledge of the philosophy from sources at least one degree removed from the original: he read French or Russian translations and exegeses of the philosophy, not the original German texts, and learned about Schelling's lectures only through letters and conversations with friends, never directly from the philosopher himself. Tiutchev, on the other hand, remained silent on the subject of his acquaintance with Schelling. Yet with his knowledge of the German language, his stay in Munich, the reports of others, and the

; corroborating evidence of Schelling's own letter, it is possible to assert with reasonable certainty that Tiutchev not only had a direct exposure to the philosophy but also probably enjoyed a personal and intellectual relationship with the philosopher.

Both poets had their initial encounters with Schelling's thought in Russia, Tiutchev's encounter occurring in the late teens or first years of the 1820'S, Boratynskii's sorne six or seven years later,

THE CONTEXT

showing that the philosophy had become firmly established in Russian intellectual cireles and was proving rather durable. In addition, both instances involve the Kireevskii brothers. In one set of circumstances, Tiutchev aided Petr Kireevskii in his attempt to become acquainted with Schelling and sit in on his lectures; in another, Ivan Kireevskii's friendly guidance and the information passed on in the brothers' correspondence aided Boratynskii in his attempt to come to grips with Schelling's thought. And finally, Victor Cousin plays a role in each case. It was Cousin's published lectures that prompted the letter from Schelling mentioning "Mr. de Toutchef" as the source of the materials; and it was Cousin's writings-perhaps even the same series of lectures-that provided a significant part of Boratynskii's philosophical education. Taken together, these figures form the constellation of influence that became dominant once Schelling's philosophy moved beyond the confines of the academic community. Translators, popularizers, intellectual pilgrims, and poets-all established points of contact with Schelling's philosophy; all absorbed aspects of the philosophy and returned them to the larger world of ideas, transformed to one degree or another by the prisms of their own minds; and by this process, all contributed to the vitality and, perhaps paradoxically, to the originality of Russian culture.

One may speculate on what sort of literary alliance might have sprung up between Tiutchev and Boratynskii. Had Boratynskii lived to achieve his goal of meeting Schelling and returned from abroad in 1844 as planned, the poets might have mel, for Tiutchev returned to St. Petersburg the same year. The two shared not only a certain talent for poetry but also the specific ability to write poetry of exceptional philosophical depth and vigor, poetry in sorne cases inspired by an interest in Schelling's philosophy. But such an encounter was not to be. And in any event, whatever the similarities between the two poets, the transformation of Schelling's ideas in their poetry remains the ultimate measure of their relation to the philosopher.

39

• 2 •

NATURE

Five Cancepts af Nature

Every major literary movement is characterized by its own view of nature, a view that inevitably moves beyond a simple acceptance of physical reality to reflect the spiritual orientation of the age as welI. Portrayals of nature from various ages express such culturalIy determined premises as the essentialIy wrathful or benevolent character of God, the willfulness of Fate, the supreme rationalism of the Prime Mover, the glory of man's own genius, or the spiritual emptiness of modern life.

Russian literature offers no exception to these generalizations. From Lomonosov's "Evening Meditation on the Greatness of God upon Seeing the Great Northern Lights" (Vechernee razmyshlenie o Bozhiem velichestve pri sluchae velikogo severnogo siianiia, 1743) to Lebedev-Kumach's "Song about the Motherland" (Pesnia o rodine, 1935), nature has continualIy been portrayed as a 'source of wonder in itself and as a force endowed with symbolic

\if:ies! to a larger spiritual or ideological order. In Lomonosov's I poem, the mysteries of nature prove the greatness of God. In

the Soviet work-perhaps better known as a song with the first line Shiroka strana Inoia rodnaia (Vast is my native land)-the natural wealth and beauty of Soviet territory serve as an analog for the spiritual bounty ostensibly afforded by the Soviet government, specifically, by the "law of Stalin" (stalinskii zakon).

Because of the peculiar hybrid nature of Russian romanticism, f: J however, the romantic period in Russia yielded such a motley

array of literary endeavors and world views that no one idea of nature can be singled out as the predominant model. Five basic

NATURE

concepts of nature recur in the poetry of the time and provide the context within which Tiutchev and E30ratynskii developed their own ideas about nature: (1) natun;.a~~ta.tic set~'for human activitY«2) n~t"ureas t~e impet"~s\Jor' p~:~.i~ur.:~~r.~e; (3) na~ " ture as the mlrrof of the human soul; rtJ 1'1.. aUne as man s artner oi equal; and (5) natur,~.~~~J.1.~.~Absolute. Any typology forces works into categories that yield a less tha. TI perfect fit, and this particular typology is perhaps best viewE2d as a continuum in which each concept of nature gradualIy Ilrterges with the next, thus alIowing maximum flexibility within tthe category.

The concept of nature as a static setting 10r human activity reflects the c1assicist heritage of eighteenth, -century France. It is derived from the principIe that man and nature have separate metaphysical spheres, and that the sphere of man is the realm of primary importance. Nature functions like>o a fixed stage setting, while man steps into the spotlight and pL ays out the drama of his life.

Pushkin, who remained one of the greéllt "c1assicists" of Russian literature despite his occasional forays. into Byronic and historical romanticism, provides several exar:nples of this view. In his poem "Autumn" (Osen', 1833), the autumnal setting contributes to the drama, but at the same time, n.ature's role is limited. It neither changes, nor develops, nor inte..acts with the human sphere beyond its initial contribution. The poem is not nearly so much about autumn as it is about Pushki:n's persona, his boisterous good spirits and the details of his everyday life. In like fashion, Pushkin's poems "Winter Mornin~" (Zimnee utro, 1829) and "It's winter. What is there for us to do in the country? ..." (Zima. Chto delat' Ilam v derevne? .. , 1829) provide examples of this view of nature transferred to different sea~onal settings.

The second view of nature, nature as toe impetus for poetic reverie, carne to the fore in the sentimemtal traditions established by Rousseau and the English GraveY"ard Poets.' The "new sensibility" allowed c10ser contact between man and nature; the metaphysical spheres of man and nature ~ere no longer separated by an inviolable boundary. In most p oems expressing this . concepC a sensitive poet's soul reaches OU"t and, for a moment, enters the realm of nature. Nature responets by becoming a part of the dynamic force within the poem rather than remaining

"

NATURE40

simply a backdrop. Nonetheless, nature and man are still portrayed as fundamentally different metaphysical phenomena, and man's musings and feelings-not nature-are the focal

. ,1 point of the poem. In Russian sentimentalism one finds nature as the impetus for

reverie in many works. Among them are Karamzin's poem "Autumn" (Osen', 1789), in which a four-stanza description of nature leads to an egual number of stanzas of rumination on the fate of humankind, and Zhukovskii's "Country Graveyard" (Sel'skoe kladbishche, 1802), a free translation of Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard." In the hands of Lermontov, this usage of nature takes on a moody, Byronic twist. In the poem "Evening" (Vecher, 1830-31), for example, the beauty of a sunset evokes the standard sentimental thoughts of eternity and

J love, and, typically for Lermontov's persona, consciousness that ," happiness will never be his.

{ The three remaining views offer strong and direct connections

between man and nature. In works expressing these views, the ,_exploration of the relationship between man and nature be

comes paramount. Nature no longer serves as a backdrop or catalyst for poetic action but reveals itself as one of the central figw:es..in.~em. _. ...

The concept of nature as a mirror of the human soul was popularized in sentimental works like Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, 1774) and Karamzin's Poor Liza (Bednaia Liza, 1794), prose works in which violent thunderstorms mirror crises in the lives of the main characters. Writers who tended toward Byronic romanticism found this reflection of man in nature particularly appealing, since according to their world view, the unigue genius of certain chosen individuals served as the measure of all things, and nature's role would logically be to act as a reflector for the emotional states of the chosen one.

lLermontov, the most Byronic of all the major Russian poets,

lwas said to have used nature "mainly as a sounding board, echoing the beating of his own heart." 2 In his long poem "The

"Novice" (Mtsyri, 1840), for example, the spacious magnificence of nature reflects the feelings of freedom in the heart of the

NATURE 41

novice, who has just returned after a brief escape from the monastery. He affirms the eguation between human and natural forces as he turns to his guestioner and asks:

CKa%H MHe, qTO cpe~b 3THX CTeH MorAH 6ill ~aTb Bill MHe B3aMeH TOH ~py%6ill KpaTKoH, HO %HBOH Me% 6YPHillM cep~~eM H rp030H 0

Tell me, what within these monastery walls could you give me in exchange for that short but vital friendship between a tempestuous heart and a thunderstorm?3

The Lovers of Wisdom utilized the same basic concept of nature, although they adopted their credo of human genius directly from the works of Schelling rather than from Byron, and worked toward didactic rather than expressive goals in their verse. They viewed nature as a tool for instructive allegory, positing that nature reflects human truths and therefore exists to help the philosopher-poet explain the greatness of the genius' soul. In Shevyrev's poem "Stanzas" (Stansy, 1826), for instance, nature is not simply connected with man, but exists solely for the purpose of elucidating the human spirit. The mysh:~!J' Cl"Uh~

universe is actually the mystery.of mano The Decembrist poets put the concept of nature as a mirror of

the human soul to slightly different use by adding revolutionary connotations. In their poems, the souls of rebels struggle against the tyranny of the autocracy, and nature is filled with ominous strife-as in Raevskii's "Elegy H" (Elegiia Il), written in the early 1820'S, in which a raging storm symbolizes the battle between the promulgators of "hellish dealings" (the authorities) and their guiltless victims.

The fourth view of nature prevalent during the romantic period allots nature a meaningful position of its own rather than subordinating it to human activity. Man and nature are consid- I

ered partners or eguals in the metaphysical universe and belong to one and the same reality. Although a strong sense of kinship and even a feeling of bonding or merging may characterize the relationship between the two forces, neither loses its metaphysical identity for the sake of its relationship with the other. 4 There is a metaphysical partnership, a kind of metaphysical "mar

, 42 NATURE

... riage" of man and nature. In western European literature, this (. concept finds particularly strong expression in the works of ,--yvordsworth, who writes:

... Paradise, and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields-like those of old Sought in the Atlantic Main-why should they be A history only of departed things, Or a mere fiction of what never was? For the discerning intellect of Man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day. -1, long before the blissful hour arrives, Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse Of this great consummation.... '

'\ In Russian poetry, Tiutchev provides the best examples of the metaphysical bond. The sense of kinship and equality between

I the human and natural spheres can be seen especially in poems like "The earth's countenance is still forlorn" (Eshche zemlí pechalen vid, 1836) and "In the stifling silence of the air" (V dushnom vozdukha molchan'e, 1836).* Both these poems conclude with questions stemming from the persona's confusion about the equal symbolic relationship between man and nature. The first poem conclúdes-Ili vesennláia to nega?. / Ilí to zhenskaia liubov'? .. (Is it the bliss of spring? ... Qr is it a woman's love? ); and the second-Skvoz' resnitsyshelkovye / Prostupili dve slezy / Il' to kapli dozhdevye / Zachinaiushchei grozy?. (Two tears squeezed through

, the silken lashes ... or was it drops of rain from the breaking rf!storm? ... ). T,he repetition of the question mark plus ellipsis (?.) I ¡conveys a sense of he'sitatTon 'ahd showsiliat even the questions i lare only half framed. Perhaps they are not so much questions as

ruminations on the integration of human and natural spheres that does, in poetic fact, existo

The fifth concept of the series, nature as the Absolute, posits

• All the poems by Tiutchev in this volume are cited from F. l. Tiutchev, Lirika (Moscow: Nauka, 1965). According to the editor, K. V. Pigarev, this is the only complete annotated collection of Tiutchev's poems. In most cases the dates given for the poems are only approximate; see the notes in the Lirika edition for details.

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nature as the source, the point of return, and the measure of all phenomena of the universe including mano In Russian romanticism, this view stems from Schelling's notion of the Absolute as the sum total of nature and all its metaphysical processes and from a somewhat distorted version of the Orthodox ~smcept.oL.' ratlgªLb~~y. Because it provides the basis for a good deal of Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's metaphysical nature poetry, it will be discussed in greater detail below. For the present, Tiutchev's poem "Of the life that raged here" (Ot zhizní toí, chto bushevala zdes', 1871) will serve as an example:

OT _K3HM ToA, qTO 6ymeBana 3AeCb, OT KUOBM ToA, qTO 3Aecb peKoA nMnacb, qTO yQeneno, qTO Aomno ~o Hac? lBa-TpM KypraHa, BllAllMUX nOAHecb ...

la ABa-TpM ~y6a BupocnM Ha HMX, PaCKllHYBmMCb II mMpOKO M CMeno. KnacyroTcH, mYMHT,- II HeT MM ~ena,

GeA npax, qbro naMHTb paroT KOpHM MX.

ITpllpo~a 3HaTb He 3HaeT o 6unoM, EA qYZAH HaillM npM3paqHHe rOAH, H rrepeA Hen MH CMYTHO C03HaeM Ce6H caMMX - nllmb rpe30ro rrpllpo~u.

IToOqepeAHO Bcex CBOllX AeTeA, CBepmalOII\MX CBOJ1 rrOABllr 6ecrrone3HbIA, OHa uaBHo rrpMBeTcTByeT cBoeA BcerrornomaroIl\eA M MMPOTBOpHOA 6e3AHoJ1.

Of the life that raged here, of the blood that poured here like a river, what has survived, what has passed down to us? Two or three burial mounds, visible to this day ...

And two or three oaks have grown upon them, spreading wide and bold. They stand in splendar, rustle-and do not care whose dust, whose memory their roots invade.

Nature evidently does not kñow of the past; our spectral years are alien to her; and befare her we are vaguely conscious of our very selves-as onlya dream of nature.

She greets all her children as they accomplish their useless feats, equally, each in turn, with her omnivorous and pacifying abyss. ~ .

1'> " .

Here nature shows indifference, perhaps even hostility, toward human exÍstence in .her own absolute dominance of the metaphysical universe. Su;ch is not always the case, though, for

45 44 NATURE

the notion of nature as the Absolute can aIso be expressed by the total absence of human perspective within a poem. Tiutchev's "Tranguility" (Uspokoenie, 1830), for example, portrays the returning calm after a thunderstorm and gives no indication of human presence. Of course one ultimately assumes a human poet writing for a human reader, but within the poem nature appears as a completely self-contained existential phenomenon.

Thus the continuum of romantic views of nature has reached its other poleo The first three categories on the continuum· -nature as a static setting, nature as the impetus for poetic reverie, and nature as the mirror of the human soul-alI involve the assumption that the portrayal of man's life is the most important element in a poem. Nature may infiltrate the text to varying degrees, but it always serves as a means to the end of conveying sorne poetic truth about mano The fourth view posits man and nature as metaphysical eguals, and in poems of the fifth category, man plays a relatively insignificant role and nature reigns supreme in the metaphysicaI universe.

Living Nature

In the poem "Nature is not what you think" (Ne to, chto mnite vy, priroda, 1836), Tiutchev presents nature as the Absolute, but also suggests a potential partnership between man and nature.

j If man adopts the proper attitude, union with nature will ensue; ¡ if not, nature will continue to exist in and of itself. The poem takes the form of an argument against a figurative opponentperhaps an aspect of Tiutchev's own mind-who subscribes to the rationalistic, mechanistic view of nature that prevailed during the Enlightenment:

He TO, ~TO MHHTe BW, rrprrpona : He cnerroK, He 6e3~YillHUH n~K _ B HeH eCTh ~Yilla, B HeH eCTh cBo6o~a, B HeH eCTb nro6oBh, B HeH ecTh R3UK ...

Bu 3pMTe nnCT n ~BeT Ha ~peBe: Hnh MX ca~OBHMK rrpMKneM~?

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Hnb 3peeT rrnoA B PO~MMQM qpeBe Hrporo BHerJHaX, qYJI(~UX CMn?.

OHM He BH~RT il He C~UillaT,

nHBYT B ceM Mnpe, KaK BITOTbMaX, ,!l)IR HilX M conH~bl, 3HaTh, He ,IíblmaT H J1(il3Hil HeT B MopCKnx BonHax.

flyqM K HMM B ~y~y He cxo~iln~,

BecHa B rpY~M MX He ~Bena,

TIpM H~X ~eca He rOBopMn~

H HOqh B 3Be3~ax HeMa 6una:

H H3UKaMH He3eMHuMM, BonHYH peKM M neca, B HOqM He COBe~anaCh C HMMil B 6ece Ae ~PYJI(eCKOM rp03a:

He HX BRHa: rroHMu, KOflb Mo~eT, OpraHa J1(M3Hh rnyxoHeMorr: YBU, ~ymM B HeM He BCTpeBOJl(MT H ronoc MaTepM caMoH:

Nature is not what you think: not a copy, not a soulless ¡ countenance-there is a soul within her, there is freedom ¡ ewithin her, there is love within her, there is speech within \, her ...

You see the leaf and blossom on the tree: did a gardener glue them on? Does fruit ripen in its native womb at the whim of externa!, alien forces? ...

They do not see and they do not hear; they live in th\~;LWJ?xl¡;!' as if in the dark; for them, it seems, the suns do not breathe, and there is no life in the waves of the sea.

Rays of light have not reached down into their souls; spring has not blossomed in their breasts, in their presence the forests have not spoken, and the starry night has been mute!

And with unearthly voices that stir the rivers and forests, the thunderstorm has not engaged them in friendly conversation at night!

It's not their fault: let a deaf-mute understand the life of the organ if he can! Alas, even the voice of the mother herself will not arouse the soul within him!

The contrast between the repeated negative statements in the first two lines and the repeated positive statements in the third and fourth lines establishes the polemical tone. In particular, the

1

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fourfold repetition of the existential assertion est' (there is) underlies the unequivocal manner of argumentation, as the persona adamantly refuses to give any credence at al! to the opposing view of nature.

The contents of the second and fourth stanzas remain a matter for speculation, since they were removed by the censor before publication and al! existing versions of the poem contain lines of dots instead of text. It seems likely that the stanzas expressed the pantheistic sense of the poem so directly that they could not be reconciled with the Orthodox canons guarded by the censorship.6 In any case, the missing stanzas give the reader time to pause and refIect on the preceding text, thereby enhancing the poem in a way that neither Tiutchev nor the censors could have foreseen.

The third stanza continues the polemic against the unidenti fied rationalist by asking questions strongly tinged with irony, or perhaps outright sarcasm, the punctuation "? ..." drawing out the cutting effect of the questions: "You see the leaf and blossom on the tree: did a gardener glue them on? Does the fruit ripen in its native womb at the whim of external, alien force s? ..."

The four stanzas that comprise the second half of the poem intensify the polemic and increase the emotional distance between the persona and his adversary. With the first word of the fifth stanza, oni (they), the argument no longer focuses on a direct, personal confrontation between "you" and an implied "me." With condescension that conveys more contempt than pity, the persona now describes the situation in terms of "us" versus "them." A return to the extreme negative mode of narration used in the opening couplet likewise heightens the polemic, as a total of ten negative particles occurs over sixteen lines.

Most of the images in this passage combine concrete aspects of nature with larger symbolic meaning as Tiutchev plays with imagery of light and sound. "They" live as if in the dark because rays of light have not entered their souls. Light, of course, here represents true spiritual enlightenment, which in this case is quite the opposite of the Enlightenment with its rationalistic

'1 11 1

I

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world view. But even though they live as if in the dark, the op11

ponents do not participate in the nighttime communications with the supernatural that made the night such an important 11

iIllage for many romantic authors: they do not hear nature, for I

ests do not speak to them, the starry night is mute, and thun 1:

derstorms do not converse with them. Thus the image of the deaf-mute, which seems to come as a surprise at the end of the poem, is actual!y strongly foreshadowed by repeated use of "1

negative sound imagery. The string of accusatbry negatives that dominates the second i

half of the poem comes to a climax in the last stanza with the sudden assertion, "It's not their fault." While the statement may have ironic overtones, its appearance in conjunction with the 1I

image of the deaf-mute suggests more pathos than scorn. This change of mood is reinforced by another change in grammatical persono The adversary role in the last stanza moves from the faceless mass of "them" (indicated by the possessive adjective ikiJ: their), to an illusory "you" (singular familiar form implicit in the imperative verb poimi: understand), and final!y settles on a third-person singular, the deaf-mute. In another, probably earlier version of the poem, the deaf-mute is presented as a second ,11'

persono The text in that version reads: poil7lí, kol' moziJesiJ', I 'i!

Organa ziJizn', glukiJonemoi! (understand, if you can, the life of the organ, deaf-mute!)/ instead of poimi, kol' moziJet, I Organa

11,1ziJizll' glukiJonemoi! (let a deaf-mute understand the life of the 11

organ if he can!). The earlier version thus involved a ful! turn away from the "us versus them" situation and even introduced a certain feeling of intimacy through the use of second-person familiar verb forms. This relationship between the persona and the deaf-mute would be closer than the relationship suggested in the first stanza, where vy (you; formal, possibly plural) is used. The standard edition of the poem contains only a trace of this closer relationship in the use of the familiar verb form poímí. But stil\, the switch from the attack on the anonymous "them" of the preceding stanzas to the more or less pathetic image of the deaf-mute conveys an increase in the sense of human contact and pity.

The deaf-mute, of course, is not described as deaf simply be

49 48 NATURE

cause his ears fail to function properly, but because he is a symbol of the closed-minded or stupid person who fails to understand the living organism that is nature. Similarly, "the mother herself" whose voice remains unheard by the deaf "son" is more

e'l' than a human mother-she is Mother Nature. Indeed, the femilt nine principIe carried by the word mal' (mother) and the re1 peated feminine pronouns in the third and fourth lines of the

poem acquire additional significance because the most important forces in the poem are all denoted by nouns of feminine gender: priroda (nature), dusha (soul), svoboda (freedom), liubov' (love). This use of several feminine nouns subtly enriches the concept of "the mother herself."

Although "Nature is not what you think" is one of the poems most often cited to demonstrate the common pantheistic outlook that links Tiutchev's world view to Schelling's philosophy, scholarship offers little beyond a general statement of principIe to support the supposition. A close reading of the text, however, reveals instances of linguistic and conceptual parallelism suggesting that portions of the German text of Schelling's philosophy were somewhere in the back of Tiutchev's mind as he wrote the poem.

The complex of feminine words focusing on the concept of the mother, for instance, corresponds to a group of German words with the same meanings, all of the feminine gender, and all of ~) ;:

. which figure prominentIy in Schelling's organic concept of na

~" '\ , , ture: die Natur,(na!u[~Ldi~.SeeJe. (s0l!:l)!flí~freihei!(f.r.eedom), die

",~ ~ , '.l Mutter (mother'Y'-Schelling's nature, like Tiutchev's, is feminine \ not onlY'lñ"grammatical gender but also in its maternal capacity

to provide nurture and comfort and in the whole group of concepts associated with it. Perhaps more important, the main lines of thought in the poem mirror those in one of the main passages in Schelling's Ideas Toward a Phílosophy of Nature (Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, 1797). The passage begins: "It would be vain for one to believe that one could comprehend the manifold workings of nature ... on the basis of purely material external evidence, the kind of evidence used in the philosophical system

j'(that treats matter as a totally dead phenomenon without a Q\ soul." R

In both the poem and the philosophical tract, the argument

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opens with an attack on the position of an assumed opponent"Nature is not what you think"; "It would be vain for one to believe." Then ~ach affirms ~he existence of a soul in nature by 1M using a negatIve construchon based on words that consist of a ~~ prefix meaning "without" or "made without" and a stem meaning "soul"-bez/dushnyi in Russian and un/be/seeIte in German. Schelling's denial of the possibility of understanding nature "on the basis of purely external material evidence" is paralleled by Tiutchev's ironic suggestions that trees have leaves because gardeners glue them on and fruits ripen at the whim of external forces. In addition, the poem's emphasis on the freedom in nature, marked by the rhyming of priroda (nature) and svoboda (freedom), echoes Schelling's later statements that nature alone is truly free, and that man can find freedom only by subjugating his own will to the universal will of nature. 9

The last stanza of the poem contains another element that tightens the bond between the poet and the philosopher-the play on the word organ. Tiutchev occasionally engaged in multilingual word play when transferring Schelling's concepts into his own poetic idiom, and in this instance it is quite possible that he simultaneously utilized several of the meanings of the word organ in both Russian and German. In nineteenth-century German, Organ could mean: (1) an anatomical organ, (2) a faculty or perceptive capability, (3) a means for expressing a point of view, a "mouthpiece," or (4) voice; the German word for the musical instrument that we call an organ was, and still is, Orgel. 1O In modern Russian, orgall with stress on the first syllable is associated with the first three of these definitions; organ with stress on the second syllable refers to the musical instrument. In the Russian of the early nineteenth century, however, orgl1l1 with stress on the second syllable also meant "faculty" or "perceptive capability." 11 This stress pattern would have been fúrther reinforced in Tiutchev's case by the German environment, since the second syllable is accented in the German pronunciation of the word. If one assumes either the early nineteenth-century Russian stress pattern or a German stress pattern, the regular iambic meter of the poem remains intact. And even if one assumes that the stress was in a state of flux (as it probably was during the middle decades of the century) and that Tiutchev stressed the first sylla

51 50 NATURE

ble, the resulting trochee in the first foot of the line would be nothing greatly out of the ordinary in Russian versification. 12

The meaning most evident from the Russian text of the poem .. and farthest from the German meaning is, of course, the musical instrument. The fact that the context requires something that will make a sound but remain uncomprehended by the deafmute gives this meaning precedence over the others.

f In the same tract cited aboye in connection with the poem, , i however, Schelling goes on to speak of his philosophy of nature

.. , as "a new organ for the intuition and comprehension of nature," ,. suggesting meaning 2 and, possibly, meanings 3 and 4 above. 13

Since the deaf-mute in the poem represents someone who fails to understand precisely the kind of philosophy that Schelling calls an "organ," this definition must also be taken into consideration. The incorporation of this meaning also creates a certain parallelism between "the life of the organ," symbolizing both music and philosophy, and "the voice of the mother herself," symbolizing the call of nature. The closed-minded adversary of Tiutchev's persona can comprehend nature neither directly through its own "voice" nor indirectly with the help of the "organ" of philosophy.

In another tract Schelling clearly employs the meaning "faculty, perceptive capability" when he speaks of "a special class of people who have completely lost their aesthetic organ, either through [too much] rote memorization ... or through lifeless speculation, which totally destroys the power of imagination." 14

Tiutchev's unnamed opponent, who has lost his organ of hearing as well as his general aesthetic sense through an overly rational approach to life, provides an obvious example of a member of the "class of people" described here by Schelling.

Granted that semantic play of this sort was less typical of Tiutchev's contemporaries than of later poets, the Schellingian concept underlying the thought of the poem combined with Tiutchev's knowledge of German and intensive exposure to the philosophy lend validity to a multilingual interpretation. And in any case, the basic sense of the poem remains the same. Nature is alive and self-sufficient. Man can either remain "in the dark," separate from nature, or become a communicative partner in nature's grand endeavor.

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Separation ¡rom Nature

Although "Nature is not what you think" is one of the best examples of Tiutchev's transformation of Schelling's philosophy into a part of his own poetic universe, the concept of nature as a líving organism also serves as a starting point for a number of other poems by Tiutchev. "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea" (Pevuchest' est' v morskikh volnakh, 1865), for instance, contrasts the harmonious relationship between various parts of the natural organism and the discord engendered by human consciousness:

Est in arundineis modu/atio musica ripis

ITeByqeCTh ecTh B MOpCKHX BO~Hax,

fapMoHHff B CTHXHHHMX crropax, TI CTPOHHMH MYCHKHHCKHH rnopox CTPYHTCff B 3M6KHX KaMb1rnax.

HeB03MYTHMMH CTPOH BO BceM, C03Byqhe rro~Hoe B rrpHpo~e,nHrnh B HarneH rrpH3paQHOH cBo6o~e

Pa3~a~ MM C HeID C03HaeM.

OTKy~a, KaK pa3~a~ B03HHK? TI OTQerO ~e B 06~eM xope ~yrna He TO rroeT, QTO Mope, TI porr~eT MMC~ff~HH TpOCTHHK?

There is musical harmol1Y il1 the reeds alol1g the shore

There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea, harmony in the elemental quarrels, and a harmonious musical rustle streams in the rippling rushes.

There is an imperturbable harmony in everything, full consonance in nature-only in our iIIusory freedom are we conscious of discord with her.

From where, how, did this discord arise? And why in the general chorus doesn't the soul sing what the sea sings? And why does the thinking reed grumble?

The completeness of the opening one-line statement, its firm and definite rhythm, and the existential assertion indicated by the verb est' all contribute to the impression that the poem will be presenting a particular line of argumento And indeed, the whole first half of the poem consists of short declarative clauses (all but one complete in a single line), each hammering out a

53 'r

52 NATURE

claim for one of the musical qualities to be found in nature: melodiousness, harmony, a harmonious musical rustle, imperturbable harmony, and full consonance.

But the message begins to emerge even before the reader unwittingly intrudes upon Tiutchev's monologic argument, for the epigraph from the fourth-century poet Ausonius is more than a" simple literary adornment. It introduces all the major elements of the poem in abbreviated formo Its reference to the shore suggests the water imagery to follow; "reeds" contributes both to the imagery of the "rippling rushes" in the first stanza and to the closing reference to man as the "thinking reed"; and the first word of the Latin epigraph, "est," may well have brought out Tiutchev's own tendency to use the Russian existential assertion est', thus allowing the epigraph to contribute to the strident tone of the line that follows in addition to various aspects of its imagery.!5

The epigraph's statement of musical harmony thus begins the musical motif that runs through the opening lines of the poem to the image of the chorus in its conclusion. Emphasized by the use of the archaic form musikiiskii rather than the standard form muzykal'nyi, and by the presence of words with musical connotations in all but three of the poem's twelve lines, the musical metaphor serves as a means for expressing a major aspect of Tiutchev's world view. It both confirms the place of seemingly dissonant, chaotic elements within the harmony of nature and underscores the true dissonance caused by human illusions of freedom. The line that follows the epigraph introduces the image óf waves-which in Tiutchev's poetry most often is a symbol for chaos-but unequivocally establishes their melodiousness,

. ¡ i or implicitly orderly structure. The elemental quarrels (stixiinye spory) likewise contain harmony, even though Tiutchev more commonly uses the word stixiia (element, elemental force) in connection with the notion of chaos, and even though the word spor (argument) would seem to preclude the concept of harmony. Cosmic order exists even within an individual chaotic force.!6

On a broader level, the two symbols for chaos, the sea waves and the elemental quarrels themselves, form a part of the alleneompassing natural harmony described in the first two lines

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of the second stanza: Nevozmutimyi stroi vo vsem, / Sozvuch'e polno v prirode (There is an imperturbable harmony in everything, fuU

e consonance in nature). Here the word stroi not only carries

its usual definition of "order" or "strudure" but takes on specifically musical connotations, and the idea of musical order-harmony or in-tuneness-becomes dominant as the root form stroi relates back to the adjectival form stroinyi (harmonious) in line 3· By playing on the concept of musical order, Tiutchev has created twO microcosms that form mirror images of the macrocosmo In the case of the sea waves and elemental quarrels, order exists within essentially chaotic forces; in the case of nature as awhole, ~hich holds these phenomena within its realm, chaos exists as a legitimate force within the cosmos. This complex relationship between cosmos and chaos is typical in Tiutchev. As will be shown in the discussion of Tiutchev's poems involving mystic. revelation, his personae most often fear chaos, but they also sense its function as a part of a greater and more valid reality

that is, in fact, cosmos. Here again, one senses Schelling hovering somewhere in the

background. Though there are no explicit parallels in diction or argumentation such as those in "Nature is not what you think," the poem in general, and especially the line "There is ... full consonance in nature," expresses a concept much like Schelling's idea of a unified nature ruled by a harmonious, organic, and purposeful system. Schelling writes: "there can be neither accidents in nature nor accidental natural phenomena ... nature is a system, [and] for everything that happens or comes into being there must be a connection with one of the principIes that join all aspects of nature."!7 Given this basis, Tiutchev's statement on the role of seemingly chaotic forces within the cosmic order of the whole can be related to the following statement of belief by Schelling: "Nature is sublime not only in her humanly unfathomable immensity and unassaílilble might, but also in the chaos, or, as Schiller expressed it, in the confusion of her manifestations in general.Chaos is our principal intuition of the sublime because we can perceive mas~es that are too great for our sensory pereeptions only as <:haos."t8

Schelling's philosophy likewise provides a parallel to the second half of the poem, which contrasts the seeming chaos of gen

55 54 NATURE NATURE

uinely harmonious nature to the discord introduced by the illusory concept of human freedom. In his tract Inquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom (Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, 1809) Schelling asserts that nature is the embodiment of freedom, and that the way for man to become free is to give up his self-will and become part of the universal will of nature. 19 In the verb soznaem (we are conscious) and in the metaphor for man, mysliashchii trostnik (thinking reed), Tiutchev seems to be expressing the same kind of separation from the wholeness of nature and consequent 1055 of true freedom through human consciousness, specifically, through human thought.

But it is not only Schelling's influence that is here absorbed and transformed by Tiutchev's poetic visiono The image of the chorus coupled with a particular notion of freedom, for instance, can be found in the writings of Konstantin Aksakov, whose work Tiutchev probably knew both because of a common interest in Slavophile thought and because of family ties-Konstantin's brother Ivan was Tiutchev's son-in-law and his first biographer. In his description of the role of the individual within the peasant commune, the obshchina idealized by the Slavophiles, Konstantin Aksakov might well have provided a model for Tiutchev's concept of the ideal role of the individual within the larger realm of nature. Aksakov writes as follows: "In the Russian obshchina the individual person is not suppressed, but merely deprived of his tumultuousness, exclusiveness, and egoism.... Only the egotistical part of the personality is swallowed up in the obshchina-but the individual person is free in it, as in a chorus."2ü Although Tiutchev's own tendency toward Slavophilism never matched Aksakov's fanatic devotion, the poem under discussion is clearly based on the same idea of true freedom as freedom from the self-conscious ego, freedom existing only within a structured harmonious context "as in a chorus."

The thought of Schiller, whose work "Qn.the..StIDlime" ("Über das Erhabene") Schelling cites in the passage aboye, is also discernible. Tiutchev translated a number of Schiller's poems and no doubt knew many of his other works, possibly including "On 'the Sublime" as well as the play The Robbers (Die Riiuber), which

contains the following line sometimes suggested as a source of inspiration for Tiutchev's poem: "Es ist doch so eine gottliche Harmonie in der seelenlosen Natur, warum sollte dieser Missklang in der vernünftigen sein?" (There is such divine harmony in soulless nature; why should there be this discord in its rational aspect [i.e., man]?"2l But if Tiutchev did indeed borrow the notion of nature's seeming "confusion" directly from "On the Sublime," the borrowing was limited to that single idea, for Schiller posits the sublime as the key instrument in proving man's freedom of will, whereas Tiutchev asserts that it is precisely the illusion of freedom that leads man away from harmony with nature. Likewise, the apparently Tiutchevian contrast between nature's harmony and man's dissonance in The Robbers carries a not quite hidden flaw: Schiller explicitly characterizes nature as "soulless" (seelenlos), whereas Tiutchev's metaphysical nature lyrics are based on the assumption that nature is a full metaphysical being complete with a vaguely defined soul. In "Nature is not what you think," the assumption takes the form of an explicit statement: V Ilei est' dusha (There is a soul within her). Here it is only implicit. But in any case, Tiutchev's borrowings from Schiller are, at most, incomplete.

Another possible source of inspiration can be found in Heine's poem from the second North Sea cycle, "Questions" ("Fragen"), which Tiutchev himself translated into Russian sometime in the late 1820'5. 22 In this p'oem, a young man, full of self-conscious Angst, seeks the answer to life's existential questions in the )waves of the nighttime sea. The sea, however, is not about to divulge the answer, as the poem concludes:

Es murmeln die Wogen ihr ewges Gemurmel, Es wehet der Wind, es fliehen die Wolken, Es blinken die Sterne, gleichgültig und kalt, Und ein Narr wartet auf Antwort. 23

The waves murmur their eternal murmur, the wind blows, the clouds flee, the stars twinkle, indifferent and cold, and a fool waits for an answer.

Both Heine and Tiutchev use waves as a symb9Uor the unceasing, rhythmic force of nature, and both depict man's inability to move beyond his own limited concerns and merge with this har

\

56 NATURE

monious whole. But there is a coldness in Heine's attitude-the implied contempt for the "fool" who poses the questions, the description of the stars, and implicitly all nature, as "indifferent and cold"-that is absent in Tiutchev's. Though this poem by Tiutchev, unlike the earlier one, "Nature is not what you think," has no explicit statements about nature's ability to love and the possibility of communicating with the stars, it nonetheless, in its wave imagery, makes the same assumptions of nature's potentially friendly communicativeness. And whereas Heine is bitterly ironic, Tiutchev links the problem of human discord to the larger metaphysical issue of freedom and writes with a tone of tragic seriousness.

The only reference in the poem that can be absolutely positively identified comes from Pascal, who in his Pensées (1, 1670) speaks of man as a "thinking reed" ("roseau pensant").24 Here again the manner in which Tiutchev changes the sense of the original material is telling. Pascal writes as follows:

Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but a thinking reed. It does not need the universe to take up arms to crush him; a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kili him. But, though the universe should crush him, man would still be nobler than his destroyer, because he knows that he is dying, knows that the universe has got the better of him; the universe knows naught of that. AH our dignity then consists in thought. 25

Here we find a "thinking reed," water imagery, and a troubled relationship between man and the universe, just as in Tiutchev's poem. But the sense derived from the combination of these elements is vastly different. Pascal posits man's consciousness, his ability to think, as the basis of his superiority over nature, rather than as a point of undesirable discord. EIsewhere in the Pensées, Pascal seems to approach Tiutchev's position, and Schelling's as wel1, in a long statement on the limitations of man's perceptions and rational abilities, but these limitations exist only in relation to God: man, the "thinking reed," must ultimately turn to God to escape the given dimensions of his human state, but he still reigns morally triumphant over unconscious nature. 26

Tiutchev, while expounding man's limitations in similar fashion and appropriating the term "thinking reed" as the central

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image of the poem, nonetheless disagrees with Pascal on the crucial issue of consciousness. Pascal maintains that thought or rational consciousness is man's highest achievement; Tiutchev here portrays it as the root of man's gravest metaphysical problem. And whereas Pascal denigrates nature and seeks to promote an active and self-conscious faith in God within his reader, Tiutchev ignores the issue of religious faith altogether and implicitly posits the abolition of consciousness through merging with nature as the greatest goOd. 27

In spite of his adoption, or possible adoption, of certain images and concepts from Aksakov, Schiller, Heine, and Pascal, Tiutchev is ultimately closer to Schelling than to any of the others, and his poem implies his own poetic reworking of Schelling's philosophy:

Man is consciotis and thinks that he is free. Because man is conscious, he is not trulv free. If man were not conscious, he would bé free.

But in style quite opposed to Schelling's lengthy arguments, Tiutchev offers no clear conclusions. Using a pattern that occurs in a number of his works, he gradually drifts away from the assertive tone established in the first line, goes through a series of unemphatic affirmative statements, and concludes with a series of questions that pose a problem the bewildered persona is wholly unable to answer:

OTKy~a, KaK pa3~a~ B03HllK? rr oT~ero %e B o6meM xope ~Yilla He TD noeT, ~TO Mope, rr ponmeT M~C~HmllH TpOCTHllK?

From where, how, did this discord arise? And why in the general chorus doesn't the soul sing what the sea sings? And why does the thinking reed grumble?

As the persona recognizes the illusory quality of human freedom and man's unenviable role as the source of dissonance within the harmonious choir of nature, he loses faith in his own ability to think and draw conclusions. He has no choice but to abandon the role of the poet and let the poem come to a close. In the face of his failure and in the face of the poignant and appar

59 58 NATURE

entIy unanswerable questions of the last stanza, al1 that is clear is that human consciousness has no place in nature's harmonious universe.

A1though Boratynskii became acquainted with Schel1ing's ideas only indirectly and probably knew little of Tiutchev's work, his concept of nature often parallels the concepts found in Schelling and Tiutchev. In "Omens" (Primety, 1839), Boratynskii combines a living, maternal nature not unlike that in Tiutchev's "Nature is not what you think" with a myth1ike explanation of the discord engendered by human thought that so disturbs the persona of "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea":

npm,IETH

nOKa "e~OBeK eCTeCTEa He ITWTa~ rOpHHnOM, EecaMH H MepOH,

Ho ~eTCKH Ee~aHbHU ITpHpO~W EHaMa~, nOBH~ ee 3HaMeHbH C EeDorr;

nOKy~a rrpH~o~y ~ID6H~ OH, OHa nro60BbID eMY OTBe,ana,

O HeM ~py.e~ro6Hol 3a6cTW ITO~Ha, H3WK ~~H Hero o6peTana.

nO"YH 6e~y Ha~ ero ronoEol, BpaH KapKan e~y E orraceHbe,

J1 3aMblcna, E rropy CMHpHCb rrpe A cY~b6orr, BC3~epBHBan OH ~ep3HoBeHbe.

Ha rrYTb eMY Bw6e.aB H3 nccy BonK, KPYTHCb H rro~~eM~H ~eTHHY,

no6e~y rrpopo"Hn, H CMeno CEoR rronK Epocan OH Ha Epa.bID ~PY.UHY.

qeTa rony6HHaH, BeH Ha~ HUM, Ena.eHCTEO ~ID6EH rrpopH~ana.

B rrYCTWHe 6e3nID~HoIT OH He 6wn O~HHM HetrYB~aH BH3Hb E HeIT I\blIIJana.

Ho, "YECTEO rrpe3peE, OH ~OEepHn YMY; B~a~CH B cyeTY H3WCKaHuR ...

H cep~~e rrpHponw 32KpwnoCb eMY, J1 HeT Ha 3eMne rrpopU~aHHH.

OMENS

As long as man did not test and torment natural phenomena with crucible, scales, and measure, but, childlike, heeded the prophesying ot nature and grasped her signs with taith;

As long as he loved nature, she amwered him with love; tul! ot loving concern tor him, she tound a language tor him.

NATURE

Perceiving mistortune hanging over his [man's] head, the rayen croaked out a warning; and sensing the time to bow betore tate, man held back his designs ot daring.

Rushing out ot the torest onto man's path, a wolt, circling and bristling, prophesied victory, and he bravely set his warriors against the enemy's troops.

A pair ot doves hovering aboye him prophesied lhe bliss ot love. In the unpeopled wilderness he was not alone; a kindred lite torce breathed there.

But scorning teeling, he carne to trust his mind, tell into the vanity ot scientitic quest ... And the heart ot nature became closed to him, and there is no prophecy on earth. *

In this poem, as in a myth, a simple story develops a moral of metaphysical importo Boratynskii states his moral directly in the first two stanzas: as long as aman neither tested nor tormented nature (both meanings of the verb pytat' apply here), but aecepted her with faith and love, she loved him and protected him in return.

Following this statement, stanzas 3 through 5 relate a series of events that demonstrate the harmony between man and nature. Man dutifully remains in his humble natural state, restraining his daring impulses and reconciling himself with fate. Sensing this voluntary subjugation to nature's ordering principle, various animals emerge fram the bosom of nature to give omens that help and protect mano Even in the unpeopled wilderness man is not alone, for he breathes with the same life force as the whole of nature.

The concluding stanza, opening with a foreboding No (But), is the reverse of the first stanza. Man comes to scorn his feelingsand therefore can no longer enjoy the loving relationship he once had with nature. He places his faith in his own mind and busies himself with the testing, poking, and pradding specifically mentioned as negative conditions in the opening lineo The consequence of man's break with nature is something more than a gloomy ending for a simple story. The separation takes on metaphysical proportions in accordance with its mythical aura: not only does nature close her heart to man, but the gift of prophecy ccascs to exist on earth altogether. Intuitive, instinc

• AH the pocms by Boratynskii in this volume are cited from E. A. Baratynskii. Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957)'

61 60 NATURE

tive knowledge cannot survive when confronted with cold, hard scientific investigation.

A number of elements establish the mythical aura. The interaction of natural and supernaturallevels of reality, which in ancient Greek myths involves communication between human beings and gods, here takes the form of communication between the generalized "man" of the poem and a conscious aspect of nature. In addition, like sorne myths, "Omens" can be interpreted both in a historical sense, as an explanation for something that has already happened, and in the sense of a warning about an act or attitude that should not be repeated or permitted to arise in the future. Thus a poem about omens becomes an omen, in which the dispassionate stance of the narrator, like the voice of an oracle or the implied narrator in a myth, is identified with the voice of fate. The narrator of the poem always speaks of man in the third person, the most distant of all grammatical relationships, and shows no sign of compassion or involvement; he merely states that this is the inevitable order of things.

In "Omens" Boratynskii also makes use of several poetic devices to reinforce the sense of the texto The repeated use of forms of the pronoun on (he) and the absence of any identifying noun beyond the term cheZovek (man, human being; mankind) stress the nonspecific character of the human being portrayed. "Man" is a nameless, faceless representative of the whole human race. In addition, the direct juxtaposition of on (he) with ona (she), the pronoun replacing priroda (nature) in line 5, underscores the traditionally feminine characteristics suggested by the pronoun, especially since the stanza describes a personified love relationship between man and nature. Here Boratynskii, like Tiutchev in "Nature is not what you think," uses grammatical gender to reinforce a feminine concept of nature. But whereas Tiutchev's "deaf-mute" rationalist never achieves any kind of relationship with Mother Nature, Boratynskii's "man" enjoys her love, at least for a time.

Alliteration also serves a specific end. Working with the sound p, and especially p in combination with one or more r's, Boratynskii develops a series of alliterative words that not only echo the opening sound of the title and key word of the poem, primety, but also become key words in the poem's development.

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One set of words based on the p+r sound all relate to nature and its ability to give omens; another set signifies the main aspects of man's relationship to nature-first his subservience and then his scorn. Associated with nature are the words primety (omens), priroda (nature, which occurs three times), prorochiZ (prophesied), and proritsanii (prophecy, omens); associated with man are v poru (in time), pred sud'boi (before fate), and prezrev (scorning).

Additional words in the group based on a simple p with no accompanying r regularly occur as the first significant words of a line or stanza, thus creating a particular sense of aural cohesion. Poka and pokuda (both meaning "as long as"), which also repeat the sounds of k and unstressed o, open the first two stanzas and mark the conditional character of the harmonious relationship between man and nature. In the following stanzas, pochuia (perceiving), na put' (onto [man's] path), pobedu (victory), and v pustyne (in the wilderness) strengthen the established sound patterno Other words in the p complex are the all-important verb pytaZ with its double meaning of "test" and "torment," poZna (full of), pod'emlia shchetinu (bristling), and poZk (troops). The only stanza without a word from the alliterative complex at the beginning of one of its lines is, quite logically, the last stanza, in which the earlier sense of cohesion is broken down not only in the text but in the aural aspect of the poem as welI.

The idea that forms the core of "Omens" had been carried through several generations of influential thinkers before Boratynskii formulated it in his own particular way. Rousseau, whose work was well known to educated Russians of Boratynskii's generation, offered a major statement of the position that man had lost a great good when he succumbed to corrupted forms of civilization and moved away from nature. He also brought up the question of communication with nature through signals or omens, and regretted man's dependence on the articulated language of reason: "One of the errors of our age is making too much use of ethereal reason as if men were nothing but spirits. By neglecting the language of signals that speak to the imagination one loses the most potent of all languages." 28

Schelling may have borrowed Rousseau's idea or he may have arrived at a similar position on his own. Whatever the case, he expresses his concepts, as usual, in a rather roundabout way:

62 NATURE

"Previously man lived in a [philosophical] state of nature. At that time he was at one with himself and with the world around him.... Many would never leave this state and would be I

happy in themselves if an unfortunate example did not lure them away, for nature does not voluntarily let anyone leave her guardianship." 29 EIsewhere, in a passage that has echoes in Boratynskii's condemnation of man's attempt to investigate and, by implication, gain control of the forces of nature, Schelling says:

The will of man must be seen as a chain of living forces. As long as man remains in unity with the universal will, these forces remain in divine measure and equilibrium. But as soon as self will falls out of proportion ... the chain of forces also becomes unbalanced. Then instead of a chain of forces, a purely individual character comes to rule, a particular will that cannot unite the forces under it ... and must attempt to formulate a single separate life from the scattered forces .... This can never be as genuine a life as that which consisted in the original relationship between the forces, and so ensues a ... false life, and life of a lie, an ulcer of unrest and corruption. 30

Schelling's statements must, of course, be considered within the context of his whole philosophical system, which is more complex than the set of principIes outlined by Rousseau and by no means always perfectly compatible with it. Still, the obvious similarities that exist might well have been amplified in Boratynskii's mind, since Schelling's philosophy naturally passed through the prism of Rousseau's earlier influence as it worked its way into the mainstream of Russian thought.

In Boratynskii's own generation, the concept of the superiority of feeling over reason was expressed many times. But one particular article written toward the end of the 1830'S by Boratynskii's friend and erstwhile member of the Lovers of Wisdom, V. F. Odoevskii, is said to have had particular impact on the poet. In this article, entitled "The Science of Instinct," Odoevskii says: "Primitive man must have known nature through his feelings to a far greater extent than modern man does. He had to sense the workings of nature unconsciously, the way animals 'smell' a brewing storm.... Man must go back to what he started with: he must ... elevate his intellect to the level of instinct." 31

The question of whether the ideas expressed in "Omens"

6}NATURE

came from one or more of these sources or simply turned up on their own in Boratynskii's poetic imagination is ultimately immaterial. The important point is that Boratynskii had clearly pulled away from his earlier devotion to the rationalistic world view of eighteenth-century France, a devotion once so strong that he had been nicknamed "le marquis" by his friends. 32 In "Omens" he implicitly declares himself a follower of the sentimentalistromantic tradition represented by Rousseau, Schelling, and

Odoevskii. Something of Boratynskii's spiritual and philosophical devel

opment can be discerned in his poem "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" (K chemu nevol'niku mechtaniia svobody?), written in 1833-that is, six years earlier than the one we have been discussing. In this short poem, we see the struggle between the rationalistic and flamboyant romantic aspects of

Boratynskii's personality:

K qeMY HeBo~bEHKY MeqTaHHH cB060AU? B3r~HHH: be3porroTHo TeKYT peqHUe BoAlli B YKa3aHEux 6perax, rro CK~OHY HX Pyc~a; Enb Be~H"aBaR CTOHT, r;J.e B03pOc~a, HeB~acTHaH CORTH. He6ecHllie CBe~il~a

Ha3HaqeHHUM rrYTeM HeBe;J.oMaH Cil~a B~eqeT. EpO;J.HqHH BeTp He Bo~eH, H 3aKoH Ero ~eTyqeMY ;J.uxaHbJO rronOJKeH. YAe~y cBoeMY H MU rroKopHlli 6Y;J.eM, MRTeJKHUe MeQTU CMil0HM Hrrb rr03a6YAeM, Pa6u pa3YMHue, rrocrrymHo cürnaCilM CBOH JKe~aHilH co JKpe6ileM CBOilM H 6Y;J.eT CQaCT~ilBa, crroKoHHa Hama ;J.O~H. Ee3YMe~: He OHa ~b, He BllimHHH ~il BO~H napyeT CTpacTH HaM? il He ee rrH rrrac B HX r~ace c~umHM ~u? 0, THroCTHa A~H Hac ~H3Hb, B cepA~e 6bJOmaH MoryqeJO BCITHOJO H B rpaHH Y3KHe BTecHeHHaR cy;J.b6cJO.

What use are dreams of freedom to a slave? Look: the riveis waters flow without a murmur within their appointed banks in accordance with the slope of their channel. The majestic spruce tree stands where it grew, powerless to move. An unknown force draws the lights of heaven along their allotted course. The vagrant wind is not free and a higher law governs its soaring breath. Let us, too, be resigned to our loto Let us quell or forget rebellious dreams; as rational slaves, we will dutifully reconcile our desires with our destiny-and our lot will be happy and peaceful. Madman! Isn't it she, isn't it a higher will that gives us passions? Isn't it her voice that we

65 64 NATURE

hear in their voice? 0, life is burdensome for us, beating in the heart like a mighty wave and constrained within the narrow limits set by fate.

The nature that Boratynskii portrays here is as harmonious as that in Tiutchev's "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea" or in the beginning of his own "Omens," but the persona of the poem is so completely absorbed by the pain of his own tortured human consciousness that he cannot possibly perceive natUre as the living, potentiaIly maternal entity suggested in the other poems. The persona's inability to stop thinking has much the same effect as Tiutchev's "deaf-mute's" inability to hear. Neither can get beyond his own limitations to enjoy the potential of a harmonious relationship with nature either as a partner or as an element merged with the Absolute.

Although there is no reason to believe that Boratynskii was acquainted with the religious meditative Iyrics of the English Metaphysical Poets, their poetic method provides a model that is useful for discussion of this poem. One of the main marks of the meditative mode used by the Metaphysical Poets is the distinctive double role played by the persona. Since the meditative action consists of "interaction between a projected, dramatized part of the self and the whole mind of the meditative man," the persona is split into two components, with one component acting as the subject and the other as the object of the meditation. 33

In a religious setting, one aspect of the poet's mind takes the role of the sinner, the other takes the role of the father-confessor who listens to the sinner's confession, analyzes it, and offers advice as to how the situation can be remedied. The sum of this interaction yields the insight achieved by the poet through meditation. In a simple Iyric, the role of the persona intervening between the poet and his audience is often minimized because the Iyric offers a relatively direct expression of the poet's thoughts and sentiments. But in a meditative Iyric the poet's "second self" takes on so distinct a role that the persona actuaIly becomes a matched set of dramatis personae acting out the poet's spiritual life on his inner stage.

A second aspect of religious meditation that often resurfaces in meditative poetry is the threefold structure based on the facuIties of memory, understanding, and wilI. The meditation be-

NATURE

gins with a remembered scene, often a scene from Christ's life, which sets the stage for the interior drama that is to foIlow. The scene may symbolize a particular problem troubling the meditator and must be as synestheticaIly vivid as possible so that aIl the senses-the whole being, not just the inteIlect-become involved in the meditation. This is foIlowed by analysis, a quest for understanding that makes the scene relevant to one's own life. The meditation then concludes with a coIloquy, a statement of wilI in which the soul speaks directly to Cod, affirming the newfound understanding and resolution of conflicts. An exclamation of belief or ecstasy may bring the coIloquy to a close. 34

As in most meditative poems, the interior drama of "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" consists of the interaction between two aspects of the poet's persona-the sinner or protestor, and the father-confessor or conciliator. In addition, the poem rests on the same functions mentioned above-memory, understanding, and wilI-aIthough here the sequence is slightly distorted. Lines 1-8 compress the functions ofmemory and understanding, and lines 9-13 and 14-18 offer two variants of the function of will.

At the outset, Boratynskii projects the part of himself that accepts the natural status quo. This persona turns to the listenerthe other half of the poet's own "second self"-and opens with a question that seems to be rhetorical and seems to imply a negative answer. The descriptive scene that foIlows both suggests the composition of place, the function of memory that is so crucial in establishing the proper frame of mind for meditation, and simultaneously acts as an expression of understanding. The persona is saying, in effect: "This lack of freedom isn't so bad. Why torment yourself? Nature may seem to be free, but it isn't." The speech of this conciliator, of course, implies the existence of the protestor who cannot accept the absence of absolute freedom.

The next section, lines 9-13, provides the first expression of wilI as the reconciling persona tries to integrate man into nature's system of painless submission to its own laws: "Let us, too, be resigned to our lot." The ideas of harmonious subjugation and metaphysical balance are conveyed not only by the inteIlectual content of the text but also by various formal aspects,

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specifically: the repeated occurrence of m and u sounds throughout these lines, the alliteration on r, s, and 1in line 11, and the perfect syntactical balance of line 12, which culminates the persona's expression of harmonious intentions. Here a form of the possessive adjective svoi (our own) balances either end of the line; the nouns zhelaniia and zhrebiem match each other with their zh sounds and represent the two opposing forces that must be reconciled for man's happiness; and the preposition so (with) acts as the hinge of the whole structure in accordance with its denotation of connection:

Udelu svoemu i my pokorny budem. Miatezhnye mechty smirim iI' pozabudem, Raby razumnye, poslushno soglasim Svoi zhelaniia so zhrebiem svoim...

I I I I I

Let us, too, be resigned to our lot. Let us quel! or forget rebellious dreams; as rabonal slaves, we wiII dutifully reconcile our desires with our destiny. ...

The poem could easily end here with a statement of reconciliation between man and nature, and between the protesting and conciliatory aspects of the poet's "second self." A literal interpretation of the false ending-"and our lot will be happy and peaceful"-leads to the conclusion that the persona has actually found a happy resolution for his conflicts. An ironic interpretation means that he has given in to pure fatalismo Whatever the case, the significance of this section stems from the persona's posture of harmonious resignation, an ending that would have been perfectly in keeping with the goals of the meditative tradition.

But Boratynskii's mind was too complex and his view of life too pessimistic to accept such a pat and easy answer. The protesting voice breaks in with rude exclamation, "Madman!" (Bezumets!), and goes on to pose a series of exasperated questions: "Isn't it she, isn't it a higher will that gives us passions? Isn't it her voice that we hear in their voice?" The point of the whole meditation, the achievement of a positive act of will, has failed. Understanding has broken out of the bounds set by will, and in-

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stead of exclaiming in an ecstasy of conviction, the persona's rebeIlious aspect cries out in vexation and frustration.

This outburst demolishes the optimistic argument of the preceding sections. In addition, it transforms the question in the opening line from a rhetorical question to a genuine one. If a higher will gives us passions, then it must be natural tor a slave to have dreams of freedom, and one can ask quite seriously how he can use these dreams. The answer, for Boratynskii's persona, is nothing less than total despair: "O, life is burdensome for us, beating in the heart like a mighty wave and constrained within the narrow limits set by fate."

With the powerful closing marked by the word sud'ba (fate), Boratynskii crowns the series of near synonyms for the concept of fate appearing at crucial points throughout the second half of the poem. UdeI (lot, destiny) opens the section on man beginning in line 9; zhrebii (lot, fate, destiny) offers the balance for the undesired zhelaniia (desires) in line 12; and dalia (lot, fa te) is the closing word of the poem's false happy ending. The repetition of this concept and the resonating force of the last word of the poem underscore the kind of hopeless situation that carne to typify Boratynskii's general outlook:

Man should subjugate himself total!y to nature and fate (which are one and the same); But nature gave man passions, including the desire to be free; Therefore, al! man can do is suffer in the hands of fate.

Boratynskii also uses meter and rhythm to emphasize the thought and movement of the poem. The meter is a fairly regular iambic hexameter, a meter considered the equivalent of the classical French alexandrine line with its sense of literary propriety, but the rhythm varies in accordance with the thought that is being expressed. In the eight-line opening section, there are five noticeable breaks in the rhythm. Four of these result from punctuation that creates a "false" caesura located at a point other than the prescribed division between the third and fourth feet: the colon that introduces the argument after vzgliani (look) between the first and second feet in line 2; the comma after stoit (stands) between the fourth and fifth feet in line 4; the period after vlechet (draws) between the first and second feet in line 7;

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and the comma after valen (free) in the middle of the fifth foot of line 7· The other rhythmic irregularity is caused by the introduction of a trochaic foot at the beginning of line 4, where the stress falls on the monosyllabic word el' (spruce). In addition, the convoluted syntax of the two concluding sentences of the section creates enjambment between lines 5 and 6, 6 and 7, and 7 and 8, thus disturbing the rhythm even further. The underlying regularity of the meter and the tight couplet rhyme scheme are all that hold this section together from a structural point of view.

This rhythmic discord may reflect the disharmony between nature and the protesting persona, who (as we see very clearly at the end of the poem) chafes mightily under the inevitable domination of nature and fate. The poem's original title, "Grumbling" (Rapat), provides additional support for this interpretation.

In addition, the creation of irregular rhythms within a very regular, even rigid, meter may well reflect one of the ideas that lies at the heart of the poem-the existence of a veneer of apparent chaos over nature's genuinely orderly system. The poet, for example, calls the wind "vagrant" (brodiachii) and emphasizes its flying, rushing breath, yet simultaneously asserts that even this elemental force is subject to the laws of nature: "The vagrant wind is not free and a higher law governs its soaring breath." The rhythm of the poem, too, moves in gusts and spurts, but underneath it all the iambic hexameter asserts the "higher law" of meter. Given Boratynskii's interest in Schelling's thought, it is tempting to see in this combination of order and disorder a reflection of Schelling's belief that "for everything that happens ... there must be a connection with one of the principIes that join all aspects of nature," and that "chaos is our principal intuition of the sublime because we can perceive masses that are too great for our sensory perceptions only as chaos." 35

The rhythm changes drastically in the second section of the poem (lines 9-13). Here the persona proposes to give up rebellious dreams and live in harmonious resignation. The rhythm and meter reflect this sense of harmony: the caesura always falls between the third and fourth feet of the line, as generally prescribed, and there are no significant irregularities in other aspects. In the conclusion of the poem, the rhythmic modes combine. The protesting persona has come to a position of involun-

NATURE 69

tary submission to fate; he accepts his lot but vehemently resents its narrow limitations, and the rhythm, for the most part, "submits" to the overall ordering principIe of the meter.

But there is one very significant rebellious break in the general order, and the all-important word zhizn' (life) in line 17 provides the key to it.

... O, tiagostna dlia nas Zhizn', v serdtse b'iushchaia mogucheiu volnoiu.

O life is burdensame far liS, beating in the heart like a mighty wave.

Because zhizn' is a monosyllabic noun, it must receive stress, and it therefore creates a strong spondee when followed by the words v serdtse (in the heart). The word is further set off by enjambment with the preceding lineo If the pronoun nas (us), which begins the enjambment, is stressed, three stressed syllabIes are placed in a row and create emphasis by slowing the tempo; if the pronoun is not stressed, the spondee comes after the unusual occurrence of two pyrrhic feet at the end of a line, and therefore receives extra emphasis because of the delay of the expected stress. The comma that follows the word zhizn' makes the disruption of the regular rhythm even more emphatic. Ultimately the protesting persona bows to fate and to the regularities of meter, but he registers a jarring protest when speaking about life, which is, of course, the point of the whole poem and all existence.

The "moment of illumination, where the speaker's self has, for a time, found an answer to its conflicts"-almost achieved in the poem's middle section-can never be regained once the disgruntled half of the poet's "second self" comes storming onto the inner stage and deals the conciliatory persona a death blow by poking holes in the logic of his argumento The meditative mode may have helped the poets of seventeenth-century England resolve their doubts and conflicts, but its counterpart in nineteenth-century Russia failed to provide a solution for the tormenting questions that haunted Boratynskii's mind.

The relationship of Boratynskii's "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" to Tiutchev's "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea" provides a striking example of both the

71

,

,

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closeness and the distance between the poets. The themes of the, two poems are essentially the same-Schelling-oriented state-i

ments of nature's inherent harrnony and man's disruption of that harrnony-and they are developed in rather similar concepts and imagery. In both poems, water imagery introduces the argument of nature's harmoniousness: Tiutchev's waves are melodious, and Boratynskii's river flows in its appointed banks without a dissenting murmuro And the root rop-, meaning murmur or grumble, signifies discord in each pocm. Boratynskii's ;1

river flows bezropotno (without a murmur) and is thercfore in accord with nature, and the poem itself, with its expression of bitter discontent, was originally entitled Ropot (Grumbling). As if supporting Boratynskii's disgruntled comrnunication, Tiutchev portrays man as a "thinking reed" that "grumbles" (ropshchet) and is out of touch with nature. Finally, both poets associate the concept of freedom with negative connotations: to Tiutchev, man's freedom is illusory (prizraclmaia), and causes rnan's separation from nature; to Boratynskii-or at least to the persona who narrates the first thirteen lines of the poem-freedom is absent and perhaps unnecessary in nature, since even the vagrant wind is not free, but blows in accordance with certain naturallaws.

In spite of these sirnilarities in theme and imagery, each poem ultimately shows a method and character uniquely its own. Tiutchev's poem, in accordance with its subject matter, takes on an organic quality in which the line of thought flows smoothly in one direction; human and natural images become one as natural elements engage in seemingly human quarrels and man is portrayed as a thinking, grumbling reed. The poem demonstrates the consciousness that separates man from nature, but it does not depict any long process of reflection on the problern. Having captured the idea of nature's harrnony and man's dissonant stance through imagery, Tiutchev briefly and concisely poses the questions that come into his mind and leaves the pocm at that.

Boratynskii's poem reflects the tortured and tortuous thinking process so typical of its creator. It begins with a question and follows the path taken by Boratynskii's mind as it tries to arrive at sorne kind of answer. His persona is conscious not only of the

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separation between man and nature but also of the developrnent of his own thought. This kind of double consciousness of consciousness marked Boratynskii's life even when he was a boy studying at the Corps of Pages boarding school. In one of his letters to his mother, the young Boratynskii presents sorne of his ideas on Voltaire and then continues: "But 1 believe 1 have already bored you with rny philosophy. The passion for ratiocinalion is not one of my lesser faults and 1don't think 1will rid myself of it." 36 Thus, whereas Tiutchcv simply wonders why the thinking reed grumbles, Boratynskii suffers from the tragic awareness that man is doomed to think and to seek freedom, existing all the while within the narrow bounds set by fate.

Boratynskii's poem also shows his relation to various aspects of the intellectual environment around him. His ultimate pessimisrn with its underlying notion of an inevitably oppressive fate recalls the elegies of French classicists like Chenier and Parny as well as the elegies of his own early periodo Much of the vocabulary dealing with the theme of freedom, or the lack of it-for instance, mechtaniia svobody (dreams ot freedom), nevol'nik (slave), raby (slaves), miatezhnye mechty (rebelliouS dreams), ne volen (not free), pokornyi (resigned)-brings to mind the work of the Russian Decembrist poets like Bestuzhev-Marlinskii and Ryleev. Thesc poets, too, were brought up in the tradition ot French c1assicism, but took their inspiration from the politically infused works of Voltaire more than from the quietly despairing elegiac poetry.37 And finally, this poem by Boratynskii also shows signs of the poet's move away frorn the French classicist background toward German romanticism as expressed in the work

of Schelling.

Return to Unity

Tiutchev and Boratynskii deal not only with the problem of man's separation from nature but also with the possibility of reunification with nature. Coincidentally, both associate this remerging of man and nature with the notion of rebirth implicit in

the image of spring.Tiutchev's "Spring" (Vesna, 1838) is about two opposing

modes of existence: personal life (zhizn' chastnaia), represented by the person or people to whom the poem is addressed, and

73 72 NATURE

universal-godly life (zhizn' bozhesko-vsemirnaia), represented by spring. The three stanzas portray spring and the universalgodly life, while the first and last stanzas consider man and his personal life, first describing the problem and then offering a solution:

BECHA

KaK HH rHeTeT PYKa cY~b6HH~, KaK HH TOMHT ~ID~eH o6MaH, KaK HH 6pa3~flT qe~o MopmHH~

H cep~~e KaK HH rro~Ho paH; KaKHM 6~ CTporllM llcrrNTaHbflM BN Hll 6~~ll rrO~qllHeH~,-

~TO YCTOllT rrepe~ ~~xaHbeM

H rrepBOH BCTpeqeID BeCH~~

BeCHa ... oHa o Bac He 3HaeT, O Bac, o rope II o 3~e;

EecCMepTbeM B30p ee CllfleT, H Hll MOpmllH~ Ha qe~e.

CBOllM 3aKOHaM ~llrnb rroc~yrnHa, B YC~OBH~H qac c~eTaeT K BaM, CBeT~a, 6~a~eHHo-paBHo~yrnHa, KaK rro~o6aeT 60~eCTBaM.

UBeTaMll c~rr~eT Ha~ 3eM~eID,

CBe~a, KaK rrepBafl BeCHa; E~~a ~b ~Pyrafl rrepe~ HeID O TOM He Be~aeT OHa: ITo He6y MHoro o6~aK 6PO~HT, Ho 3Tll o6~aKa efl; OHa Hll c~e~y He HaxO~llT

OT~BeTrnllx BeceH 6~Tllfl.

He o 6~~oM B3~~xaIDT p03~

H co~oBell B HOqH rroeT; E~aroyxaIDmHe c~e3~

He o 6N~OM ABpopa ~beT,-H cTpax KOHqHHN HeH36e~HoH

He CBeeT C ~peBa Hll ~HCTa:

Hx ~ll3Hb, KaK oKeaH 6e36pe~HNH,

BCfl B HaCTOflmeM pa3~llTa.

Hrpa H ~epTBa ~ll3Hll qaCTHOll~

ITpH~H ~, oTBeprHll qYBCTB o6MaH H pllHbCfl, 60~pNH, caMoB~acTHNll, B ceH ~llBOTBOPHNH oKeaH: ITpH~ll, cTpyell ero 3~llpHOll

OMOll cTpa~a~bqecKYID rpY~b H ~ll3Hll 6o~ecKo-BceMllpHoll

XOTfl Ha Mllr rrpllqaCTeH 6Y~b~

SPRING

However much the hand of fate oppresses you, however much the deception of people torments you, however many

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wrinkles furrow your brow and however full of wounds your heart; however severe the trials to which you have been subjected-what can resist the first breath and the first encounter of spring?

Spring ... she knows nothing of you, of you, of grief or of evil; her gaze radiates with immortality and she has not a wrinkle on her brow. Obedient only to her own laws, she flies down to you at the appointed hour, bright, blissfully indifferent, as befits the deities.

Fresh, like the first spring, she strews the earth with flowers; if another spring carne before her-she knows it not; many clouds wander across the sky, but these clouds are hers; she never finds even a trace of the existence of faded springs.

Not for the past do the roses sigh and the nightingale sing in the night; and Aurora sheds no fragrant tears about the pastand fear of the inevitable end wafts not a single leaf from a tree: their whole life floods the present, like a boundless ocean.

Plaything and victim of personal life! Come, throw off the deception of feelings and, master of yourself, rush spiritedly into this life-giving ocean! Come, and with its ether stream wash your martyred breast-and partake of the universalgodly life, if only for a moment!

The agonies of personal life are made clear from the outset. Characterized principalIy by consciousness of one's individual existence (Le., separation from nature), this life leaves one open to deception by other people and deception by one's own feelings, and gives rise to wrinkles in one's brow as well as wounds in one's heart. Even the rhythm reinforces the idea of the relentless hammering of destructive forces. Each of the first three lines of the poem begins with a pyrrhic foot, so that the first stress of the line is delayed until the second sylIable of the second foot. This delay gives the stress extra weight and effectively underlines the verbs that convey the oppressiveness of self-absorbed life: gnetet (oppresses), tomit (torments), brazdiat (furrow).

Spring, on the other hand, is unselfconsciously self-centered, like a child, and shows none of the conscious self-involvement of the "adult" to whom the poem is addressed. Spring shows her childlike selfishness and amorality by acting only in accordance with her own laws, by knowing nothing of the existence of others, of evil or sadness, and by viewing everything, including the clouds, as her own.

75 74 NATURE

This quality stems from absolute ignorance of time. The second stanza introduces the theme of timelessness as we learn that spring's gaze radiates with immortality and that she has no wrinkles. The third stanza develops the idea further: this spring is fresh like the first spring, but she knows nothing of other, faded springs, only of her own glories. The fourth stanza brings the series to a climax with a symbolic cluster in which each element denies the pasto Roses, the nightingale, and Aurora-aH symbols of spring-are explicitly shown to have no concern for the past in the repeated phrase ne a byIam (not for the past), which is given even more emphasis by the use of a pyrrhic first foot so that unusually heavy stress faHs on the word byIam. The second aspect of the cluster revolves around the comparison of the lives of the rose, the nightingale, and Aurora to a boundless ocean wholly flooding the presento Through the chain of symbols, this description applies to spring as well.

In the final stanza, in which the narrator returns to the problem of man's personallife, the image of the boundless ocean becomes a true metaphor as it comes to symbolize the universalgodly life by which man can achieve reunification with nature. Speaking directly to the "you" of the poem, the narrator sums up the first stanza in the exclamation, "Plaything and victim of personallife!" Then he urges the person addressed to leave this life and become his own master by immersing himself in the lifegiving waters of the ocean of spring-if only for a momento But this "moment," of course, will have the timeless quality present in spring in aH its aspects.

In the course of the poem, something rather curious happens, grammatically and symbolically, to the relationship between the narrator and the person addressed. At the outset, we take the person addressed to be, presumably, a general representative of mankind. He is addressed in the second-person vy (you; formal, possibly plural). But in the last stanza, the familiar form ty (singular) is implied by the imperative verb forms pridi (come), atvergni (cast off), rin'sia (rush), amai (wash), and bud' (be). We realize that the narrator, rather in the manner of the split persona in Boratynskii's "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?," has gradually become himself involved with the fate of his audience, perhaps because he realizes that it is his own fate as well;

NATURE

aS he anticipates the prospect of communion with the universalgodly life, he switches to the intimate ty form of address.

This communion has much in common with holy communion, which similarly absolves one of the sins of earthly selfcentered life; in the poem the phrase prichasten bud' (partake, be in communion with), coming fram the verb prichastit'sia (to take communion), underscores the religious paraHel. However, the experience portrayed in the poem is in sorne ways closer to the rite of baptism, in which one is freed fram sin by symbolic immersion in holy water and is thereby made a member of the immortal body of the Church. The pragression in baptism provides an analogue to the poem's movement fram the problems of alife of separation into a timeless universal mode of existence achieved thraugh immersion in life-giving waters.

Schelling, exploring the same problem of the opposition between personal life and universal-godly life, used the terms "self-will" (Eigenwille) and "universal will" (UniversaI-wille). 3R

The highest good, according to Schelling, is the dissolution of the self-will in the universal will. He describes the pracess by which this can be accomplished as follows: "The task is: to bring the subject ... to the point that he emerges from himself and becomes one with nature. The point at which he becomes a part of nature is the point at which the contradiction between ego and nature ... completely disappears." 39 Here one senses a certain similarity to Tiutchev's poem "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea" and the Schellingian principIes that inform it.

In "Spring," Tiutchev reflects a thought that is present not only in Schelling's philosophy but, beyond that, in Christian theology and the Neoplatonist philosophy of the "One"-the idea that man's egoistic consciousness of self deprives him of a blissful existence based on perfect integration with the universe, and that man should therefore seek reunification by surrendering his own sense of a distinct identity to an eternal and universallife-giving force. Tiutchev could have found the central concept for the poem in his own Russian Orthodox heritage or in philosophical readings and conversations. But as is the case with any good poem, the source of the initial impulse is finally less important than the life the impulse takes on within the poem itself.

77 76 NATURE

In contrast to Tiutchev's "Spring" with its somewhat didactic tone and focus on a grammatical second person, Boratynskii's "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" (Vesna, vesna! Kak vozdukh chist!, 1834), consists of a series of simple observations made by a first-person narrator about nature and about himself. Only at the very end does the idea of mankind come into play. The poem also differs from two others by Boratynskii on the same theme, "Spring: An Elegy" (Vesna: elegiía, 1820) and "Spring" (Vesna, 1822). Both these poems belong to the school of the "doleful elegy" and pessimisticalIy juxtapose the fading, aging process inherent in human life and the glorious freshness of spring; "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" alone among Boratynskii's metaphysical poems abounds with exuberance and optimismo

BeCHa, BeCHa! KaK B03~YX qllCT! KaK HceH HeÓOCK~OH!

CBoe~ ~a3ypllro ~llBO~ C~errllT MHe Oqll OH.

BeCHa, BeCHa! KaK BUCOKO Ha KpU~hHX BeTepKa,

naCKaHCh K CO~HeqHUM ~yqaM, neTaroT OÓ~aKa!

lliYMHT pyqhll! ó~eCTHT pyqhll! B3peBeB, peKa HeceT

Ha Top~ecTByro~eM xpeóTe I10~HHTu~ ero ~e~!

E~e ~peBa oÓHa~eHu,

Ho B po~e BeTxllH ~llCT, KaK rrpe~~e, rro~ Moe~ Horo~

H mYMeH II ~ymllcT.

I1o~ cO~H~e caMoe B3Bll~CH H B HpKoll BumllHe

He3pllMu~ ~aBpoHoK rroeT 3a3~paBHu~ rllMH BeCHe.

qTO C Hero, qTO C MoeH ~ymoll~ e pyqheM OHa pyqe~

H C rrTllqKO~ rrTllqKa! C HllM ~ypqllT, neTaeT B Heóe C He~!

3aqeM TaK pa~yeT ee H cO~H~e II BecHa!

nllKyeT ~ll, KaK ~Oqh CTllXll~, Ha rrllpe llX oHa~

qTO HY~~U! CqaCT~llB, KTO Ha HeM 3aóBeHhe M~C~ll rrheT,

Koro ~a~eKO OT Hee OH, ~llBH~~, YHeceT!

NATURE

Spring, spring! How pure the air! How clear the sky! Its living azure blinds my eyes!

Spring, spring! How high the clouds soar on the wings of the breeze, caressing the rays of the sun!

The brooks babble! The brooks glitter! With a roar, the river carries the ice it has hoisted on its triumphant crest!

The trees are still bare, but in the grove a fallen leaf, as before, is crackly and fragrant under my foot.

An invisible lark has soared up to the sun itseif and in the bright heights sings a hymn of greeting to spring.

What's happening to her, what's happening to my soul? She's a brook with the brook and a bird with the bird! She babbies with the brook and flies in the sky with the bird!

Why do the sun and spring make her so happy! Is she rejoicing like the daughter of the elements at their feast?

But never mind! Happy is he who drinks the potion of oblivion at the feast and is carried far away from thought by this wondrous celebration!

The first five stanzas depict the manifestations of spring in a manner typical of pure nature lyrics. As is often the case, spring's attributes include a blindingly bright blue sky, fleeting clouds, babbling and sparkling brooks, fragrant earth, and a lark singing a hymn of greeting to the new season. The three remaining stanzas, however, take the poem out of the realm of the pure nature lyric and into the realm of metaphysical poetry. The ebullient persona asks what is happening to his soul and then answers himself in a way that implíes an almost literal interpretation of Schelling's Philosophy of Identity: his soul becomes one with a brook and babbles with it, becomes one with a bird and soars into the airo Then he asks why the sun and the spring make his soul so happy. The reply, formulated as a question, suggests that his soul either is the daughter of the elements or is like the daughter of the elements, the precise meaning being unclear because the Russian kak can mean either "like" or "as," in the sense of "being." In either case the identity of his soul with the world soul or universal will is quite clear. In addition, the repeated use of feminine pronouns replacing dusha (soul) both

I reinforces the feminine role of the soul (bringing to mind similar

¡ ~

.'.t'

,I instances in Tiutchev's poem "Nature is not what you think" and Boratynskii's own "Omens"), and through this personification emphasizes the Schellingian notion of an animate universehence my translation of the pronouns as "she" and "her" as

I

78 NATURE

opposed to the standard English substitution of "it" in such circumstances.

The final stanza offers a further explanation of the persona's euphoric state and suggests that bliss is available to mankind in general: "Happy is he who drinks the potion of oblivion at the feast and is carried far away from thought by this wondrous celebration!" Here one sees a kind of blessed forgetfulness that appeared in slightly different form in Boratynskii's very early poetry, notably in these lines from "My Life" (Moia zhizll'), written probably in 1818 or 1819:

]ro6~ro 3a6uTb ~~fl cepA~a YM B rru~y BaKXHQeCKOrr OTBarH.

]ro6~ro C KpacoTKorr 3arrHCHorr Ha ~o~e HerH H 3a6BeHbH TIa Bone rna~OCTH M~aAorr

Pa3Hoo6pa3HTb Hacna~AeHbH.

1 love to forget my mind for my heart in a blaze of Bacchic valor. 1 love to try different pleasures at the impulse of young whimsy with a first-rate beauty on the couch of bliss and oblivion.

In both cases the wonderful oblivion arises from an abandonment of thought for total immersion of feeling. (Quite logically, the incorrigible rationalist Boratynskii seeks to rid himself of thought, whereas Tiutchev, in "Spring," seeks to escape the deception of human feelings as well.) But there is a marked difference between Boratynskii's two poems. The earlier poem has an unabashedly anacreontic tone and conveys the unconcerned attitudes of a high-spirited, slightly self-centered and self-conscious young mano The later poem shows a deeper, more serious, but still joyful philosophical awareness. The feeling that leads to oblivion is not the passion of parlor sex, but the same sensation of communion with the universal-godly life portrayed by Tiutchev in "Spring."

The strikingly bright tone of "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" stems as much, or more, from certain aspects of the form of the poem as from its contento Though the imagery of nature in Boratynskii's other poems on spring is in many ways similar to that in the poem under diseussion, the poems themselves do not achieve such an irrepressible sense of dazzling freshness.

NATURE 79,.1

The most important element in this freshness / 'ery strong rhythm combined with short lines. The )Jo, ve ,l. on alternating three- and four-foot iambic lines, ,'/r"oa~ed (' .:mg ¡nasculine endings. A relatively high proporti():":l ;trOJi~s_ three-eighths-show full realization of stress,: liOeS'jer with one exception, contain only one pyrrhic f(Ji:.' "'Jiode'teat~ ing a verse system with a very distinct beato JI,:, cre¿'

In a language that allots only one stressed sY" ,.Jrd, the predominance of short words can help kee¡>,¡ IVar', r of pyrrhics to a minimum and thereby strengthel) t:,::Jber . Of the 117 words (not counting single-letter Pr,,'·':Jrn. O,:Jronounced together with the following word) thi:"""r.~ pr

l

, the poem, roughly 50 percent (58 words) have tWG',ri~e tlper_ cent (37 words) have one syl1able, and 16 Per." ;2 P(J:¡rds) have three syllables. This leaves only 2 petl!." \\'ar¿,otal word count for words of three syllables or lli.\ '), tO~!;:ent made up of two words with four syllables anc .: ~erce!,oVith five syllables. "1,;,1 wÍi

The short phrases, as well as short words, r,!, )thm going with a forceful beat. A long phrase con-,t',t:hyth hort lines of verse, like those found here, would iné'l!:':~ 5hc'ld itself over several lines and create enjambmen: "J' ,,¡ead¡:urn would alter the rhythm; but a short phrase can)! . lJ1 tu Inip_ ulated and placed in a way that avoids enjamCt,,:\Jlanilll'also be manipulated so that major punctuation ":>0 al!,Joot boundaries and at the end or in the middle 0h,,\1I1 f°:iing~h~, kind of rhythmic disarray that Boratynskl] ..",'! ;.,[lidiJ

1

,cully In What use are dr.eams of free.dom to a slave.",,¡1lfuJ', y of the phrases are bnef exclamatlOns uttered b,"! u,lOY a in a single short breath as he seems to gasp in . "'¡,,;,10a ¡,atural ~pectacle .around him..In the phrase~ Ves\; "~ce oatilling, spnng!), WhlCh occurs tWICe, and Shumlat n. ,iprln"ch'i! (The brooks babble! The brüoks glitted), r,:";l'uch',¡ord boundary coincides with foo! boundaryanda). Wo".falls on foot boundaries at the cen-ter and end of th :'(.10 fa I'.sur_ ing a strong rhythmic pulse. I;;eosu'

Numerous parallel constructions, repealé;. re-l

peated phrases, exemplified ~n the quotation,,-' ,(Id 'f well 1 as at various other points thr<Jughout the POé:: '1.15 w'trib'1

,'\':l10trj"

.¡I I¡

lill

I

I

l' 1I

l'

...._-~

78 NATURE

opposed to the standard English substitution of "it" in such circumstances.

The final stanza offers a further explanation of the persona's euphoric state and suggests that bliss is available to mankind in general: "Happy is he who drinks the potion of oblivion at the feast and is carried far away from thought by this wondrous celebration!" Here one sees a kind of blessed forgetfulness that appeared in slightly different form in Boratynskii's very early poetry, notably in these lines from "My Life" (Moia zhizn'), written probably in 1818 or 1819:

EID6~ID 3a6~Th ~~H cep~~a YM B rr~~y BaKXilQeCKoH OTBarll.

EID6~ID C KpacoTKoH 3arrilcHoH Ha ~o~e Heril II 3aOBeHhH ITo Bo~e marrOCTll M~a~OH

Pa3Hoo6pa3ilTh Hac~a~~eHhH.

1 love to forget my mind for my heart in a blaze of Bacchic valor. 1 love to try different pleasures at the impulse of young whimsy with a first-rate beauty on the couch of bliss and oblivion.

In both cases the wonderful oblivion arises from an abandonment of thought for total immersion of feeling. (Quite logically, the incorrigible rationalist Boratynskii seeks to rid himself of thought, whereas Tiutchev, in "Spring," seeks to escape the deception of human feelings as well.) But there is a marked difference between Boratynskii's two poems. The earlier poem has an unabashedly anacreontic tone and conveys the unconcerned attitudes of a high-spirited, slightly self-centered and self-conscious young mano The later poem shows a deeper, more serious, but still joyful philosophical awareness. The feeling that leads to oblivion is not the passion of parlor sex, but the same sensation of communion with the universal-godly life portrayed by Tiutchev in "Spring."

The strikingly bright tone of "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" stems as much, or more, from certain aspects of the form of the poem as from its contento Though the imagery of nature in Boratynskii's other poems on spring is in many ways similar to that in the poem under discussion, the poems themselves do not achieve such an irrepressible sense of dazzling freshness.

NATURE 79

The most important element in this freshness of tone is a very strong rhythm combined with short lines. The poem is based on alternating three- and four-foot iambic lines, aIl with strong masculine endings. A relatively high proportion of the linesthree-eighths-show fuIl realization of stress. The remainder, with one exception, contain only one pyrrhic foot per line, creating a verse system with a very distinct beato

In a language that aIlots only one stressed syIlable per word, the predominance of short words can help keep the number of pyrrhics to a minimum and thereby strengthen the rhythm. Of the 117 words (not counting single-Ietter prepositions pronounced together with the foIlowing word) that comprise the poem, roughly SO percent (S8 words) have two syllables, 32 percent (37 words) have one syllable, and 16 percent (19 words) have three syllables. This leaves only 2 percent of the total word count for words of three syllables or more, a 2 percent made up of two words with four syIlables and one word with five syIlables.

The short phrases, as weIl as short words, keep the rhythm going with a forcefuI beat. A long phrase combined with short lines of verse, like those found here, would inevitably spread itself over several lines and create enjambment, which in turn would alter the rhythm; but a short phrase can be easily manipulated and placed in a way that avoids enjambment. It can also be manipulated so that major punctuation marks faIl on foot boundaries and at the end or in the middle of the line, avoiding the kind of rhythmic disarray that Boratynskii uses so skillfully in "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" Here, many of the phrases are brief exc1amations uttered by the persona in a single short breath as he seems to gasp in wonder at the natural spectac1e around him. In the phrases Vesna, vesna! (Spring, spring!), which occurs twice, and Shumiat ruch'i! Blestiat ruch'i! (The brooks babble! The brooks glitter!), for instance, word boundary coincides with foot boundary and aIl punctuation faIls on foot boundaries at the center and end of the line, thus ensuring a strong rhythmic pulse.

Numerous parallel constructions, repeated words, and repeated phrases, exemplified in the quotations just aboye as weIl as at various other points throughout the poem, further contrib

11

I I

I

81 80 NATURE

ute to a very emphatic rhythmic structure. Indeed, the overwhelming strength of the rhythm tends to make one forget about rhyme. If Boratynskii had used a regular alternating rhyme scheme (A BA B), the combination of the forceful rhythm and a whole series of strong masculine rhymes would have created an effect something like a giant singing a nursery rhyme and keeping the beat by stamping his feet-an effect altogether too powerful for a poem about spring, and ultimately rather ludicrous. 1'0 avoid this pitfall, Boratynskii simply eliminated the rhyme of the first and third lines of the stanza, making a rhyme scheme that can be represented as X A X A. The X's indicate words that do not rhyme at aH and therefore provide a good counterweight for the overwhelming structural force of the rhythm.

The single instance in which most of the patterns just described are broken occurs in lines 2-4 of the third stanza and centers on the longest word in the poem, torzhestvuiushchem (triumphant, exultant). Because of the presence of this long word, the line in which it appears contains two pyrrhic feet-the only line in the poem with this marked weakening of the regular rhythm. Even the last foot in the line is a relatively weak iamb because it lacks the usual boost in strength supplied by rhyme. In addition, the syntactical complexity of the sentence results in enjambment both preceding and following the line Na torzhestvuiushchem khrebte (on its triumphant crest), further muddying the rhythm. AH these components together create an invisible arrOw pointing at the word torzhestvuiushchem, which seems to have absorbed all the rhythmic energy that is absent in the words around it. And this is as it should be, for torzhestvuiushchem, with its connotations of celebration, exultation, and triumph, sums up the joyous spirit of the whole poem.

Nature in Boratynskii's "Autumn"

In a number of ways, Boratynskii's '~utumn" (Osen', 183637), a poem of sixteen stanzas, is the exact opposite of "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" Not only does it deal with the opposite season of the year, but its somber consideration of the irremediable separation between man and nature and its long and

NATURE

complex reflective structure show both an opposing intellectual outlook and a different poetic method. These latter characteristics are ultimately more typical of Boratynskii's verse.

5ince "Autumn" could easily furnish material for an entire book itself, 1 will not attempt to develop a full analysis but will limit the discussion to Boratynskii's use of the meditative mode

and nature imagery.

OCEHb

1

B BoT ceHTH6pb~ 3aMe~nH CBOY BOCXO~, C~HHbeM xna~H~M CO~Hue bne~eT,

H ny~ ero B 3ep~ane 3N6K8M EO~ HeBepH~M 30~OTOM Tpene~eT.

Ce~aK ~r~a BHeTCK BKryr xonMOB; Pccotl 3aTorrneH~ paBHHHu;

~enTeeT ceHb Ky~pKBaH ~y60B, H Kp~ceH Kpyr~~rt nHC~ OCUHN;

YMonK~n rrrH~ ~HB~e rOHoca, Ee3MonBeH nec, 6e33ByqH~ He6eca:

2 H BO~ ceHTH6pb: a Beqep ro~a K HaM

rro~XO~HT. Ha nonH H rop~

Yze MOp03 6pocaeT no yTDaM CROH cpe6pHCTNe Y30pN.

rrp06Y~HTCK HeHaCTnHBUIT Sor.; rrpe~ HHM rrOMqHTCK npax neTyqHIT,

HaqaHCH, 3aBoeT poma, ~O~

rrOKpoeT nHCT ee rra~yqHIT, H Ha6erYT Ha He60 o6naKa, H, rroTcMHeB, 3arreH~TCH peRa.

3

rrpomarr , rrpomarr, CHHHHe Heéec: rrpomaIT , npomart, Kpaca rrpHpo~~:

Bonrne6Horo rnenTaHbH rronHUIT ~ec, 3naTo4ewyliqaT~e BO~~~

Bece~uIT COH MHHY~HNX ~e~HHX Her! BOT 3XO B po~ax 06Ha~eHHNX

SeKHporo TpeBozuT ~pOBoceK, H CKOPO, CHerOM y6eneHHWx,

SBOHX ~y6pOB H Xo~MOB 3UMHHIT BHA 3aCTU~Nn TOK TYMaHHo oTpa3HT.

4

A Me~~y TeM ~OCY.HIT ce~HHHH ITnoA ro~OB~X TpY~OB c6HuaeT;

CMeTaB 3 CTora CKorneHHwtl 3naK LO~HH, C ceprroM OH B rro~e ITocrremaeT.

~ynffeT ceprr. Ha czaTNX 60po3~ax CHorrw CTOHT B KOITHaX 6necTH~HX

Hnb TffHYTCH, B~onb .HHBN, Ha B03ax, ITo~ TH.KOn Hornero CRpUITHmUX ,

84 85

NATURE

TaK liHOr~a TO~rrU ~eHliBUH YM M3 ycurr~eHliR BUBO~liT

r~ac, rrOill~Utt r~ac, Be~aTe~b 06~liX ~YM, M 3BYQHUtt OT3UB B Heti Haxo~liT,

Ho He Hatt~eT OT3UBa TOT r~aro~, qTO CTpaCTHoe 3eMHoe rrepeille~.

15 ITycKatt, rrpliHRB HerrpaBli~bHutt rro~eT

M BcrrRTb CTe3li He 06peTaR,3Be3~a He6ec B 6e3~OHHOCTb YTeQeT;

ITYCTb 3aMeHliT ee ~pyraR; He RBcTByeT 3eM~e y~ep6 O~HOtt,

He rropa~aeT yxo Mlipa ITa~eHliR ee ~a~eKlitt Boil,

PaBHO KaK B BUCOTax 3~lipa Ee cecTpU HOBOpo~~eHHuH CBeT M He6ecaM BocTop~eHHuil rrpliBeT~

16 3liMa li~eT, li To~aR 3eM~R

B illlipOKliX ~UCliHax 6eccli~bR, M pa~OCTHO 6~licTaBilllie rronR

3~aTuMli K~acaMli 06li~bR, Co cMepTbID ~li3Hb, 60raTcTBO C Hli~eTott

Bce 06pa3u rO~liHU 6uBillett CpaBHRIDTCR rro~ cHe~Hoti rre~eHoll,

O~Ho06pa3Ho liX rroRpuBilleH,-ITepe~ T060tt TaROB OTHUHe cBeT, Ho B HeM Te6e rpR~y~ett ~aTBU HeT:

AUTUMN

1

And here it is, September! Slowing its upward path, the sun shines with a chilly glow and its rays flicker like untrue gold in the rippling mirror of the waters. Gray mist winds around the hills; the plains are flooded with dew; the curly leafed canopy of the oaks is turning yellow, and the rounded foliage of the aspen is red; the lively voices of the birds have fallen silent, the forest is speechless, the heavens soundless!

2

And here it is, September! And the evening of the year approaches USo In the morning frost now casts its silvery patterns on fields and mountains. Rainy Aeolus will awaken; flying dust will be swept away before him; the swaying grove will raise a howl and its falling foliage will cover the valley; and clouds will overrun the sky; and the darkened river will foam.

3 Farewell, farewell, radiance of the heavens! Farewell, farewell, beauty of nature! Forest full of magical whispers, goldenscaled waters! The happy slumber of summer's momentary bliss! And so the woodcutter with his axe alarms the echo in

NATURE

the bare groves; and soon the thickening current will dimly reflect the winter scene of its oaks and hills whitened with snow.

4 And in the meantime, the peasant at his leisure gathers the fruit of his year's labors; having swept the mown grain of the valleys into stacks, he will hurry to the field with his sickle. The sickle flails away. Sheaves stand along the harvested furrows in shining shocks, or are hauled along the mown stubble on carts that squeak under their heavy burden, and a goldentopped city of grain stacks rises around the peasants' huts.

5 Days of rustic, holy celebration! Barns smoke gaily and the flail thumps and the millstones of the enlivened mili turn with a rumble. Come, winter! The plowman has stored up much good for the harsh days ahead: the comforting warmth in his house, bread and salt, and foamy brew; with his family he will taste the fruit of his blessed labors in carefree tranquility.

6 But you, when you enter the autumn of your days, the plowman of the field of life, and your earthly lot appears before you in all its beneficence; when the furrows of life, rewarding the labor of your existence, prepare to yield their fruits to you, and the treasured harvest ripens, and you gather it in kernels of thought, having achieved fulfillment of the fates of man

7 Are you as rich as the farmer? You sowed with hope, as he did; you cherished gilded dreams about the distant day of reward, as he did . . . So admire and be proud of that which has come to pass! Count your accomplishments! ... Alas! In addition to dreams, passions, and earthly labors, you have stored up scorn and the biting, irrefutable shame of the deceptions and insults of your soul!

8 Your day has come and all the insolence of your youthful credulity is clear to you. The depth of human madness and hypocrisy has been experienced by you. You were once the friend of all passions, the ardent seeker of sympathy, the tsar of sparkling mists-and suddenly you are the contemplator of barren wilds, alone with anguish whose deáthly groan is barely stifled by your pride.

9 But if a cry of indignation, if a wail of intense anguish should rise out of the depths of your heart, all solemn and wild, frivolous youth would be shaken to his very bones in the midst of his amusement; the playing babe would begin to howl, drop

86 NATURE

his toy, and joy would abandon his brow forever, and within him, man would die alive.

10

So call the fair-minded community now to the holiday celebration! Hurry, generous host! Invite your guests and seat them at the ingenious and ornate feast! What joy it foretells for epicurean taste! It shines with such a diversity of dishes! But there is only one taste in all of them, and it terrifies people like the grave; be seated alone and complete the funeral feast in accordance with the earthly joys of your soul!

11

Whatever sort of illumination will then settle in your breast, however the last whirlwind of thoughts and feelings is resolved in it, at your mock celebration let your useless mind calm the useless tremor of your heart and smother the belated babble of the heart's vain complaints; and you shall take the gift of experience, the chill that deadens the soul, as the best hidden treasure of life.

12

Or, shaking off earthly visions with a burst of life-giving grief and catching sight of the limit of earthly life, the blooming shore beyond the black mist, the land of ultimate reward not far off, and trusting dreams that bode well with renewed feeling, and harkening to the rebellious voices of existence in a great hymn of reconciliation, as to harps whose 10ftYtune was not understood earlier by you

13 You prostrate yourself before justified fate with acknowledged humility, with hope that knows no bounds and with slaked understanding; know this-you will never transmit your innermost essence to earthly sound, and you will never initiate the light-headed offspring of worldly vanity into your science; know this-whether your science is of the mountains or of the plains, it is not given to us on earth for earthly use.

14 See the hurricane sweeping violentIy along and the forest lifting its noisy voice, and the ocean frothing and rolling and beating at the shore with raging surf; thus the lazy mind of the crowd in its drowsy state sometimes deduces a voice, a vulgar voice, a prophet of common thoughts, and finds a ringing response in it; but that word that has transcended the earthly passions will find no response.

15 Let the star that took the wrong path and failed to find the way back float away into the limitIessness of the heavens; let an-

NATURE 87

other take its place; the loss of one star is not obvious to the earth, its faIling wail does not strike the world's ear, just as in the higher ethers thenewborn world of its sister is not obvious to the earth and its rapturous greeting to the heavens does not strike the ear of the world below.

16 Winter is coming, and the emaciated earth with its wide bald patches of impotence, and the fields that once glittered joyfuIly with the golden shocks of abundance, with death-life, wealth with poverty-aIl images of the past year are leveled under a shroud of snow that covers them al! alike-thus is the world that stands before you from now on, but for you there is no coming harvest in it!

In terms of general attributes other than length, "Autumn" is quite closely related to "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?," written by Boratynskii sorne three years earlier. One major trait shared by the poems is their use of the meditative mode with its characteristic split persona.

In "Autumn," one aspect of the persona takes on the role of an omniscient narrator, who, because of his larger perspective, has the same function as the conciliator or father-confessor in "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" It is he who points out that in the grand scheme of things, the peasant is rewarded for his work in harmony with nature, while the person to whom the poem is addressed has nothing at a11 to look forward too The unhappy figure juxtaposed with the peasant represents the other half of the persona and becomes the object of the meditation. Like the omniscient narrator, he is clearly aman engrossed in the world of the inte11ect, and the narrator's repeated use of the familiar ty shows the closeness of their relationship. Coincidenta11y, the sketch of this figure's spiritual biography-his youthful ardor and gullibility, his search for sympathy, attraction to idealistic philosophy, his ultimate disillusionment combined with a fear of giving full vent to his bitterness-mirrors Boratynskii's own life and suggests that both the narrative and objective aspects of the persona are closely related to the real human being behind the poem. But while the soothing ability to "put things in perspective" seems to lighten the narrator's burden of metaphysical anguish and absolve him of his sins, the figure who acts as the object of the meditation takes on the sins and anguish of both halves of the persona.

89 88 NATURE

Unlike the sinner or rebellious aspect of the persona in "What ;: use are dreams of freedom to a siave?" the objective figure in . "Autumn" neither speaks nor shows any sign of protesto He simply exists as the object of the narrator's contemplation, provid- i

ing the impetus for an interior drama that takes the form of a ; dramatic monologue, and has the ring of both an accusation and a confession because of the two aspects of the whole persona that lie united behind it.

''Autumn'' parallels the earlier poem again in the way it mirrors the standard meditative structure based on the functions of memory, understanding, and will. The first five stanzas of "Autumn," which are much like a standard nature lyric, set the stage for the meditation and fulfill the function of memory. Stanzas 6-14 show the development of understanding as the larger meaning of the autumnal setting is explored. But the result of understanding is so disheartening that the concluding stanzas, like the concluding section of "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?," constitute an expression of despair rather than the prescribed affirmation of faith and will.

''Autumn'' likewise shares certain characteristics with the works of the English Graveyard Poets. The poem mimics these works in its transformation of an external natural scene into an interior metaphysical meditation. But at the same time, "Autumn" breaks away from the tradition by concentrating on the relationships between man and nature, man and man, and man and philosophy, rather than simply on the relationship between man, death, and God.

The poem is composed of four strands of poetic material based on the concept of autumn. Two of these are concerned with the meaning of autumn within nature itself-one specifically with the physical aspects of the season such as trees changing color and frost appearing on the fields, the other with the metaphysical significance of autumn in nature and the necessity of dying as preparation for natural renewal. The two remaining strands of autumnal imagery are devoted to the meaning of autumn for man-first, harvest and physical preparations for winter, and then the metaphysical significance of autumn for man, the prospect of death with or without hope for renewal.

The detailed imagery of autumn is most striking and specific

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in the opening stanzas. As the metaphysical overtones increase, the concrete images gradually decrease and fade out altogether in stanza 8. When the specific aspects of nature reappear in the imagery of the closing stanza, they are so thoroughly loaded with metaphysical weight that they have become an alloy of both physical and metaphysical significance.

Upon first reading, stanzas 1-5 of ''Autumn'' seem to be closely akin to apure nature lyrie. The description of autumn's sparkling chill, brilliantly colored trees, harvest activities, and the anticipation of the coming winter a11 mirror the essentially descriptive approach used in poems like Tiutchev's "At the very beginning of autumn there is" (Est' v oseni pervonachal'noi, 1857). But when the section is read again with the remaining parts of the poem in mind, a certain foreshadowing of the poem's dominant metaphysical statement becomes apparent.

In the opening stanza, for example, a subtle form of personification suggests the larger meaning. Personification of nature is, of course, a device especially common in sentimental poetry, and "Autumn" draws heavily on the sentimental tradition!O But Boratynskii's use of the device is not typically sentimental because it leads to a revelation that is primarily metaphysical rather than primarily emotional. The word nevernyi (untrue, unfaithful, false) in line 4 brings the first suggestion of a human presence, for it is applied more commonly to human moral benavior than to colors. Accordingly, it here not only conveys the idea that the golden color of the sun's rays reflected on the pond will prove "false" and become dull with the coming winter, but also hints at the issue of faith (vera) that lies at the heart of the poem. The persona, and especially the aspect of the persona that acts as the object of the meditation, is portroyed as somehow "unfaithful" to nature and human destiny because his life differs so greatly from that of the rather stereotypical "happy peasant" depicted in stanzas 4 and 5. And even though Boratynskii avoids treating faith as a religious issue, the philosophical problem of finding something to believe in motivates the metaphysical search that constitutes the poem's essence.

It is hardly surprising, then, that two more words based on the root ver- (faith, belief) occur in the part of the poem most directly concerned with the metaphysical questions of existence:

91 90 NATURE

Iegkoverie (gullibility; etymologically, "easy-believing"), in stanza 8, line 2, denotes a mistaken approach taken by the young; and the gerund doverias' (putting faith in, coming to trust) in stanza 12, line 6, relates to the possibility of putting faith in idealistic philosophy, again an approach that in the poem is ultimately regarded as futile. This is, in fact, Boratynskii's most resounding rejection of Schelling's philosophy, but the very vehemence of the rejection suggests that the initial attraction must have been great indeed.

The next words to give a hint of imminent metaphysical concerns are the adjectives sedaia (gray) and kudriavaia (curly), which are used most often to describe the hair of human beings. Therefore, in addition to describing the color of the mist and the quality of the oak leaves in the descriptive first stanza, they also subtly introduce the human element and, through the implications of "graying," the theme of time and aging that will eventually come to dominate the poem. Indeed, both adjectives imply the existence of hair on one's head (or, used figuratively, the existence of grass, leaves, or other growth in the fields or on trees), and balance the figurative use of Iysiny (bald patches) to describe the winter fields in the concluding stanza.

The adjective bezmolven (speechless) in the last line of the stanza both reinforces the sense of a human presence and opens the way for the theme of communication, or more precisely, the impossibility of communication, that informs much of Boratynskii's work, including "Autumn." In its assumption of the possibility of speech (rooted in the verb molvit': to speak) and hence humanness, bezmolven contrasts with the neighboring words denoting silence, umolkli (fe11 silent) and bezzvuchnyi (soundless), which can refer to any kind of noise and do not necessarily carry the implication of human speech. Again one sees a certain tendency toward balanced imagery, as the forest that "lifts its noisy voice" (les pod"emlet govor shumnyi) in stanza 14 acts as a counterweight for the "speechless" forest here.

More important, however, are the portrayals of the problems of human communication that these words and phrases foreshadow: the description in stanza 9 of the "cry of indignation" and "wail of intense anguish," which, rather than eliciting sympathy and comfort from others, would only destroy the human-

NATURE

ity of youth; the rejection of idealist philosophy in stanza 13 on the grounds that it is impossible to "transmit your innermost essence to earthly sound"; the assertion in stanza 14 of the impossibility of evoking a response to "that word that has transcended the earthly passions"; and fina11y, the description in stanza 15 of the earth's ignorance of the wail of the fa11ing star, which, as a genera11y accepted a11usion to Pushkin's death,41 offers an even more poignant statement than Lermontov's burst of poetic outrage on the same occasion, "The Death of the Poet" (Smert' poeta, 1837)' Though nature's "speech" and silence are a11 a part of the natural order of things, the inability of the Boratynskii-like aspect of the persona to communicate with the world around him is nothing short of tragic.

Returning to the second stanza, we find that the sentimentalist personification of nature has disappeared for a time and the nature lyric is now enriched with an element of classicism by the allegorical mention of Aeolus, god of the wind. Another new dimension is added to the poem's symbolic use of language with the phrase vecher goda (the evening of the year, i.e., autumn) in the opening lineo The combining of parts of the day with seasons of the year further emphasizes the theme of time and hints at the complex interrelationships of various kinds of time (real, metaphysical, subjective, objective) that the poem considers. Once again the repetition of a device creates a sense of equilibrium, as the phrase vecher goda is balanced in stanza 6 by a similarly constructed phrase, osen' dnei (the autumn of your days), meaning "toward the end of your life."

In the third stanza, the persona bids farewell to various aspects of autumnal nature and introduces winter in association with an image of death and destruction-a woodcutter with a scythe. This gloomy premonition brings the section of the poem that deals primarily with nature to a close, and at the same time foreshadows the pessimistic and foreboding conclusion: "Thus is the world that stands before you from now on, but for you there is no coming harvest in it!" (Pered toboi takov otnyne svet, / No v nem tebe griadushchei zhatvy netI).

Stanzas 4 and 5 add a new element to the poem's spectrum of themes-an overtly human element embodied in the peasant representing "natural man." As the continuing list of autumnal

93 NATURE92

imagery (now too long to discuss in detail) takes on the form of harvest imagery, it becomes elear that this man lives in harmony with nature and is weH paid for his good labors. A turn to biblical diction underscores the beneficent quality of the relationship: he does not fear winter, but invites it to come because he has stored up much good, or many blessings (mnogo blaga), and lives without worry on the blessed fruit of his labors (svoikh trudov blagoslovennyi plod). The word plod (fruit, reward) coneludes the introductory section (stanzas 1-5) and offers a marked contrast to the image of destruction that appeared briefly in the third stanza and the imagery of barrenness that dominates the remaining portion of the poem.

The next two stanzas llove the poem deeper into the human sphere. The narrator suddenly turns and addresses a second person, the second half of the split persona, whose life and mind become the focal point of the next section of the poem. The identity of the second person is never explicitly revealed, but the narrator's opening form of address-A ty (And you)teHs us certain things about him.

First, the conjunction a (with a meaning somewhere between "but" and "and" in English) suggests that sorne form of contrast is involved and makes it elear that the second person cannot be identified with the happy peasant in the previous section. In addition, the familiar pranoun ty indicates a certain intimacy between the narrator and the second persono AH this helps one to deduce that the person addressed differs from the peasant because he is a "civilized man," the sort of man represented by Boratynskii himself and by the narrator, of whom he is a partíal manifestation.

Although the poem now centers araund the workings of the mind of a "civilized man," the images of autumn do not disappear fram the poem immediately. The narrator speaks to the new figure about "the autumn of [hisl days," when he must "harvest" what he has "sown" and prepare for the coming "winter" of death. Virtually aH the harvest imagery first associated with the peasant reappears here, but now its significance is almost purely metaphoric, whereas before the imagery had both real and symbolic implications. This "harvest" turns out to be a bitter one:

NATURE

YBN! K MeqTaw., CTpaCTHM, Tpy~aM MRpCKRM T060rr CKOnEeHHNe npe 3peHhE

H3BHTeEhHNll, HeoTpa3HMNll CTN~ nyrnH TBoerr 06MaHoB H o6u~~

Alas! In addition to dreams, passions, and earthly labors, you have stored up scorn and the biting, irrefutable shame of the deceptions and insults of your soul!

Afier the symbolic mention of "day" again in the first line of stanza 8- Tvoi den' vzoshel (Your day has come)-the autumnal imagery that earlier dominated the poem fades away into nothing. Nature imagery reappears in the three final stanzas, but only in a tenuous, highly symbolic fashion. In stanza 14, the imag of a hurricane acts as part of asimile for the mindless actions

eof the crowd. Stanza 15 revolves around the enigmatic "fable" of the faHing star associated with pushkin's death. The elosing stanza brings back very specific autumn and winter imagery:

3UMa H~eT, u TO~aH 3eMEft B WHpOKHX EllCHHax 6eCCHEhfl,

M pa~ocTHJ 6~RCTaBrnRe rrOEfl 3EaTllMH KEacaMu 06HEhH,

Co cMepTID ~H3Hh, 60raTc~BO C HH~eTD~ Bce 06pa3ll rO~HHll 6llBweil

CpaBHHIDTcH rrD~ cHe~Holl rreEeHoll, O~Ho06pa3Ho HX rroKpllBrnert,

rrepe~ T060ll TaKoB OTHllHe cBeT, Ho B HeM Te6e rpfl~ymell ~aTBll HeT!

Winter is coming, and the emaciated earth with its wide bald patches of impotence, and fields that once glittered joyfully with golden shocks of abundance, with death-life, wealth with poverty-all images of the past year are leveled under a shroud of snow that covers thema11 alike-thus is the world that stands before you from now on, but for you there is no coming harvest in it!

But the unmistakable metaphysical significance inherited fram aH that has gone before is now underlined by the coneluding couplet, and virtually every word of the stanza carries a dole of metaphysical import larger than its realistic denotation.

In "Autumn" the reality of nature bows to the greater reality of metaphysical thought because the narrator, like the aspect of the persona who is the object of the meditation (and like Boratynskii himseIf), cannot rid himself of the tendency to inteHectualize aH that he sees around him. In this sense, the persona of "Autumn"

94 NATURE

faces the same prablem confronted by the persona of "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" In both cases, a painful form of consciousness that seems to have been given by fate excludes the persona fram the realm of those who can calmly accept fate and work in harmony with nature. In fact, the personae are So engrassed in their own human plight that they cannot possibly view nature as anything but an external, alien force.

The attribution of man's separation fram nature to excessive ratiocination parallels Schelling's assertion that pure intellectual reflection is a sickness that sunders man fram the world that surraunds him.

42 But the absence of a sense of nature as a living

organism and the absolute denial in these poems of the possibility of a harmonious relationship between a thinking man and nature contradicts the inherent optimism of Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, which posits a common essence for aH phenomena of the universe and counts higher philosophical consciousness as one of the forces that can unite man with nature.

Thus the traces of Schelling's philosophy in Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's metaphysical nature poetry range fram the traces of the German text in Tiutchev's "Nature is not what you think," thraugh the reflection of ScheHingian ideas in poems like Boratynskii's "Omens" and Tiutchev's "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea," to a virtual rejection of the most basic precepts of the Philosophy of Identity in Boratynskii's "Autumn." Within this smaIl graup of poems, the poets do show their differences. But with these differences, they nevertheless treat a number of the same themes-nature as a living organism, nature as the Absolute, the problem of man's separation fram nature-and they incorpora te these themes in their poetry in a way that brings them closer together than any other two major poets of their time.

. 3 .

THE POET AND POETRY

Romantic Images of the Poet

Perhaps the most important difference between classicism and ramanticism was the transformation of the concepts of art and artist. The artist became something more than a craftsman trying to achieve mimetic representation of a perfectly ordered universe. Nature now endowed him with inspiration, making him a genius whose goal was to express himself and his relationship with the universe through his arto He no longer acted as a mirror, dutifuIly and accurately reflecting its surraundings, but functioned rather as a lamp that cast its own light on everything it made visible.' Romantic art, therefore, often served as an expression of individualistic existential and metaphysical questions, rather than as a reflection of the didactic and moralistic concerns-based on "laws" of reason and nature-that inspired much of classicist literature.

As .mi~ht be expected, Schel~ing's philosophy mad~ a major 1 contnbutlOn to the new ramanhc cult of art and the arhst. In ac- 1 cordance with the pantheistic strain in his Philosophy of Iden- t tity, Schelling maintained that artistic creation must depict the divinity of the All, the divine idea that every existing thing nurtures within it. 2 Thus art reunites the real ("every existing thing") and the ideal ("the divine idea") and so functions as the vital link between the two basic aspects of the universe.

In nature one sees the real and the ideal united, but united only before the separation caused by philosophical consciousness. The reunification achieved through art after separation is,

.~

· 4 .

MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

Concepts of Night, Death, and Mystic EXperien~J Virtually every age in human learning has been marked by

sorne kind of mysticism. Although mystic belief may take many different forms, it typically rests on two basic precepts: communication between the individual and a greater spiritual reality, and the existence of a common spiritual ground for aH beings, living or dead, occasionally including inanimate objects as well. Plato's realm of ideal forms, for instance, contains the essence of everything that exists, as does the One posited by the thirdcentury Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. Variations of these concepts also inform the thought of later Christian mystics like Saint Augustine and Jacob Bóhme, and the views of the mystic thinkers of the romantic period, including Schelling.

In accordance with these precepts, when communication with the greater spiritual reality takes place, physical reality diminishes in importance to the degree that it may totally disappear from the individual's consciousness. And because of the predominantly spiritual nature of the experience, writers often describe mystic events in terms of darkness that obliterates the physical world. The darkness of night, the underworlch._~~'l.g~S.s.,.. or a cave shifts the focus of existence away from the immediate, visible realities of everyday life to the invisible, intangible realm of greater spiritual truth.

Death, too, provides a metaphor for mystic experience, for it signals the end of earthly physical existence. The physical body "t' may decay and eventually disappear, but, according to mystic ~ thought, the spirit continues to existo An individual may even :1J

~it

t ,:J~ ,1 ,\

jil

MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS 147

sense a kind of death as part of the mystic experience as the seeming disappearance of the surrounding physical world leads to a sense of obliteration of the physical self. But even more deathlike is the possible obliteration of spiritual individualitythe spiritual essence that normally keeps the individual separate from the common pool of all spiritual existence. Such mystic transport, with its link to death, may prove a blessed relief from the cares of the tangible world. Yet at the same time, its inherent threat to individual existence and its revelation of a spiritual reality of primeval chaotic forces can also arouse unspeakable terror.

The various interlinked ideas associated with mystic experience evoke a vision that can be called "apocalyptic," both in terms of an astounding revelation of a greater truth and in terms of the terror at the sense of physical and spiritual destruction that this revelation can bring. When taken on a large scale, this vision presents the Apocalypse; when taken on a smaller scale, it represents the apocalyptic experience of the individual soul.

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, German romanticism began to focus ever more intently on the apocalyptic experience. The early German romantics had lived in a world of genuine "romance": "in the twilit world of magical things, in the mysterious web of nature, in a dreamlike web of enthusiasm filled with fairy tales and miracles ... They gave themselves over to the living cosmos with its gentle growth and its continuing process of self-revelation." 1 j "0'

The later romantics (often the same figures at a later stage of . 0'. development) expressed the same belief in a living universe in- . habited by supernatural forces and the same precepts of eternal change and continuing evolution. But the ideas of darkness, death, and mystic transport, which had been of only peripheral significance before, now became a central concern, and the struggle between terror and ecstasy arising from the apocalyptic experience became one of the major themes in late romantic literature.

Schelling himself provides a prime example of the German romantics' turn from light to darkness. He offered the following explanation of his own development in conjunction with the publication of his Inquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom: "In

148 MYSTIC TRANSfOR MATIONS

my previous works-those written boefore 1809-perhaps 1 emphasized the daylight side of existenc e too much, since the other side was already known Now, f()r the first time 1 have emphasized the night element 1 may have painted things too darkly in a few places, but every reasonable person can temper this aspect for himself." 2 As the Gel"man romantics turned toward this night element, they also became interested in religious mysticism of various sorts and engrossed in the contemplation of the irrational side of existence. Al! this was part of the German inheritance passed on to Russian romanticismo

Since Russian romanticism-was suéh a~ma'fkealy heterogeneous phenomenon, the themes of night, death, and mystic transport, like the theme of nature, received various treatments in the hands of Russian authors. Pushkin, for instance, again shows himself as a figure who simultaneously dominated his epoch and was curiously out of step with SOrne of its important literary and intellectual developments. His poems "A Winter Night" (Zimnii vecher, 1825) and "What a night! The crackling frost" (Kakaia noch'! Moroz treskuchii, 1827) employ the settings of evening and night but do not approach the romantic themes of death and mystic transport at all. Like his well-known poem "Autumn" (Osen', 1833), these works offer the reader far more information about the buoyant spirits of the narrator than about the natural phenomena named in the titles or any metaphysical associations these phenomena may have.

As a very young poet, however, Pushkin did contribute to the visionary, if not thoroughly mystical, strain of Russian poetry in a poem called "Tb,g .!2l:~er" (MechtateI', 1815). In both tone and subject matter, this poem is related to the works of the English Graveyard Poets, in which a narrator of heightened sensibility typically comes upon a natural scene (often a graveyard at twilight) and is prompted to reflect on death and the meaning of life here and in the world beyond. Originally, such poems had a distinctly religious basis that related them to the English metaphysical poetry of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But as the tradition evolved it becarne less directly concerned with questions of damnation and salvation and concentrated more and more on the general metaphysical significance of death.


In Russia, Zhukovskii's translation of Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard" (Sel'skoe kladbishche, 1802) offers one of the most obvious examples of this approach to the combined themes of death and night. And in a later poem whose title comes'from the name of a river, "Slavianka" (SIavianka, 1815), Zhukovskii adds the mystic element as his narrator ruminates on the landscape, comes across an old mausoleum, and is suddenly visitéd by a vision that lets him see the life beyond.

The young Pushkin's poem "The Dreamer" is, in fact, very reminiscent of Zhukovskii's work.3 Pushkin begins with the description of a typically peaceful evening landscape:

ITo He6y Kpa~eTCff ~YHa,

Ha XO~Me ThMa ce~eeT,

Ha BO~N TIa~a THIDHHa, e ~O~HHH BeTep BeeT,

MO~qHT TIeBH~a BernHHX ~Hetl B TIycTNHe TeMHorr POrnH,

CTa~a TIOqHITH cpe~h rro~etl, H THX TIO~eT TIOITHOrnH.

The moon steals acrosS the sky, darkness wraps the hill in gray, silence has fallen upon the waters, the wind wafts in from the valley, the singer of vernal days is silent in the wilderness of the dark grove, the flocks rest amidst the fields, and the flight of midnight is calm and quieto

The poem then moves gradually into the mind of the young dreamer "lost in sweet thoughts upon his lonely couch," and concludes with his youthful contemplation of death:

H THX Morr 6y~eT rro3~HHtl qac;H CMepTH ~o6pNrr reHHrr

llierrHeT, Y ~BepH rrocTyqaCh: "ITopa B Jl(H~Hrne TeHeJi: •.

TaK B 3HMHHtl Beqep c~a~KHrr COH ITpHXO~HT B MHpHN ceHH,

BeHqaHHNrr MaKoM H CK~OHeH

Ha TIOCOX TOMHorr ITeHH ...

And my last hour will be calm and the kind genius of death will whisper, knocking at my door: "It is time to set out for the world of shades! , , ," And so one winter evening a sweet dream enters the peaceful passage, crowned with poppies and leaning on the crook of languorous indolence .. ,

During the waning years of the romantic period in Russia, Lermontov made use of a similar initial impulse, giving it a

150 MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS

/ strong Byronic twist in poems such as "1 go out onto the road t alone" (Vykhozhu odin ia na dorogu, 1841).4 Here the narrator

steps out into the beauty of the night and instead of becoming engrossed in the general metaphysical significance of the phe 'f· nomenon around him, he muses on his own personal spiritual disillusionment: Chto zhe mne tak bol'no i tak trudno?. / ... Uzh ne zhdu ot zhizni nichego ia, / J ne zhal' mne proshlogo ni chut' (Why is [everything] so painful and difficult for me? ... I no longer expect anything from life and I don't regret the past at all).

Lermontov also contributed to two other types of romantic poetry on death. One type reflects ~l))~f romantic egocentrismo No landscape or other particular setting is required as an impetus for inspiration. The persona is so engrossed in his own misanthropic discontent that he seeks death as an escape from the vexations of life in a world inhabited by other people who inevitably encroach on his private sphere. In Lermontov's "Death" (Smert', 1830-31), the persona says:

TIopa. YCTa~ H OT 3eMHNX 3aGoT.

TIycKafi MeHH oGxBaTllT ~e~Ntl a~,

TIYCTh Gy~y My~aThcH, H pa~, H pa~, XOTH 6H B~Boe rrpOTllB rrpom~NX ~Hefi, .'

IHo TO~hKO ~a~hme, ~a~hme OT ~ID~efi.

~ :.It's time. 1'm tired of earthly troubles.... Let the whole of ~:

hell surround me, let me be tormented; 1'11 be glad, 1'11 be glad _\;\1

even if it's twice as painful as the past, just so it's far, far away from people. 5

In addition, Lermontov gave Russian romantic poetry something closely akin to the Gothic horror story in his series of poems "Night 1," "Night 11," and "Night I1I" (Noch' J, Noch' II, Noch' III, 1830). In these poems, the elements of night, death, and sorne kind of grotesquely horrifying mystic transport are linked as the narrator tells a tale of encounter and escape from a personified Death and contemplates skeletons, graves, dungeons, and rotting corpses covered with insects.

In general, however, the thematic complex of night, death, flnd mystic transport was linked with German romanticism, and a significant number of Russian authors tended to handle the complex in a manner reminiscent of Schelling's philosophy or

I !


the works of German poets closely associated with Schelling. This meant that night, death, and mystic transport were seen as . phenomena related to a single spiritual realm, and that the meta- : physical significance of this relationship-not meditation on the ' poet's own personality or the allegorical meaning of a particular landscape-formed the crux of the work. All three aspects of the complex carried both positive and negative connotations. The oblivion they offered could provide a blessed relief from the vain cares of daily earthly life. But at the same time, the loss of the sense uf self and exposure to the dark, chaotic element of the universe could also create unbearable terror.

One of the best examples of the comforting aspect of the night appears in Zhukovskii's "Night" (Noch', 1823), notably in the concluding stanza:

COfi~H, o He6eCHaH, K HaM C Bo~me6HNM TBOHM rrOKpNBa~OM,

C ~e~eGHNM 3a6BeHhH ~lla~OM,

nafi MHpa YCTa~NM cep~~aM. CBOHM MllpOTBOpHNM HB~eHheM,

CBOHM YCNrrllTe~hHNM rreHheM TOMHMYID ~YlliY TOCKOfi, KaK MaTeph ~llTH, ycrroKofi.

Descend to us, O heavenly one, with your magical veil, with your healing vial of forgetfulness, give peace to tired hearts. With your calming appearance and your somnolent song, comfort the soul wearied by yearning as a mother comforts her child. 6

Pletnev moves further into mystic transport in a poem called "Night" (Noch', 1827):

BeCh Mllp ~ymH Moerr, C03~aHHe Me~TN, HcrrO~HeH B 3TOT Mllr HeGecHotl KpaCOTN: Ty~a B 3aGBeHHH HeCYCh, rrOKHHYB 3eM~ID,

H 3~eCh H He ~HBY, He Bll~y H He BHeM~ID.

The whole world of my soul, the creation of a dream, is full of heavenly beauty at this moment: having abandoned the earth, 1 betake myself in oblivion there, and here 1 neither live, nor see, nor harken. 7

Another branch of the same romantic complex focuses directly on the contrast between the superficial brightness of the day and the metaphysical depth of the night. In an article

153 152 MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

published in the Moscow Herald in 1827, V. Titov explains this juxtaposition:

Joy can be compared with day: it calls us to our personal affairs ... it forces us to forget ourselves in the variety of objects around uso But when all objects fall away in the darkness of night and the are of the starry heavens moves out over the blackness-like the eternal over the ruin of the temporal-then our soul, taking heart after the first sense of depression, populates the void with beings that are dear to it, scorns

, the transient works of day, and with proud belief in its own immortality breaks down all barriers of space and location."

This point of view is expressed in numerous poems: for instance, two poems entitled "Night" (Noch') by Shevyrev, one written in 1828, the other in 1829, and a poem by Khomiakov

.e' ,entitled '~~~i.'..LEle.gÚ.iL..I.§35)· It is, however, in the works of r ,::Tiutchev that the portrayal of the metaphysical reality of night \ " reaches its apogee in nineteenth-century Russian poetry.

Mystic Transport

Although Tiutchev did not perceive himself mainly as a poet, much less a mystic poet, the model of mystic transport occasionally proves to be useful in the analysis of his work. Five of his poems about night, in fact, fall rather neatly into a miniature cycle portra:ying tite various stages of consciousness that culminate in mystic transporto "How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden" (Kak sladko dremlet sad temnozelenyi, 1836) describes a growing awareness of the supernatural side of life, the beginnings of the "cosmic consciousness" that accompanies mystic transport; 9 "Gray blue"snaoüws·lnerged" (Teni sizye smesilis', 1836) portrays the soul's yearning to become one with the spir

, itual universe once it has achieved the awareness; "What are you ~¡:,I howling about, night wind?" (O chem ty voesh', vetr nochnoi?, {\' 1836) conveys the sense of anguish and fear that accompanies

the possibility of total surrender to the unknown forces at work both within the universe and within one's own soul, the final step toward liberation of the spirit; and "Day and Night" (Den' i noc!¡', 1839) and "H..oly night has risen into the firmament" (Sviataia noch' /la neboskTOii VzosTila, 1850) depict the final achievement of mystic transport and revelation, with the emphasis in


the earlier poem on its frightening aspect, and in the later on its blissful side.

"How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden" can be read as the interior Ill?~ologue of a persona who perceives the supernaturaHorées of night little by little, until he finally sumsup the essence of his awareness in the last words of the poem-v khaose nochnom (in the night chaos).

_~-.. "." .. , ..-.--.•..-KaK c~a~KO ~peM~eT ca~ TeMHo3e~eHH~, 06~flTHn HerOn HOqil ro~y6on,

CKB03b fl6nOHil, ~BeTaMil y6e~eHHOn, KaK c~a~KO CBeTilT MeCfl~ 30~OTOn~ ..

TailHCTBeHHO, KaK B nepBHn ~eHb C03~aHbfl,

B 6e3~OHHOM He6e 3Be3~HHn COHM ropilT, MY3HKil ~a~bHOn C~HmHH BOCK~il~aHbfl,

Coce~Hiln K~roq C~HmHee rOBopilT •..

Ha Milp ~HeBHOn cnycTil~acfl 3aBeca; M3HeMor~o ~Bil~eHbe, TPY~ YCHY~ ... Ha~ cnflmilM rpa~oM, KaK B BepmilHax neca, rrpOCHY~Cfl qY~HHn, e~eHOqHHn ry~ ...

OTKy~a OH, ce~ ry~ HenOCTil~ilMH~?.

M~b CMepTHHx ~YM, oCBo6o~~eHHHx CHOM, Milp 6eCTe~eCHHrr, C~HmHHn, HO He3pilMHIT, Tenepb POilTCfl B xaoce HOqHOM?.

How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden, embraced by the bliss of the light blue night; through the apple tree whitened with blossoms, how sweetly shines the golden moon! . , .

Mysteriously, as ún·the first day of g~ation, the starry host burns in the abyss-like sky; the cries of distant music are audible, the spring nearby speaks more audibly . , ,

A curtain has been lowered over the world of day; movement has weakened, labor has fallen asleep . . . Over the sleeping city, as in the tops of the forest, a miraculous nightly hum has awakened ...

Where does it come from, this inscrutable hum? Is it that a bodiless, audible but invisible world of mortal thoughts freed by sleep ritlW swarmi:;-¡ñ'fñeriight chaos? .':."" . oO- .

".,,~,-¡._~ .,..~"'-'

As the poem opens, the persona's state of consciousness is grounded firmly in the real world. He simply describes a scene

"1 that he finds aesthetically pleasing-the garden at night. The , first stanza conveys a particularly strong sense of concrete realI ity through its emphasis on visible things-the garden, theI ¡ apple tree and its blossoms, and the moon. Moreover, the series

,i1:~

155 MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS154

of color adjectives underscores the poem's basis in the immediately perceptible world by naming the objects' specific, visible attributes-the garden is dark green, the apple tree is white, and the moon is golden. Even the bliss of the night, the only figurative element in the stanza, becomes objectified to the point that it can be described in terms of a specific color-light blue.

In the second stanza, the poem takes on symbolic as well as literal meaning. The burning host of stars and the sounds of distant music and the spring may be real elements of the garden setting. But at the same time, the persona hears the music as "cries" or "exclamations" (vosklitsaniia) and maintains that the spring "speaks" (govorit), thus displaying sensibilities heightened beyond the standard perception of reality. He hears the sounds of nature as message-Iaden speech. The tone established by the first word of the stanza, tainstvenno (mysteriously) and the buzzing noise created by alliteration on the consonant sound pairs n/m, Ud, and s/z reinforce the growing sense of mystery.

The third stanza brings the persona to the very threshold of the spiritual realm. Labor (trud), the symbol of the busy world of day, has fallen asleep (usnul), while a miraculous nightly hum (chudnyi, ezhenoclmyi gul) symbolizing night has awakened (prosnulsia). The curtain of night has fallen. The persona turns away from the externa\, tangible, and visible reality that dominated

,1 the opening of the poem and begins to focus on the spiritual world that is both within him and all around him. The strand of sound imagery that began in the preceding stanza now comes to the fore in the image of the miraculous nightly hum that seems to embody all the supernatural forces of night. Assonance on u, especially in combination with the Iiquid 1, mimics the eerie sound of the hum: Trud usnul ... prosnulsia chudnyi ezhenochnyi gul.

In the final stanza, the persona recognizes the hum as an indication of the presence of a whole supernatural world. The existence of this world is emphasized by the unexpected stress on the first syllable of an iambic line, the word mir (world) in line 15. But in keeping with the typical ineffability of mystic experience, the persona can only describe this world in terms of

/') \.. what it is not. 1O The world of the night chaos is not only inscru...,.' V¡ table (nepostizhimyi) but also bodiless (bestelesnyi) and invisible

MYSTlC TRANSFORMATIONS

(nezrimyi). The series of adjectives emphasizing~tangibilitythus balances the concrete associations of the color adjectives in the first stanza. Reinforcing the same point, the rhymes also draw attention to the mysterious, supernatural quality: nepostizhimyinezrimyi (inscrutable-invisible), snom-khaose nochnom (sleep-night chaos). The bodiless, audible, but invisible world that hovers fn tñeñight chaos is so inscrutable that the persona does not try to describe it further. Once the persona has recognized the night chaos, the poem simply stops.

The stages of the persona's growing awareness of the supernatural are reflected by changes in the style of narration as well as by the contento At the outset, the persona is a typical sentimental figure, exclaiming rapturously over the beauty of the garden at night. In the second and third stanzas, as he begins to perceive a mysterious greater force at work, he becomes more subdued and elaborates on the scene by means of unemphatic indicative statements. At the end of the poem, his sense of awe of the supernatural world is so great and his doubt at his own perception of its inscrutable hum is so strong that he can only express his new awareness in the form of timid questions quite different in tone from the confident exclamations that open the

poem. Though the persona of the poem fails to realize the meta

physical significance of the forces that he is dealing with until the end of the poem, a reader attuned to the patterns of Tiutchev's imagery could probably predict the outcome by recognizing clusters of images used earlier in "A Vision" and "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere." The image of the garden embraced by the bliss of night parallels the motif of embracing in the latter poem, and the nighttime setting parallels the setting of both poems, especially the "certain hour, in the night ... of apparitions and miracles" in "A Vision."

In addition, one finds a recurrence of the imagery of sleep and dreams, which plays a decisive role in the earlier poems as the

I dreams of the Muse and the metaphysical force that embraces earthly life. Here the strain of sleep imagery begins in the first line with the word dremlet (slumbers), continues through the third stanza with usnul (fell asleep) and spiashchii grad (sleepingI city), and finally shows the real metªphysical p.o.w.eJ...oLmg~aÜIl

156 MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS

the culminating image of the poem-mir smertnykh dum, osvobozhdennykh snom (a world of mortal thoughts freed by sleep).

In the second stanza, the passing reference to the first day of creation reinforced by the archaic tone of the words sonm (host) and muzyka (instead of múzyka; music) suggests the chaos-based c~nies.ot.H~~jQd.ªnd._Ovid associated witfi-Thecntrer poems. And the image of the host of stars mysteriously burning in an abyss-like sky (tainstvenno ... v bezdonnom nebe zvezdnyi sonm gorit) is especial1y reminiscent of the final stanza of "As the ocean embraces the earthly sphere," in which the heavenly vault burning with starry glory (goriashchii slavoi zvezdnoi) creates a flaming abyss (pylaiushchaia bezdna), and mysteriously (tainstvenno) glances down on the persona.

The third and fourth lines of the stanza begin a chain of significant sound imagery that is linked both to the universal silence in "A Vision" and to the voice of the Element in "As the ocean embraces." Occurring just after mention of the host of stars, the distant music that becomes audible easily takes on the connotation of the music of the spheres, and the spring that speaks more audibly becomes the fountainhead of inspiration. ll

But more important than the figurative cliché for inspiration is the fact that these images introduce auditory sensation, which comes to symbolize the whole supernatural side of existence. In the third stanza, the sound imagery becomes the miraculous nightly hum, and in the fourth stanza it is linked with the bodiless, audible (slyshnyi) world of the night chaos, a world prefigured by the repetition of forms of the word slyshnyi (audible) in the second stanza. [2

The final revelation of the bodiless, audible, but invisible world of mortal thoughts freed by sleep that swarms in the ,:night chaos is real1y nothing more than the explicit articulation of elements that have been present in the poem al1 along. As in

"A Vision" and "~~~.Q\;[email protected]~ tl¿.~..~~Etb}y"~eb~.!e," the " imagery of night, sleep, embracing, possible mythorogical allu:~ :,sions, and significant sound imagery al1 combine to convey an ji¡ experience of spiritual epiphany. Once again Tiutchev has por-

l trayed an ever present chaotic element that surrounds rational life and is the real basis of the universe, whether man knows it or noto "How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden" portrays

1


a change in the persona's state of awareness, his growing intuitive grasp of the supernatural side of existence, but suggests no change at all in the overall order of the universe.

The poem "Gray blue shadows merged" (Teni sizye smesilis',

1836) describes the soul's conscious yearning to merge with the metaphysical universe, the_.~oEI~L?f.th~,D!&hLch~~s inadvertently discovered by the pérsona in the previous poerri':

TeHH CH3ille CMeCH~HCb,

UBeT rroó~eKHY~, 3BYK YCHY~ ~H3Hb, ~BH.eHbe pa3pernH~HCb

B CYMpaK 3illÓKHA, B ~a~bHHA ry~ ... MOTü~bKa rro~eT He3pHMüA C~illrneH B B03~yxe HO~HOM ... 4ac TOCKH HeBüpa3HMoA! .. Bc~ BO MHe, H H BO BceM! ..

CYMpaK THXHA, CYMpaK COHHüA, ]eACH B r~yób MoeA ~YDH, ~HXHA, TOMHillA, ó~arOBOHHürt, Bce 3a~eA H YTHWH. 4YBCTBa - Mr~oA Caw,03aóBeHbH rreperro~HH ~epe3 KpaA! .. ~aA BKYCHTb YHH~To.eHbH,

C MHpOM ~peM~ID~Hw, CM8waA!

Gray blue shadows merged, color faded away, sound fell asleep-life and motion dissolved into the tremulous twilight, into a distant hum ... The invisible flight of a moth is heard in the night air ... Hour of inexpressible yearning! ... All is in me and 1 am in all! ... , Quiet twilight, sleepy twilight, pour yourself into the depths

i of my soul; quiet, languid, and fragrant-wash over and quiet everything. Fill my feelings to overflowing with the mist of oblivion! ... Let me taste annihilation, merge me with the slumbering world!

.~

The first stanza offers a compressed version of the whole experience portrayed in "How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden." Indeed, the two opening lines accomplish the total obliteration of the visible world by means of the same poetic process that covers three stanzas in the other poem. And again a specific color reference-here, sizye (gray blue)-gives way to the disappearance of all imagery of visible things.

Here, too, dvizhen'e (motion) symbolizes the busy world of day, which weakens or falls asleep with the coming of night, and imagery of sleep, night, and significant sound lead to a higher

mailto:Q\;[email protected]

l'

158 MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

state of consciousness. The rhyme of gul-usnul (hum-fell asleep) is underlined by marked assonance on u in both poems. In the previous poem, the assonance comes mainly in the phrases Trud usnul ... Prosnulsia ehudnyi ezhenoehnyi gul, while in "Gray blue shadows merged" the u sound is virtually omnipresent. Twentyfive percent (fifteen out of sixty) of the strong vowels in the poem are u's.'

In both poems the adjective dal'nii modifies sound words (muzyka dal'naia; dal'nii gul). This distancing enhances the aura of twilit vagueness and also provides a means for introducing the all-important strain of significant sound imagery in a relatively inconspicuous manner. In "Gray blue shadows merged" the sound of the day world actually falls asleep (zvuk usnul), and sound imagery then reappears as the distant hum of the night world.

The synesthetic juxtaposition of audibility and invisibility occurring in the image of the invisible but audible flight of the moth (motyl'ka polet nezrimyi slyshen ... ) in "Gray blue shadows merged" and in the image of the world of the night chaos in "How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden" further contributes to the sense of eerie mystery. In addition, the adjectives nezrimyi (invisible) and noehnoi (night-) occur in both poems in rhyming positions. Nezrimyi and nevyrazimyi (inexpressible) also echo the series of negative adjectives found in the last stanza of "How sweetly slumbers," and in both cases the adjectives relate to the ineffable nature of the persona's experience with the supernatural forces.

The striking correspondence between the two poems and the fact that they were written at roughly the same time may indicate that Tiutchev wrote them as a miniature cyele. 13 Still, there is a very important difference between them. The persona in "How sweetly slumbers" is free of human self-consciousness and centers his attention on his growing awareness of the supernatural night forces. The persona in "Gray blue shadows merged," on the other hand, exhibits an awareness of the supernatural side of the universe from the outset, but also suffers from an acute sense of his own isolated human condition. The

• Unstressed u also counts as a strong vowel because the quality of sound does not vary with stress.

159MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

first six lines of the poem establish his awareness of the supernatural universe. In the seventh line, the word toska (yearning) introduces the idea of human consciousness and signifies a painful sense of separation even before the reader knows who is separated from what. The persona quickly reveals that he is the source of this human consciousness by the double occurrence of the first-person pronoun in the eighth line, and his anxious selfconsciousness dominates the rest of the poem. He yearns to merge with the slumbering world (mir dremliushehii), the world of dreams and other forces of chaos, because he is uncomfortably "awake," conscious of himself as an individual and therefore the victim of a tormenting sense of aloneness.

The striking line that coneludes the first stanza-Vse vo mne i ia vo vsem (All is in me and 1 am in all)-actually expresses a wish rather than the actual conditions within the poem. The line stands out because it consists solely of monosyllabic words and involves full realization of stress with stresses falling on the pronouns vse, vsem, ia, and mne, often unstressed in normal usage. In addition, each hemistich acts as a syntactic mirror image of the other:

vse vo mne i ia vo vsem

~~lJ The stresses on ia and mne, in particular, emphasize the fact that in sorne way the persona is still conscious of himself as a distinct being. This contrasts with the total absence of the pronoun in "How sweetly slumbers" and "A Vision," in which the persona is truly a part of the "all" because his whole existence centers around nature rather than around himself.

The series of second-person imperatives in the second stanza strengthens the notion of separation because the imperative automatically requires the existence of two separate parties-the "1" who gives the order, and the "you" who receives it. Furthermore, the goal sought by means of the imperative that coneludes the poem, smeshai, is merging, an act that again implies the existence of two distinct entities at the outset.

In spite of his assertion that "all is in me and 1 am in all," the persona devotes the whole secondstañzcr-tn"ai'ca:Uempt fo attain just this state of unity. The opening of the stanza takes on the air

1111'i

'11I

'·1 I

' 11 1

11

.. '

dti

.1 i l'

,1

11 1i.ll~

'¡i I i

,!I~I

1~lil


of an incantation as the persona addresses the twilight directly and tries to charm it with the use of rhythmic and aIliterative language. The first line establishes the rhythm, combining fuIl realization of stress with coincidence of word and foot boundary, and contains aIliteration on s and m/n (sumrak ... sumrak sonnyi). The one disparate sound element in the line, the word tikJzii, then becomes the basis of aIliteration in the third line (tikhii, tomnyi), and the play on m and n is continued in the internal near-rhyme of tomnyi and blagovonnyi, the latter rhyming with sonnyi in the first line. The persona's repetition of the word tikhii (quiet, silent; peaceful) and the related verb form utishi (quiet, calm) show the intensity of his wish for peace, and the rhyming of dushi (soul) and utisJzi (calm) emphasizes the internal nature of the problem.

In its references to the obliteration of feelings (chuvstva) through oblivion (samozabven'e), and to annihilation (unichtozhen'e), the poem recaIls "Spring," in which the human figure suffers from the deception of feelings (obman chuvstv) and must annihilate his feelings and his whole personallife through a figurative drowning in arder to participate in the universal-godly life of nature. Here, then, far from being threatening, annihilation must be understood as a positive occurrence, as attainment of unity between man and nature, the dissolution of the personal in the general. Utilizing ScheIlingian terms, one can see that the poles of self-wilI and universal wilI are in conflict once again as the persona seeks to destroy his self-consciousness in arder to become one with the universe around him. ]4

The next poem of the series, "What are you howling about, . night wind?" (O chem ty voesh', vetr nochnoi?, 18}6), takes the per)sona to the very"threshold of the mystic experience of merging

i 1with the supernatu""ratrrrtrverse. But rather than slipping into the " 'blissful "annihilation" envisioned by the persona of "Gray blue

shadows merged," he discovers that in liberating his spirit he opens himself to a complex worId, one that is frightening yet cherished, a worId that exists both outside him and within the very depths of his soul.

l' ,~)

! o qeM TW BoeWb, BeTp HOqHOA? o qeM TaK ceTyewb 6e3YMHo?. qTO 3HaqMT CTpaHHuA ronoc TBOA,

~.' ~'t ~., To rnyxo .ano6HwA, TO WYMHO?

161MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS

ITOHHTHWM cep~~y H3WKOM TBep~M8b o HenOHHTHoA MYKe B pOeWb II B3pWBaeWb B HeM ITopoA HeHCTOBwe 3BYKH: ..

0, CTpaWHUX neceH CHX He noA ITpo ~peBHllA xaoc, rrpo PO~HMUA: KaK .a~HO Mllp ~YWll HOqHOA BHllMaeT rrOBecTH nffi6HMoA: H3 cMepTHoA pBeTCH OH rpy~H, OH C 6ecrrpe~enbHillM .a.~eT cnllTbCH~.

O, 6YPb 3aCHYBWHX He 6Y~H rro~ HMMH xaoc weBenHTCH: ..

What are you howling about, night wind? What are you lamenting so madly? What does your strange voice mean, sometimes hollowly plaintive, sometimes loud? In a language comprehensible to the heart you speak of incomprehensible torment, and you burrow and sometimes set off furious sounds in it! . . .

O, do not sing those terrifying songs of ancient chaos, of native chaos! How avidly the world of the night soul harkens to its favorite tale! It longs to burst out of the mortal breast, it thirsts to merge with the infinite! ... O do not waken sleeping tempests-beneath them chaos stirs! ...

The imagery along with a number of other characteristics here echoes many of the images and themes in Tiutchev's other poems on the experiences of creativity and mystic transport: the imagery of night-vetr nochnoi (night wind), mir dushi nochnoi (the worId of the ni.&ht__s9~l);Jhe imagery-üfSTeep-bur' zasnuvshYkn-(sréepíri·i··te::rn.pe~tp); significant sound imagery-voesh'

,'~ !" /',,:' ,J,(howl, wail); strannyi golos (strange voice), shumno (loudly), nelstovyii"zvuki (furious souI}ds),' stráshnykh pesen (t~I.ibl~. softgs); imagery and other elements suggesting a mythological aurathe supernatural aspect of "the worId of the night soul" and the double reference to chaos, especiaIly the "ancient chaos," which suggests the chaos-based cosmogonies of Hesiod and Ovid; and finaIly, the denial of the importance of individual human consciousness that is implied by the total absence of first-person pronouns.

But whereas the personae of the other poems regard chaos or the spiritual universe revealed in mystic transport primarily in terms of external phenomena, the persona of "What are you howling about, night wind?" recognizes his own internal relation to the same forces, and this makes his experience aIl the


more complexo At the beginning of the poem, the persona takes a slightly detached position and wonders about the meaning of the wind's howling (O chem ty voesh' ... ?). In lines 5-8 he begins to indicate a closer relationship with the night wind, for he answers his own questions, showing that he now grasps the meaning of its wailing. Yet it is not his mind that understands the wind, for the wind howls in a language comprehensible to the heart (poniatnym serdtsu iazykom) about torments that are, in terms of general rational perceptions, incomprehensible (o neponiatnoi muke). By understanding the wind with his heart rather than with his mind, the persona associates himself with the irrational world of the night wind and chaos, whose characteristics are emphasized by the use of the root sense of the word bezumno (without reason, irrationally) in addition to the usual sense of "madly," "dreadfully," or "furiously."

Once the bond of intuitive understanding is established, the persona no longer refers to the sound of the night wind as "howling," which can convey only a vague, very general meaning. He speaks of it rather as songs (pesni) and then as a tale (povest'), both of which emphasize the concept of meaning or contento In fact, the wind's meaning becomes so clear that the persona recognizes both the topic of the songs-chaos-and the qualities attributed to it-it is ancient (drevnii) and kindred, native, or dear (rodimyi).

The appearance of the word rodimyi makes the closeness of the persona's ties to chaos explicito The word is then emphasized by repetition of the preposition pro, which separates the adjective from the rest of the phrase and puts it into a strong rhyming position, rather than leaving it buried in the middle of the phrase as it would ordinarily appear, pro drevnii i rodimyi khaos (about ancient and native chaos). Rodimyi, based on the root rod (race, clan), expresses the notion of a common heritage. Tiutchev emphasizes this historical connotation by coupling rodimyi with the adjective drevnii (ancient) and using both to modify khaos, thus recalling the ancient and fertile chaos portrayed by Ovid and Hesiod that is the native source of the universe. By using the word rodimyi, the persona in effect admits that chaos is his own native source as well as that of the night wind. At the same time, rodimyi may contain a strong sense of dearness, or


kinship in the sense of a warm, intimate relationship. The rhyming of rodimyi with liubimyi (favorite; beloved) strengthens this notion, giving the relationship between the persona and chaos certain positive overtones in addition to the simple notion of a connection "by blood."

But in spite of the innuendos of metaphysical and emotional kinship, a negative tone ultimately dominates the poem. The persona seems to be acting in terror when he begs the night wind not to sing its terrifying songs (strashnykh pesen . .. ne poi) and not to rouse the sleeping tempests that cover the forces of chaos (zasnuvshykh bur' ne budi, pod nimi khaos shevelitsia!). The crux of the relationship between Tiutchev's persona and chaos, and the reason for the persona's attempt to avert the spiritual surrender necessary for complete mystic transport, lies within the particular nature of the world of the night soul (mir dush~

nochnoi). This world, like the metaphysical world of Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, exists both as one of the forces of chao$ at loose in the universe at large, and as a force within the morta1J breast-that of the persona himself. When the night wind sing$ about chaos, the world of the night souilistens avidly (zhadno) t6 this, its favorite tale, and causes the persona to listen and wonder. Soon after the persona realizes that the wind is singing about chaos, he also realizes that the world of the night spirit longs to burst out of his mortal breast and thirsts (zhazhdit) to join the infinite and stormy realm of chaos. The repetition of words based on the root zhad-, zhazhd- shows the intensity of the desire. The apparent separation of the world of the night soul within the persona from its kindred forces of chaos explains the incomprehensible torment, the furious sounds, the terrifying nature of the wind's songs, and the dominance of the "stormy world" that so frightens the persona. The real basis of this terror is the possibility that the night soul may wrench itself from the persona's mortal breast in order to join the infinite, leaving him with only a painful void instead of a soul, or else dragging him along into the uncontrollable violence of the stormy world. Having journeyed to the brink of mystic transport and discovered the universal forces of chaos within himself, the persona be- \ comes desperately afraid of losing himself and seeks to avert the ' experience altogether.


Although the poem does not contain a particular set of lexical elements or a significant number of images that would indicate a direct relationship to Schelling's philosophy, the portrayal of the

! forces of chaos does parallel Schelling's treatment of the same theme. Schelling writes:

In the world as we now see it, aH is rule, order, and formo But the unruly element stilllies in the depths as though it could break out again. In no case do order and form appear to have been original phenomena; rather it appears that an original element of unruliness has been brought to order ... Without this preceding darkness, there would be no reality in creation; the force of darkness is our necessary inheritan~e.15

Like Tiutchev's chaos, Schelling's "unruly element" líes in the depths and threatens to break out into the world. It is associated with the distant past, yet maintains an ongoing relationship with the present as a form of basic metaphysical realíty. And like Tiutchev's persona, Schelling views this dark force as a frightening but omnipresent and necessary phenomenon in the universe, a phenomenon, moreover, that is part of man's own metaphysical essence. 16

In "Day and Night" (Dell' i noch', 1839) and "Holy night has risen into the firmament" (Sviataia noch' na nebosklon vzoshla,

:" 1850), the popular romantic juxtaposition of night and day leads Tiutchev's persona to confront the metaphysical realm of the night chaos directly. In "Holy night has risen into the firmament," the mystic experience results in bliss and positive revelation. "Day and Night," however, continues in the tenor established in "What are you howling about, night wind?" and the encounter results in a feeling of terror.

,llEHb H HOtIb

Ha Milp TailHcTBeHH~H ~YXOB,

Ha~ 3TOll 6e3~Hoü 6e3~MHHHOÜ,

ITOKpOB Ha6porneH 3naToTKaHH~H

B~COKOÜ BoneID 6oroB. ,lleHb - ceü 6nilcTaTenbH~ü rrOKpOB ,lleHb, 3eMHopo~H~X o~ilB~eHbe,

,llyrnil óonHrneü ilc~e~eHbe, ,llpyr qenaBeKOB il 6oroB!

Ha MepKHeT ~eHb - HacTa~a HO~b;

ITp~rn~a - il C Milpa pOKOBoro TKaHb 6~aro~aTHYID rrOKpOBa, CopBaB, oT6paC~BaeT rrpOqb ...

MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS 1 65

H 6e3~Ha HaM o6Ha~eHa

C CBOilMil cTpaxaMil il Mr~aMil,

11 HeT rrperpa~ Me~ eü il HaMil BOT oT~ero HaM HOqb cTparnHa!

DAY AND NIGHT

Upon the mysterious world of spirits, over the nameless abyss, a shroud of golden cloth has been cast by the 10ftYwill of the gods. Day is this glistening cover-day, the enlivening force of earthly beings, the healing power for the aching soul, the friend of men and gods.

But day darkens-night has fallen; it has come-and fram the fatal world it casts away, having tom off, the beneficent cloth of the shroud . . . And the abyss is laid bare to us with its horrors and vapors; and there are no barriers between it and us-that is why night is terrifying to uso

The poem rests on a double metaphor. On one level we find the images of day and night; on the next level these are transformed into the golden shroud and the abyss, respectively; and on the ultimate level, the whole complex comes to represent two opposing metaphysical principIes, one apparently positive and one apparently negative. The second half of the first stanza not only describes the various positive attributes of day and all that it symbolizes but also underlines the attributes through

l~

anaphora and alliteration. The negative connotations of the night, on the other hand, are

, suggested in the second line with the appearance of the "name

t¡ less abyss" (bezdna bezyrniannaia), the meaning of which is underscored by the repeated prefix bez- indicating lack or absence.

In the second stanza, which opens with the ominous sign of i,,';,:,;,:ll" contrast no (but), the frightening qualities of theñigñrbecome

tI manifest. Night tears off the superficial cover of day, the violence of its action mirrored by the tortuous syntax in lines 11-12

i'~ and sound play on the harsh consonant c!usters kr, rv, tbr, and

j: 9; pr: pokrova I Sorvav, otbrasyvaet proch'. The result of the violence

is even more terrifying: the revelation of an abyss of horrors and':1 I vapors looming directly beneath the persona. This is the con

.j frontation with chaos that the persona of "What are you howling 'ti¡l about, night wind?" sought so earnestly to avoid.

i But while day evokes a positive emotional response and night:i ,; I a negative one, the poem also deals with a scale of reality and r i


superficiality. Day, pleasant as it is, is but a cover that can he torn off at any moment, a superficial amenity that has nothing to do with the ultimate level of metaphysical existence. Night, on the other hand, must always be reckoned with, for it is the abyss, the true metaphysical reality, which exerts its influence whether it is covered with the deceptively sparkling shroud of day or laid bare with all its horrors. The abyss is a negative image, but it elicits respect and awe in addition to terror, for it carries the weight of the metaphysical basis of the universe.

,~ .. Most likely because of this link to the common ground of meta

physical existence, many of the images that appear here are also JI used in the poems that depict positive varieties of peak experi t ence: the image of the night, here emphasized by alliteration on n each time it occurs-Den' i nocl¡'; No lIlerknet den'-nastala noch'; nam noch' strashna; the image of the metaphysical abyss ~

that appeared in a different context in "As the ocean embraces r

the earthly sphere" and "The Swan," 17 here reinforced by repeti tion of the syllable bez- the first time it occurs, and by repetition of the syllable -na- the second time-bezdna nam obnazhena; and finally, the generalized passive image of mankind that functions as the collective persona of the poem, here denoted by the dative form nam (to us) occurring in the all-important phrases bezdna nam obnazhena (the abyss is laid bare to us) and nam noch' strashna (night is terrifying to us). Tiutchev's metaphysical universe has one essence, and this essence remains, at base, the same whether man experiences it in positive or negative fashion. I Furthermore, this poem, like many of the others, can be fviewed in the light of a Schellingian subtext. Schelling's descrip

00 tion of the "unruly element" that "lies in tbe..c;Lepths" in spite of lthe world's present appeárance-üTIli';:;:k, order, and form" is

Jequally as relevant to this poem as to "What are you howling about, night wind?" Schelling also describes the human experience of the revelation of the dark forces in a manner that suggests Tiutchev's, although the philosopher treats the matter of sin, whereas the poet is concerned solely with metaphysical reality. Schelling writes: "manifest sin [offenbare Sünde] fills us with fear and horror [Schrecken und Horror], a feeling that can be explained only by the fact that it ... strives to touch the basis of creation and profane the mystery." 18

MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIONS 167

Ultimately both the philosopher and the poet juxtapose th~ J- ~.

forc~s of ~etaphysical darkness-variously.called night, chaos, \ ~/. mamfest SIn, and the unruly element-wlth the principIe o .. (¡:

light-also called day and the realm of rule, order, and formo . " ,1

The darkness exists in the depths, at the basis of reality or in . the abyss, while day, light, or the principIe of order exists only as a temporary cover for the unruly principIe. In each case the revelation of the dark force (stressed by the word obnazhena in Russian and offenbare in German) evokes a reaction of terror (nam strashna; Schrecken und Horror), and the "cover" of light, accordingly, brings a sense of relief. But in each case the emotional tenor is also marked by a certain ambiguity, for the positive force is only superficial, whereas the force of darkness represents a greaterJn~télphysical iéafity. .",--

It cannot logically be claimed that Tiutchev based his poem directly on the aboye quotations from Schelling, especially in view of the contrast between the religious implications in Schelling's writings and the absence of a religious or moral tenor in this aspect of Tiutchev's work. But the relationship does not end here. Both Tiutchev and Schelling go on to posit a beatific aspect of the abyss in addition to the threatening one. In this variant they treat the abyss as an emanating principIe similar to the One of Neoplatonic philosophy, the single metaphysical source from which everything emerges, to which everything longs to return, and to which everything will eventually return. 19 Tiutchev's poem "Holy night has risen into the firmament" (Sviataia noch' na nebosklon vzoshla) provides a fine example of this aspect of the image, as well as a counterpart to "Day and Night."

CBflTafl HOqb Ha He6oCK~OH B30ill~a,

M ~eHb oTpa~Huh, ~eHb ~ID6e3HuA KaK 30noTüM rroKpoB oHa cBHna, IToKpOB, HaKMHYTuA Ha~ 6e3~Hoh. M, KaK BM~eHbe, BHeillHMh MMp Yille~ ... M qe~OBeK, KaK CMpOTa 6e3~OMHuh,

CTOMT Terrepb, M HeMo~eH M ro~,

nM~OM K ~M~Y rrpe~ rrporraCTMID TeMHoh.

Ha caMoro ce6fl rroKMHYT OH Yrrpa3~HeH YM, M MUC~b oCMpoTe~a B ~Yille cBoeh, KaK B 6e3~He, rrorpy~eH, H HeT M3BHe orropu, HM rrpe~e~a ... H qY~MTCfl ~aBHo MMHYBillMM CHOM EMY Terrepb Bce CBeT~oe, ~MBoe ...

168 MYSTIC TRANSFORMATlONS

TI B ~Y~~OM, Hepa3ra~aHHOM, HO~HOM

OH Y3HaeT HaC~e~be pO~OBOe.

Holy night has risen into the firmament, and has roUed up the comforting day, the kind day, like a golden shroud, a shroud cast over the abyss. And like a vision, the external world has departed ... And man, like a homeless orphan, now stands powerless and naked, face to face with the dark abyss.

He is cast back upon himself-mind is abolished, thought is orphaned-he is plunged into his own soul as into an abyss; and from without there is no support, no boundary ... And aU that is bright and living seems to him like a long past dream ... And in this alien, indecipherable nocturnal element, he recognizes his native heritage.

Once again Tiutchev uses the double metaphor of day as a bright shroud covering the abyss of night. The kind and comforting day described in the first stanza must again be regarded with a certain skepticism, for all its gladdening qualities will be cast away with the coming of night. And though the cover of day is here rolled up rather than torn off, night still brings an element of terror as man, "like a homeless orphan, now stands powerless and naked, face to face with the dark abyss."

The second stanza, however, transforms these potentially negative qualities into aspects of an essentially positive experience related to the "holy night" introduced at the outset. Because thought, like man himself, is orphaned, man is forced back upon his true inner self, the self not limited by the constraints of reason. The importance of this discovery of the self is marked by the stress pattern in the line Na samogó sebiá pokínut ón ( - - / • , / - , / - , ), where the delay of stress until the second foot (samogó) and the realization of stress in the words sebia and 011,

which often remain unstressed, emphasize exactly the three words that denote man and his basic identity. As man now sinks into the abyss, it is no longer simply the "dark abyss" but a symbol of his own soul in its relation to the holy night: V dushe svoei, kak v bezdne, pogruzhen. And having given up all support from the rational world of day, having taken the spiritual plunge into the abyss, man receives the mystic revelation of his native heritage: On uznaet nasled'e rodovoe.

The all-important last word of the poem, rodovoe, like rodimyi,

11:

:,:~

}

.~ 1

''!''

¡


stems from rod, meaning race or clan. Here it serves as a counterweight to the preceding orphan imagery, suggesting that the abyss of night is, in fact, the source from which man evolved, hence his true home. The world of day was neither a part of this greater reality nor a kindred force to man and so appears to him now as a long past dream. Man's native heritage lies in the abyss of night because it is this world that partakes of the essence of his own soul. 20

Tiutchev uses a short poem to expound this concept; Schelling expresses the basic idea in a few choice lines and then elaborates on it at various points throughout his works. Perhaps the most explicit statement of the theme occurs in the philosophical dialogue Bruno when, discussing the problem of the identity of things in eternity, Bruno speaks of "the ultimate unity, which we view as the holy abyss [den heiligen Abgrund] from which everything emanates and to which everything returns," and continues: "In this manner the past and the future sleep within one : infinitely fertile seed of the universe o o . in that eternal unity ji . . . both together, unseparated, under a common covero" 21

Here, as in Tiutchev's poem, we find the epithet "holy" (heilige in German, sviataia in Russian), the notion of the abyss as both a source and a point of return, and the idea of so~ofcovering. Later in the same tract Schelling introduces the concept of night in a similar context, adding connotations of kinship like those supplied by the word rodovoe through the notion of motherhood as he describes the metaphysical origins of each existing thing: "each thing belongs. o . to the primeval night, the mother of all things." 22 And in Inquiries on the Essence of Humalí 'Freedolll he offers a corresponding description of revelation in which surrender to the forces of darkness and apparent separation actually lead to the discovery of hidden unity. Schelling emphasizes that the revelation occurs not as the result of external factors, but through a turn inward and the resulting awakening (Erweckung), which bring out the hidden unity in the seemingly sundered metaphysical basis. 23

Thus Schelling parallels Tiutchev in his basic portrayal of a turn inward, surrender to the powers of darkness, return to the place of origin, and subsequent revelation of a greater truth. But there are more subtle parallels as well. Schelling's discussion of


metaphysical separation can be read as a more abstract version of the separation described in Tiutchev's poem when the external world "departs" and man is left alone "like a homeless orphano" Moreover, both authors use the metaphor or~g

{,to convey the revelation of greater knowledge, ScheIling-i:lit'é'd'iy J j with the word Erweckung, and Tiutchev implicitly with the state

ment that the accustomed world seems to man "a long past dream," something that he recognizes as a dream only now that he has awakened to the metaphysical reality of the abysso And finally, both the poet and the philosopher associate the abyss with the concept of an inheritance or heritage that cannot be renounced. While Tiutchev's "man" recognizes his native heritage (nasled'e rodovoe) as the result of his encounter with the abyss, Schelling, in a passage cited earlier, describes the force of darkness that inhabits the abyss as a necessary inheritance (notwendiges Erbteil), without which there would be no metaphysical reality.24

The Apocalypse

Whereas Tiutchev writes about experience in a way that suggests mystic transport, even though he never seems to be conscious of the mystic element in his own work, Boratynskii consciously utilizes the notion of mystic vision to present a tightly structured intellectual treatise in a poem entitled "The Last Death" (Posledniaia smert', 1827):

ITOC]E!J:Hflfl CMEPTb

ECTh 6~Tlie; HO liMeHeM KaKliM Ero HaSBaTh? Hli COH OHO, Hll 6~eHhe;

Me~ HllX OHO, li B ~e~oBeKe liM C 6esYMlieM rpaHll~liT paSYMeHhe. OH B rro~HoTe rroHHThH cBoero, A Me~~y TeM, KaK BO~H~, Ha Hero, O~llH ~Pyrllx MHTe~Hetl, CBoeHpaBHetl, Bli~eHliH 6erYT co Bcex CTOpOH, KaK 6Y~TO 6~ CBoeH OT~liSH~ ~aBHetl

CTliXlitlHOMY CMHTeHhID OT~aH OH; Ho liHor~a, Me~Totl Bocrr~aMeHeHH~tl, OH Bli~llT CBeT, ~PyrllM He OTKpoBeHH~tl.

Cos~aHhe ~li 60~eSHeHHOH Me~T~,

H~h ~epSKoro YMa coo6pa~eHhe,

Bo r~y6llHe rrO~HO~HOli TeMHoT~ ITpe~cTaBmee o~aM MOllM Bll~eHhe?


He Be~aID; HO rrpe~o MBOtl Tor~a

PacKp~~llCH rpH~Y~lie ro~a;

C06~TllH BCTaBa~ll, pasBliBa~lich, BO~HYHCH rro~o6Ho o6~aKaM, H rrO~H~Mll srroxaMli HB~H~llCh

OT BpeMeHll ~o BpeMeHll o~aM,

H HaKOHe~ H Bli~e~ 6es rrOKpOBa IToc~e~HIDID cY~h6y Bcero ~llBoro.

CHa~a~a Mlip HBll~ MHe ~llBH~tl ca~;

Bes~e liCKYCCTB, 06ll~liH rrpliMeT~;

E~llS BeCli BeCh II rro~~e rpa~a rpa~,

Bes~e ~BOp~~, TeaTp~, Bo~oMeT~, Be3~e Hapo~, li XliTp~tl CBOH saKOH CTliXlill Bce rrpllsHaTh saCTaBli~ OH. Y~ OH Mopetl MHTe~H~e rrY~liH~

Ha oCTpoBax liCKyccTBeHH~x ce~ll~, Y~ pacceKa~ He6ecH~e paBHliH~

ITo rrpliXOTll llM B~M~ill~eHH~X Kpli~;

Bcg Ha seM~e ~Bll~eHlleM ~~illa~o, Bcg Ha seM~e KaK 6Y~TO ~llKOBa~o.

Hc~esHY~ll 6ecrr~O~H~e ro~a, OpaTali rro Bo~e rrplls~Ba~ll

BeTpa, ~O~~li, ~ap~ li xo~o~a,

H BepHOID CTopll~etl Bos~aBa~li

IToceB~ liM, li Xli~H~H sBeph lic~es

Bo ThMe ~eCOB, li B B~coTe He6ec, H B 6es~He BO~, cpa~eHH~tl ~e~OBeKOM,

H ~apCTBOBa~ rrOBCID~Y cBeT~~tl Mlip. BOT, M~C~li~ H, rrpe~h~eHH~tl ~liBH~M BeKOM, BOT pasYMa Be~liKo~errH~tl rrlip~ BparaM ero li B CT~~ li B rroy~eHhe,

BOT ~O ~ero ~OCTlir~o rrpOCBe~eHhe:

ITpOill~li BeKa. flCHeTh o~aM MOliM Bli~eHlie ~Pyroe Ha~liHa~o:

~TO ~e~OBeK? ~TO BHOBh OTKp~TO liM? fl rop~o MHli~, li ~TO ~e MHe rrpe~CTa~o?

HacTaBillYID srroxy H C TPY~OM

ITocTlirHYTh Mor CMYTliBillliMCH YMOM. r~asa MOli ~ID~etl He YSHaBa~li;

ITpliB~Killlie K 06ll~hID ~O~hH~X 6~ar, Ha BC~ OHli crroKotlH~e BSlipa~li,

~TO cyeT~ po~~a~o B liX oT~ax,

~TO M~C~li liX, ~TO cTpacTli liX, 6~Ba~o, B~e~eHlieM BceCli~hH~M YB~eKa~o.

~e~aHliH seMH~e rrosa6uB, ~y~~aHcH liX rpy6oro B~e~eHhH,

!J:YilleBH~x CHOB, B~COKllX CHOB rrpllsuB HM saMeHli~ ~Pyrlie rro6y~~eHhH,

H B rro~Hoe B~a~eHlie CBoe ~aHTasliH BSH~a liX 6~Tlle,

H YMCTBeHHotl rrplipo~e YCTyrrli~a Te~eCHaH rrplipo~a Me~~y HllX: Hx B sMrrlipetl li B xaoc YHOCli~a

~liBaH MUC~h Ha KpU~liHX CBOliX; Ho rro seM~e C TPY~OM OHli cTyrra~li,

H 6paKli liX 6ecrr~o~H~ rrpe6uBa~ll.

172 173 MY5TIC TRAN5FORMATION5

ITpOill~H BeKa, H TYT MoHM OqaM OTKp~~aCR y~acHaR KapTHHa: XO~H~a CMepTh rro cyrne, rro Bo~aM,

CBeprna~aCR ~HBy~ero cY~h6HHa. r~e ~ro~H~ r~e~ CKp~Ba~HCR B rpo6ax: KaK ~peBHHe CTo~rr~ Ha py6e~ax,

IToc~e~HHe ceMe~cTBa HCT~eBa~H; B pa3Ba~HHax CTOR~H ropo~a,

ITo rra~HTRM 3ar~oxHYBillHM 6~y~~a~H

Ee3 rracT~pe~ 6e3YMHille CTa~a: e ~ro~hMH ~~R HHX HCqe3~O rrporrHTaHhe; MHe C~illilla~OCh HX r~a~Hoe 6~eRHhe.

rr THillHHa r~y6oKaR Boc~e~ Top~eCTBeHHo rroBcro~y Bo~apH~aCh

rr B ~HKYro rrop~Hpy ~peBHHX ~eT

~ep~aBHaR rrpHpo~a 06~aqH~aCh.

Be~HqeCTBeH H rpYCTeH 6ill~ rro30p ITYCTillHHillX BO~, ~ecoB, ~O~HH H ropo ITo-rrpe~HeMY ~HBOTBOpR rrpHpo~y,

Ha He6ocK~oH CBeTH~o ~HR B30ill~O, Ho Ha 3eM~e HHqTO ero BOCXO~y

ITpoH3HeCTH rrpHBeTa He Mor~o.

O~HH TYMaH Ha~ He~, CHHeR, BH~CR rr ~epTBoro qHCTHTe~hHo~ ~illMH~CR.

THE LAST DEATH

[1] There is a certain reality: but what should it be called? It is neither sleep nor waking; it is something in between, and in man it borders rationality and irrationality. He is in the full power of his understanding, but in the meantime, like waves, sorne more rebellious and willful than others, visions dash at him fram all sides, as if he were given over to the elemental strife of his ancient fatheriand: but sometimes, inspired by a dream, he sees a world to others not revealed.

[2] Was this the creation of a sickly dream, or the imagined product of an insolent mind, this vision presented to my eyes in the depth of midnight's darkness? 1 do not know; but then the coming years were revealed before me; events arase, unfuried, billowing like clouds, and from time to time appeared before my eyes as entire epochs; and finally 1 saw the ultimate fate of allliving things without a covering shroud.

[3] At first the world appeared to me as a wondrous garden; omens [signs] of arts and abundance were everywhere; village by village, city by city. palaces, theaters, fountains were everywhere, people were everywhere, and they forced all the elements to recognize their cunning law. They had settled the stormy depths of the sea with artificial islands, they had

MY5TIC TRAN5FORMATION5

cleaved the plains of the heavens with the whimsy of their invented wings; everything on earth breathed with motion, everything on earth seemed to rejoice.

[4] The fruitless years had disappeared, the plowman summoned wind, rain, heat, and cold at will and verily received a hundredfold of that which he had sown, and the beast of prey disappeared in the darkness of the foresto and in the heights of the heavens, and in the abyss of the waters-slain by man; and a bright world reigned everywhere. There, 1 thought, charmed by the wondrous age, there is the magnificent feast of reason! Let its enemies be ashamed and learn their lesson, this is what enlightenment has come to!

[5] Ages passed. Another vision began to develop before my eyes: What is man? What has he discovered now?-I proudly thought, and what then appeared to me? My confused mind could grasp the new epoch [only] with difficulty. My eyes did not recognize the people; accustomed to abundance of earthly blessings, they calmly eyed everything that, in their fathers, had given birth to frantic activity and distracted their thoughts, their passions with an all-powerful attraction.

[6] Forgetting earthly lusts and becoming alien to their crude attraction, [the people let] the call of soulful and lofty dreams replace them [earthly lusts] with other desires, and with its full force, fantasy took over their existence, and among them physical nature gave way to intellectual nature: living thought carried them on its wings into the clouds and into chaos; but they trod upon the earth with difficulty, and their marriages remained fruitless.

[7] Ages passed, and then a horrible picture revealed itself before my eyes: Death walked the land and waters, the fate of the living was coming to fuifillment. Where were the people? Where? Hidden in their graves! The last families decayed like the ancient columns at the border; the cities were in ruins; mindless flocks wandered around the overgrown pastures without their shepherds; their subsistence had disappeared along with the people; 1could hear their hungry bleating.

[8] And afterwards deep silence solemnly carne to rule everywhere, and mighty nature robed itself in the barbarous purple of bygone years. Majestic and grievous was the spectacle of the deserted waters, forests, valleys, and mountains. Giving

174 MYSTIC TRANSFüRMATIüNS

life to nature as before, the light of day ascended the slope of the heavens, but nothing on earth could give greeting to its rising. The fog alone wafted blue over the earth and steamed with the purifying sacrifice.

Three types of poetic material contribute to the underlying substance of the poem: a mystical visionary aspect, an archaic or biblical aspect, and a personal conversational aspecto All these are held together by a framework based on the imagery of time and visiono The framework itself breaks down into a series of two-stanza segments. The opening segment introduces the persona, who narrates the poem initially as an abstract third person (on: he; chelovek: man) and then as a first person who addresses the reader himself, and also introduces the key concepts of vision and time. The third and fourth stanzas portray a specific vision about a specific time, the Enlightenment, and the fifth and sixth stanzas focus on the romantic epoch dominated by idealist philosophy. The persona never identifies the historical periods by name, but his descriptions leave little room for misunderstanding. The two final stanzas then describe the horrifying spectacle of the Last Death.

The opening part of the poem is based on a series of images and concepts similar to those in Tiutchev's mystic poems, suggesting a common sphere of poetic experience and expression. The word videnie (vision), naturally, brings Tiutchev's poem "A Vision" to mind, and the use of the verb est' in the opening statement-Est' bytie (There is a certain reality)-even parallels the opening of Tiutchev's poem-Est' nekii chas (Therrfs"a. rtain hour). In addition, both poems pun on the word\"visi " utilizing both its mystical and sensory denotations. mtchev puns implicitly by using predominantly visual imagery in a poem describing a mystic visiono Boratynskii puns in a more explicit manner. He uses the word videnie twice (stanza 1, line 8; stanza 2, line 4), both times in the mystic sense of the word. But he accompanies the word with repeated statements of seeing as a sensory function: On vidit svet (He sees a world); Predstavshee ocham moim videnie (the vision presented to my eyes); videl bez pokrova (saw without a covering shroud).

The opening stanza of "The Last Death" also parallels Tiutchev's '~s the ocean embraces the earthly sphere" in the ap-

MYSTIC TRANSFORMATIüNS 175

pearance of wave imagery and in the suggestion of man's submission to elemental forces: Stikhiia ... nudit nas (The Element ... compels us) in Tiutchev's poem and Stikhiinomu smiaten'iu otdan on (He is given over to elemental strife) in Boratynskii's. And in both cases, the elemental force appears on all sides (so vsekh storon), leaving man no avenue for escape.

In addition, this section shares certain aspects with Tiutchev's "What are you howling about, night wind?," "Day and Night," and "Holy night has risen into the firmament." Boratynskii's use of the double meaning of the word bezumie (madness, insanity; mindlessness, irrationality) to convey the state of being given over to feelings and other nonrational functions (stanza 1, line 4) parallels Tiutchev's use of the word bezumno in reference to the night wind's howling. The allusion to the ancient fatherland . suggests Tiutchev's notion of an "ancient and native chaos." .! Similarly, the !}.ight!ime ?etting is typical of most of Tiutchev's . mystic poems, and the idea of seeing fate without a covering shroud (bez pokrova) parallels the situations described in both "Day and Night" and "Holy night has risen into the firmament."

The poets were clearly working with a shared poetic vocabulary of mysticism, but in their own ways. "The Last Death" partakes of the same sort of mystical setting found in a number of Tiutchev's poems, yet it has certain qualities that are typical of Boratynskii's work and diametrically opposed to the main characteristics of Tiutchev's poetry. Tiutchev's persona, for instance, shows little if any consciousness of his own individual identity. He exists as a part of the event he describes. Boratynskii's persona, on the other hand, is continuously aware of his own self-image. In the opening lines of the second stanza, one hears a voice full of introspective self-doubt, much like the voice that narrates Boratynskii's "Rhyme": Sozdan'e li boleznennoi mechty il' derzkogo uma soobrazhen'e ... predstavshee ocham moim viden'e? (Was this vision presented to my eyes ... the creation of a sickly dream, or the imagined product of an insolent mind?)

Just as Boratynskii's persona is acutely conscious of himself, he is also acutely aware of the passage of time and of the effect of time on human lives. He thinks both of the passage of time in his own life-iavlialis' ot vremeni do vremeni ocham (from time to time appeared before my eyes)-and of the chronological order

177 176 MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS

of larger events: Sobytiia vstavalí ... i polllymi epokhami iavlialis' (events arose ... appeared as entire epochs). The remaining portions of the poem deal with these epochs in chronological order. Tiutchev's metaphysical poems, conversely, convey no sense of time. They portray events that occur in the timeless realm of the universe at large. In "A Vision," for instance, the words nekií . chas (a certain hour) do not denote a particular segment in a chronologically ordered series of events, but rather denote any segment of time endowed with a particular set of qualities.

In the third and fourth stanzas, the persona of "The Last Death" begins the narration of the events that comprise his vision. The first line of the third stanza contains the signs that I

mark divisions between major sections of the poem, references to chronological order and vision-snachala (at first) and iavíl mne (appeared to me). Then the persona goes on to describe a world founded on faith in human reason and characterized by preoccupation with productive activity, inventiveness, industriousness, and artífice. Unlike the activity of the modern age depicted in "The Last Poet," the activity of the age of reason here is not directed toward the goal of profit but rather approaches the goal of proving the power of man's reason and physical prowess at the expense of nature's own mode of existence.

The situation is much like the one depicted in the middle section of Tiutchev'~~'A vision associated with a painfui dreaming stat~dtm~.bolezllennoi mechty (the creation of a painful dream) here, [son] boleznenno-iarkii ([a dream] painfully bright) in Tiutchev's poem-causes the persona to become cognizant of a world characterized by human "triumph" over nature. In his vision the persona of "Dream at Sea" sees labyrinth gardens, palaces, columns, and crowds of silent people, and reports that he strode like Cod along the heights of creation, the creation of his own dream. Boratynskii's persona does not take personal credit for the world he sees, but he still accepts it as the achievement of human reason. And what he sees is much like the scene in "Dream at Sea," a wondrous garden filled with the products of human art and artifice: palaces, theaters, fountains, and crowds of people who seem to have subjugated nature to their own laws. Just as Tiutchev's persona fioats over the depths of the sea in his self-created dream, the people of Bora-

MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS

tynskii's Enlightenment have conquered the sea by building artificial islands and ventured into the heavens by means of artificial wings.

Both worlds ultimately prove to be unenduring products of rationalistic dreams and must give way to other forces. In Tiutchev's poem, the sea's chaos of sounds breaks into the world of the dream, and the poem ends. Boratynskii does not portray the demise of the Enlightenment directly, but he ironically suggests its self-destruction. The last line of the stanza contains an explicit note of falseness that forces the reader to reexamine all that has come before, now with a sense of ironic skepticism: Vse na zemle kak budto likovalo (Everything on earth seemed to rejoice). Perhaps all the triumphs of reason described in the preceding lines only seem to be achievements.

The fourth stanza continues this double-edged description of the Enlightenment. The so-called fruitless years (besplodnye goda) had disappeared, the plowman's whim now controlled the weather, and he was paid back a hundredfold for what he had sown. To someone who knows Boratynskii's work, or even to someone who has read through the rest of the poem, the idea of being paid back a hundredfold for forcing nature to accommodate man-made patterns is a threatening one. The disappearance of the beast of prey parallels the earlier "fruitless" years both in its action-disappearing-and in the double meaning implied by this occurrence. On the one hand, man is safer and happier without dangerous beasts of prey and without fruitless years. But on the other hand, the disappearance of such phenomena through man's brutal intervention in natural processes bodes ill, for the disappearance of the beast of prey might also signify the end to one of man's natural supplies of food, and the end of the fruitless years might result in a kind oí cancerous fertility that would eventually smother the earth.

The narrator's own closing remarks on this bright world of enlightenment (the notion of light emphasized by the common root .-svet-/-sveshch- in svetlyi and prosveshchen'e) carry several sets of connotations. The anaphoric repetition of the word vot (there; there it is), the disruption of the rhythm caused by the realization of stress in vot, and the use of the phrase vot do chego (this is the point [it's come to]) all help create a conversational


tone that differs from the slightly higher style dominating most of the poem. The change in tone exposes a certain gullible and simplistic side of the persona's character. He admits that he has been charmed (prel'shchennyi) by the strange and wondrous age, suggesting that perhaps he is not in the full power of his senses and that the age attracted him against his better judgmenl. The conversational tone also conveys a certain lack of respect for the topic under discussion-the Enlightenment. Thus, when the persona says Vragam ego iv styd i v pouchen'e, / Vot do chego dos tiglo prosveshchen'e! (Let its enemies be ashamed and learn their lesson, this is what enlightenment has come to!), the part of him that has been charmed expects the statement to be taken in a literal way, while the wiser, more cynical part of him loads this conclusion with a large dose of irony.

The fifth stanza opens with the signals of time and sensory vision, and indicates that another mystic vision is beginning: Proshli veka. Iasnet' ocham moim / Videnie drugoe nachinalo (Ages passed. Another vision began to develop before my eyes). The persona does not jump immediately into a description of the new vision, however, but focuses first on his own reactions. He continues to use the interrogative pronoun chto (what) in much the same way that he used vot (there) before. In this context both words imply some kind of gesticulation that might be used in an animated conversation-a finger waving emphatically in the air, a fist emphatically (but not angrily) thumping on atable. The inclusion of commonly spoken phrases like Vot do chego (Look what ... has come to) and Chto zhe (what then) make the persona's human perspective all the more immediate.

The persona's tendency to use se1f-irony as a way of expressing an ironic view of the vision he describes also continues. He awaits the revelation of man's new achievements with pride and expectation, but then discovers that his confused mind (smutivshimsia umom) can grasp this epoch only with difficulty. In fact, he presents himse1f as an essentially unreliable narrator throughout the first three-fourths of the poem. At the outset, he wonders if his vision is merely the product of a sickly dream; describing the Enlightenment, he admits that he is charmed, perhaps enchanted by the age; and here he is confused. Thus the reader must always take the persona's statements of wonder and admiration with a rather large grain of salt.


What the persona sees at this point is the reaction to the excesses of the Enlightenment, an era dominated by idealistic rather than rationalistic thought. Having become accustomed to the abundance of earthly goods provided by their forefathers, the people of this epoch see no value in material things. The biblical sound of the phrase obil'iu dol'nykh blag (abundance of earthly blessings) functions as a response to the biblical notion of being repaid a hundredfold for labors and, indeed, shows exactly how the efforts of the age of reason have been repaidwith total rejection. This era lives on dreams, fantasy, and living thought (zhivaia mysl').

But the new epoch is flawed by excesses of its own. The pe0

pIe are so engrossed in the realm of fantasy that they tread upon the earth with difficulty and their marriages bear no fruil. The "fruitless years" mentioned in the fourth stanza have returned, only in a different guise. The physical nature (telesnaia priroda) associated with the practical orientation of the Enlightenment has given way to intellectual nature (umstvennaia priroda), but for Boratynskii this is still not real nature at aH. For while Boratynskii reduces German idealism to the absurd in stanzas 5 and 6, he also offers an implicit argument in support of ScheHing's Philosophy of Identity. Just as Schelling posits the physical and spiritual realms as equally important aspects of the whole of nature, Boratynskii here rejects cultures that function solely on a spiritual level as well as cultures based on physical domination of nature. The unstated conclusion is that authentic nature partakes of both elements in equal measure.

The two concluding stanzas of the poem portray the devastating result of man's attempts to bend nature too far in either direction. The section opens with the usual references to the passage of time and visiono But here there are no traces of irony or simple-minded admiration. The persona views death with horror and describes it in language with archaic or biblical overtones expressing both terror and acceptance of the inevitable: khodila ... po sushe, po vodam (walked the land and waters); svershilasia ... sud'bina (fate ... was coming to fulfillment). When the conversational voice breaks in, its presence is again marked by the stressed repetition of a one-syllable word falling on the first syllable of a line and creating a spondee-Gde liudi? Gde? (Where were the people? Where?). But here the personal


feelings expressed by the narrator stem from panic and fear rather than from nalve admiration or ironic intento

In its expression of these negative feelings, the seventh stanza parodies the typical sentimental or romantic literary landscape in a number of ways. It speaks of ruins, flocks bleating in the fields, and a few languishing human figures. But the people are dying of civilization's own erring ways, not of anything as literarily acceptable as consumption or romantic ennui. The ruins have nothing at all to do with the striking image of ancient columns decaying at the border. Their fate, like that of the people they are campared to, stems from the error of modern civilization. And the flocks do not act as the traditional symbol for peaceful, carefree rustic life. They wander mindlessly in overgrown pastures and bleat from hunger, not contentment.

The description of the wandering, bleating, mindless flocks (bluzhdali ... bezumnye stada) contains the sense of the whole poem in compressed formo The adjective bezumnye (mindless) echoes the word bezumie, which is used with emphasis on other aspects of its meaning (irrationality; insanity) to describe man's visionary state in the first stanza. Together with the marked archaic form gladnoe (instead of golodnoe: hungry), the adjective bezumnye creates a pathetic picture of flocks crazed by hunger wandering randomly in search of nonexistent food. The verb bluzhdat' then links the mindless flocks with the insanity of human existence, as its double meanings "to wander" and "to err" apply both to the flocks and to civilization's erring ways. The image of flocks without a shepherd and the notion of error (zabluzhdenie) contribute to the biblical dimension mentioned earlier and underscore an element of moral judgment. The hungry bleating of the flocks, the only image of sound in the whole poem, embodies the poem's basic idea. It expresses both urgent need and unwarranted hope for something not to be found: the flocks' hunger and mindless search for nonexistent food, and man's hunger and mindless search for the nourishment that can be found only in a world ruled by equitably measured portions of reason and fantasy, of material and spiritual cancelO. In the unbalanced world described in the poem, both the sheep and a11 human civilization must fa11 prey to the Last Death.

In the final stanza, the sound of the hungry bleating has disappeared. The Last Death has occurred. 5ilence reigns, and na

"


ture reveals itself as the ruling force on earth. This is authentic nature, neither the rational yet ultimately physical nature of the Enlightenment nor the intellectual nature of the epoch of philosophical idealismo The legitimacy and the power of this true nature are shown by a lexicon laden with regal connotations: torzhestvenno (solemnly; ceremonially); votsarilas' (carne to rule, ascended the throne); dikuiu porfiru drevnikh let (the barbarous purple of bygone years); derzhavnaia (powerful, mighty); oblachilas' (robed itself); velichistven (majestic, sublime). Death has done away with the human pretenders and nature has reclaimed her rightful throne.

This closing spectacle can hardly be said to abound in positive overtones. Yet "The Last Death," like "The Last Poet," closes in a way that leaves room for a certain amount of hopeo This hope rests precisely on nature's ability to survive. In "The Last Poet," the sea evokes a yealOing in man's soul, which may eventually lead man away from the force of pragmatism that dominates the "lifeless" modelO world. Here, the landscape is barren of human and animal life, but the earth steams with the purifying sacrifice: apocalyptic destruction is, at the same time, purification, and hope remains that something better may come.

Tiutchev, though he generally focuses on sorne kind of spiritual transport rather than portraying death per se, did write at least one poem that expresses an apocalyptic vision similar to Boratynskii's. This very short poem, entitled "The Last Cataclysm" (Poslednii kataklizm, 1830), is based on the same plot: a larger force of nature destroys the world we know, but this destruction also carríes elements of purification and rebirth within it. As usual, however, there is a significant difference in the poetic method used by the two authors, and a corresponding difference in the length of the poems: Boratynskii received a poetic impulse and wrote nearly a hundred lines exploring every aspect in detail; Tiutchev received a similar impulse and transcribed it in four lines, without any further analytic developmento In addition, Boratynskii's poem conveys a sense of moral or rational judgment as his persona maintains a feeling of separation from the event he describes and consciously voices his reaction to it. When the reaction is either invalid or ironic within the context of Boratynskii's own world view, the sense of poetic distance is all the greater. In Tiutchev's poem, on the other

183 182 MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS

hand, there can be no sense of separation, no judgment, be", cause the persona is invisible, and the event is presented without comment as an objective existential fact.

TIOC]EnHMH KATAK]M3M

Kor~a rrpo6beT rroc~e~Hiln qac rrpilpo~lli,

COCTaB qaCTerr pa3pymilTcH 3eMHlliX: Bce 3pilMoe orrHTb rrOKpOIDT BO~W,

M ÓC~iln nilK il30ópa3ilTcH B HilX!

THE LAST CATACLYSM

When the last hour of nature strikes, the composition of earthly elements will be demolished; the waters will again cover all visible things, and God's countenance will be refiected in themo

Both poems bring to mind Schelling's notion of the return, disintegration, and regeneration of all things in the Indifferenz (undifferentiation) of the Absoluteo Specifically, there are in Schelling's Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (Inquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom) certain passages based on imagery much like the imagery in the poems. In a passage suggesting Tiutchev's poem, Schelling writes: "Finally comes the crisis o o . which will stream over the ground (Grund)* of the old world as water once covered primeval creation again in order to make a second creation possible . o o[A new creation will follow] in which Cod the Spirit will manifest himself in reality." 25 The flood imagery and the association of the apocalypse with the manifestation of Cod parallel Tiutchev's poemo Both men could have taken their inspiration directly from the Bible, of course, but the general pattern of Schelling's influence in Tiutchev's poetry makes the philosophy at least equally plausible as a source of inspiration.

In a similar passage suggesting the main elements of "The Last Death," Schelling says:

the essence of existence cannot produce true and full unity, so that there will come a time when all the splendors of our world will be destroyedo The beautiful body of the hitherto existing world will disintegrate as though it had fallen prey to a horrible sickness, and finally chaos will reappear o o o[But] the same moment when the earth is de

*Grund means "soil, ground, or basis" in both literal and figurative, metaphysical senses .

MYSTIC TRANSfORMATIONS

serted and empty for the second time will also be the moment of the birth of the higher light of the spirit o o 26

0

The world portrayed in Boratynskii's poem lacks "true and full unity" because only one aspect of nature-physical or intellectual-dominates each epoch. Therefore, its "splendors" are ultimately destroyed by the "sickness" of death. But as with Schelling, the moment of destruction is also the moment of purification and hope that a new world, a world fully integrated in the manner expounded in Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, will be made possibleo

The Ultímate Resolutíon

Boratynskii's "Death" (Smert', 1828) goes much further than his "The Last Death" in its acceptance of the necessity of death. The poem is actually a eulogy to deatho 27 The persona lauds death's function as the balancing force of nature because regulation through death is essential for the preservation of life in the universe:

CMEPTb

CMepTb ~~epbro TbMill He Ha30BY H TI, pa60~errHOID MeqTOn fpo6oBilln OCTOB en ~apYH, He orro~qy ee KOCOn.

o ~Oqb BepxoBHoro 3~ilpa!

O cBeTo3apHaH Kpaca! B pYKe TBoen onilBa Milpa, A He ry6H~aH Koca.

Kor~a B03HilKHY~ Milp ~BeTY~iln M3 paBHoBecbH ~ilKilX Cil~,

B TBoe xpaHeHbe BceMorY~ilrr Ero YCTpOnCTBO rropyqrr~.

M Tlli ~eTaemb Ha~ TBopeHbeM, Cor~acbe rrpHM ero ~ilH,

TI B HeM rrpox~a~HillM ~YHoBeHbeM

CMilpHH 6yncTBo 6illTilH.

Tu YKpo~aemb BoccTaID~iln B óe3YMHorr Cil~e yparaH, Till, Ha ópera CBOil 6erY~ilrr, BcrrHTb B03Bpa~aemb oKeaH.

naemb rrpe~e~ill Till paCTeHbID, qTOó He rroKpill~ rrrraHTCKiln ~ec


3eM~H ry6HTe~bHOID TeHbID, 3rraK He BoCCTa~ 6~ ~O He6ec.

A ~e~oBeK: CBHTaH ~eBa: TIepe~ To6o~ C ero ~aHHT

MrHoBeHHo CXO~HT rrHTHa rHeBa, Eap ~ID6ocTpacTHH 6e~HT.

~PY~HTCH rrpaBe~Hoh To6oID ~ID~eh He~PY~HaH cY~b6a: ~acKaemb TOID ~e PYKOID T~ B~aCTe~HHa H pa6a.

He~OYMeHbe, rrpHHy~~eHbe YcrroBbe CMYTH~X HarnHX ~HeH,

Tu Bcex 3ara~OK pa3perneHbe, T~ pa3perneHbe Bcex ~erreH.

DEATH

[1) I will not call death the daughter of darkness, and when with a servile dream I grant her a coffin carcass, I will not arm her with a scythe.

[2) O daughter of the upper ether! O bright beauty! The olive branch of peace is in your hands, and not the destroying scythe.

[3) When the blossoming world arose from the equilibrium of untamed forces, the All Powerful entrusted its order to your keeping.

[4) You soar over creation, pouring harmony onto it and subduing the violence of existence within it by your cool current.

[5) You tame the hurricane that rises up with furious force, you turn back the ocean that rushes over its shores.

[6) You set bounds for growing things so that a gigantic forest will not cover the earth with life-destroying shade, and so the grain will not grow up to the heavens.

[7) But as for man! Holy maiden! In your presence spots of wrath leave his cheeks in a flash and the ardor of sensuality disappears.

[8) Through your righteousness, the unlriendly fate of people makes friends: you caress the master and the slave with the same hand.


[9) Perplexity and constraint are the conditions of our troubled days, [but) you are the solution of all riddles and the dissolution of all bonds.

Like much of Boratynskii's work, the poem follows a pattern of logical argumento Each set of two stanzas marks a step in the development of the argument, and the ninth stanza stands alone as its conclusion.

The first two stanzas state the basic premise: that death brings peace, not destruction. The persona expounds the premise in rhetorical style, first addressing the world at large and then turning to death itself. In the opening stanza, the rhetorical effect is created through the use of archaisms, sound play, and distortion of syntax. The Slavonic words dshcher'iu t'my (daughter of darkness), rather than the modern Russian docher'iu temnoty, immediately establish a high style. Repetition of the stressed syllable -er- and alliteration of soft dentals, sibilants, and the m sound mark the first three words of the poem: Smert' dshcher'iu t'my. This sound play combined with the spondee created by consecutive placement of the words smert' and dshcher'iu gives the poem a particularly forceful beginning.

Distorted syntax further emphasizes the elevated tone of the persona's speech. Using the numerical method of analyzing word order, one finds the following:

Line 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 Standard order: la ne nazovu smert' dshcher'iu t'my

4 5 6 2 3 1

In the poem: Smert' dshcher'iu t'my ne nazovu ia

Lines 2-3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Standard order: l daruia ei grobovyi ostov raboleplloiu mechtoi

16 7 453 2

In the poem: l rabolepnoiu mechtoi, grobovyi ostov ei daruia

In addition to creating an elevated tone, however, the unusual word order in the first line allows the important beginning and end positions to be occupied by words denoting the poem's two leading figures, death (smert') and the first-person narrator (ia), thus establishing an immediate sense of balance and focus. Fur

187

!

"


thermore, after the syntactic disarray of the first three lines, thel sudden reversion to standard word order in the fourth line (Nei opolchu ee kosoi) also serves as a means of emphasis and under:) scores the persona's view of death as a pacifying rather thanl hostile force.

In the second stanza the persona restates the point made ir\J the first, but further personifies death by addressing "her" dil.' rectly. He praises death to her face and continues the line of femo:¡ inine imagery, calling her svetozarnaia krasa (bright beauty) and} doch' verkhovnogo efira (daughter of the upper ether), switching' from the rhetorical and rather distant Slavonic dshcher' to the1 standard Russian word doch'. He speaks to her using the famil~!

iar form ty (you), as indicated by the adjective tvoei (your), and at least one form of the pronoun ty or the corresponding posses,-', sive adjective occurs in each of the following stanzas, further stressing the closeness of the relationship. The persona empha;,.~i

sizes the positive aspect of his concept of death by repeating and / elaborating the notion expressed in the last line of the preceding stanza, the absence of the fatal scythe traditionally associated with death, by substituting an olive branch as the symbol she holds in her hand. In each case the function of kosa (scythe) as the final rhyme word of the stanza gives the persona's argument extra impacto

The third and fourth stanzas clarify death's prescribed function in relation to the rest of creation. The third stanza explains that when the world arose from an "equilibrium of untamed forces"-a phenomenon strikingly similar to the Absolute or Indifferenz posited by Schelling as the source of the universe-the AII Powerful assigned death to keep order. And the fourth stanza describes death's work in the present world. Much like the force of poetry in Tiutchev's "Poetry," death wafts aboye creation pouring harmony down onto troubled existence.

The fifth and sixth stanzas provide specific examples to support the assertions just made. Death exerts its calming infiuence on hurricanes, on oceans, and on the plants that grow on the land. The unexpected stress that falls on the first syllable of the fourth line of the fifth stanza, vspiat', creates a rhythmic imitation of the action described. The rhythm, like the ocean, is caught short and then turned back into its given bounds.


The seventh and eighth stanzas transfer the focus of the examples from the realm of natural phenomena to the human sphere. The human passions of wrath and love, and social distinctions between master and slave, all disappear under the leveling infiuence of death.

The ambiguity in the first two lines of the eighth stanza allows the stanza to function as a conceptual as well as a structural pivot between the conclusion and the rest of the poem. The lines read: Oruzhitsia pravednoi toboiu I Liudei nedruzhnaia sud'ba (By your righteousness [By righteous you], the unfriendly fate of people makes friends). One can take this to mean that fate makes people friends, in the sense of "equals": the master and slave become "friends" by virtue of their common fate. This interpretation is linked to the last line of the poem, where the reference to the dissolution of all bonds (razreshen'e vsekh tsepei) suggests the breaking down of social constraints, perhaps even the end of human bondage.

Another interpretation of the verb druzhitsia leads to the conclusion that unfriendly fate itself becomes friendly. The words druzhitsia and laskaesh' (caress), which follows in line 3, then counteract the adjective nedruzhnaia (unfriendly), and the focus of the poem returns to the notion of death's kindness that dominates the opening stanzas. Both interpretations fit in with the general movement of the poem, and neither one rules out the other.

The single-stanza conclusion breaks the pattern of paired stanzas used throughout the rest of the poem. Nonetheless, the tightly organized conceptual and formal structure lets the stanza convey a number of important ideas and establish the closing of the poem at the same time. The internal rhyming of nedoumen'e (perplexity) and prinuzhden'e (constraint), and the alliteration on s and n in the phrase uslov'e smutnykh nashykh dnei provide the first indication of a formal structure that is more closely knit than that in the preceding stanzas and underscore the message of these lines.

The two concluding lines of the poem then utilize this kind of structural play to a greater degree. The anaphoric repetition of ty (you; familiar form) at the beginning of the lines almost suggests a gesture as the persona points emphatically at the familiar

189 MYSTlC TRANSFORMATlONS188

second person who is the subject of the poem-death-and the remaining segments of the lines form a chiastic pattern:

Ty vsekh zagadok razreshen'e

Ty raz~sepeí The repeated word razreshen'e forms the basis of the whole

conclusion. It puHs the stanza together by rhyming internaHy with itself, rhyming with prínuzhden'e (constraint), and in a connection reinforced through this association, rhyming internally with nedoumen'e (perplexity). Each one of the rhymes is related to one of the various meanings of the word razreshen'e. As razreshen'e appears in the third line, for instance, it rhymes formally with prínuzhden'e (constraint), but conceptuaHy with nedoumen'e (perplexity), because it denotes the solution of aH riddles that cause perplexity. The use of razreshen'e to indicate the dissolution of aH bonds, then, refers back to prínuzhden'e (constraint) in the first lineo These connections create an unusuaHy tight structure in which each of the key words is linked to aH others.

But even with this, the meanings of razreshen'e in the poem are still not exhausted. When used in the meaning "dissolution" in association with the concept of death, razreshen'e carries connotations that link it with Schelling's concept of Indífferenz, the entity to which aH things that exist eventuaHy return, and within which aH distinctions between things are dissolved. 28 Boratynskii's poem portrays death both as the point to which aH earthly existence returns and as a force that dissolves distinctions between anger and love, between master and mano

In addition, the word suggests an ironic pun juxtaposing the lofty, philosophical concept of razreshen'e as Indifferenz to the common view of death as razrushen'e (destruction). The emotional tenor of the poem works against this interpretation, but Boratynskii's tendency to view everything from a certain ironic distance was strong enough, and his implicit recognition of death's destructive power clear enough that the interpretation cannot be totaHy rejected.

And finaHy, razreshen'e signals the end of the poem. If one views a poem mainly as a problem to be solved, razreshen'e

"

MYSTIC TRANSFORMATlONS

means the "solution" of closure. If one views a poem as a complex of parts held together by poetic force, razreshen'e means the "dissolution" of these parts in closure. No matter which perspective one takes, razreshen'e is the key to Boratynskii's poem "Death."

The idea of dissolution and traces of ScheHing's concept of Indífferenz also appear in Tiutchev's poem "Look, on the river's expanse" (Smotri, kak na rechnom prostore, 1850), a poem otherwise quite different from Boratynskii's "Death" and notably different from most of Tiutchev's own metaphysical poems by virtue of its frankly didactic tone. Here Tiutchev combines aspects of Graveyard Poetry with bits of Schelling's philosophy and signs of his own increasing fervor for Russian Orthodoxy, to create an indictment of human egocentrismo

CMOTpll, RaR Ha peqHOM rrpOCTope, ITo CR~OHY BHOBb o~llBrnllX BO~,

Bo Bceo6beM~ID~ee Mope 3a ~b~llHorr ~b~llHa Bc~e~ rr~HBeT.

Ha CO~H~e ~b pa~Y~Ho 6~llcTaH, H~b HOqbID B rro3~Herr TeMHoTe, Ho Bce, Hell36e~llMo TaH, OHll rr~HBYT R O~Horr MeTe.

Bce BMecTe - Ma~He, 60~brnlle,

YTpaTllB rrpe~Hllrr 06pa3 CBorr, Bce - 6e3pa3~llqHH, RaR CTllXllH,CO~bIDTCH C 6e3~Horr pOROBOli: ..

0, Harnerr MHC~ll 060~b~eHbe, T~, qe~oBeqeCROe R, He TaROBO ~b TBoe 3HaqeHbe, He TaROBa ~b CY~b6a TBOH?

Look, on the river's expanse, on the slope of the waters newly come to life, ice floe follows ice floe into the all-embracing sea.

Sparkling like a rainbow in the sun, or at night in the late darkness, but all, inevitably melting-they flow toward the same goal.

All together-small and large, losing their previous form, all-undifferentiated like the Element-they merge with the fatal abyss! ...

0, delusion of our thought, you, human "1," isn't such your significance and such your fate?

Because of the element of overt didacticism, the central image of the abyss is defined here by a fairly limited complex of ideas.

'


One aspect of the definition stems from the notion of the abyss of oblivion that enjoyed a certain popularity in the works of the English Graveyard Poets. Edward Young's Night Thoughts on Lite, Death, and Immortality (1746), for instance, employs the image of the abyss in the following manner:

My hopes and fears Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow Verge Look down-on what? A fathomless Abyss; O dread Eternity! how surely mine! 29

Transferred to Russian soil, the abyss of doom appears in Derzhavin's "Ode on the Death of Prince Meshcherskii" (Na smert' Kniazia Meshcherskogo, 1779). Here Derzhavin associates the abyss with water imagery as Tiutchev did after him:

KaK B Mope ~hIDTCH 6WCTPH BO~H TaK B Be~HOCTh ~h.IDTCH ~HH H ro~u; r~OTaeT ~apCTBa a~~Ha CMepTh.

CKO~h3HM MH 6e3~HW Ha KpaID, B KOTOPYID CTpeMr~aB CBa~HMCH; f;npHeM~eM C ~ll3HhID CMepTh CBOID, 'feHa TO, QTo6 YMepeTh, pO~llMCH. ;';<

t

As swift waters pour into the sea, thus days and years pour ,r't

into eternity; greedy death swallows kingdoms. We slip on the edge of the abyss into which we fall head

long; we accept our own death along with life, we are born in order to die. 30

The abyss appears again as the propast' zabven'ia (abyss of oblivion) in Derzhavin's last poem, "The River of Times" (Reka vremen, 1816):

PeKa BpeMeH B CBoeM CTreM~eHhH YHOCHT Bce ~e~a ~ID~err ~ TorrHT B rrporraCTll 3a6BeHhH Hapo~u, ~apcTBa H ~aperr. A eC~H QTO H OCTaeTCH ~pe3 3BYKH ~HpU H TPy6w,To SeQHOCTH ~ep~oM rro~peTcH ~ o6~err He yrr~eT cY~h6w!

The river of times in its coursing sweeps away all human affairs and drowns peoples, kingdoms, and kings in the abyss of oblivion. And if anything remains through the sounds of the Iyre and trumpet-it will be devoured by the jaws of eternity and will not escape the common lot! 31


Similarity of concept and imagery suggests that this poem may have provided a starting point for Tiutchev's "Look, on the river's expanse." But Tiutchev goes beyond Derzhavin in the rich philosophical connotations that he brings to the abyss. Sorne of the connotations relate to aspects of Tiutchev's own work. The sense of the inevitability of the encounter with the abyss conveyed in the words neizbezhimo (inevitably), vseob"emliushchee (all-embracing), and rokovoi (fatal) mirrors the notion expressed in the phrases i net pregrad mezh ei i nami (and there is no barrier between it [the abyss] and us) and litsom k litsu pred propastiiu temnoi (face to face with the dark abyss) in "Day and Night" and "Holy night has risen into the firmament." Likewise, the references to day and night implicitly repeat the earlier suggestions that the light of day, comforting as it seems, cannot alter the underlying reality represented by the dark abyss.

But the poem goes beyond many of the preceding ones in the closeness of its relationship to Schelling's philosophy and its expression of Tiutchev's increasing Slavophilism. The concept of Indifferenz provides the key. Schelling describes lndifferenz as "a unique existence ... in which all distinctions break up," 32 and explains its function as follows:

The two chief parts of history are, first, the departure of humanity from its center to the greatest distance therefrom; and second, its return. The former, as it were, the lIiad, the latter the Odyssey of history ... Ideas, spirits, had to fall away from their center, had to enter nature, the general realm of the Fall, in differentiation, in order that they might later return as differentiated to the realm of the undifferentiated (Indifferenz) and, reconciled to it, remain in it without disturbing it.

In its dynamic process, nature necessarily strives toward absolute undifferentiation (Indifferenz) ... for every natural body strives toward totality (the Absolute).

There are no such things as separate bodies per se. Each body that is considered separate must actually be considered within the context of its striving for totality.33

First of all, Schelling's idea of the "breaking up" of distinctions finds a parallel in the way Tiutchev's ice floes melt, break up, and lose their distinct forms. Secondly, Schelling's insistence on the universality of this striving toward lndífferenz and the totality it represents are echoed in Tiutchev's repetition of the pronoun

I


vse (all)-No vse ... plyvut k odnoi mete (but all flow toward the same goal); Vse vmeste (all together); Vse sol'iutsia (All ... merge); in the emphasis on inevitability mentioned aboye; and in the understanding that all the ice floes merge into a single body, and merge so completely that they no longer "disturb" it with the clash of individual identities.

The appearance of the word bezrazlichny in the third stanza further contributes to the connection between Tiutchev's poem ~~.··ll:gand Schelling's philosophy. The Russian and Cerman adjectives bezrazlichnyi and indifferent, based, respectively, on the nouns bezrazlichie and lndifferenz, most often function as synonyms for ',1the English "indifferent," meaning "apathetic, expressing neither preference nor aversion." But Schelling's lndifferenz is a homonym denoting the absence of objective metaphysical differentiation rather than the absence of subjective emotional differentiation. Tiutchev, following Schelling's usage of the term, neither personifies his ice floes nor characterizes them as emotionally indifferent beings in the phrase bezrazlichny, kak stikhiia. Rather, he identifies them with a larger undifferentiated metaphysical force-they are "undifferentiated, like the Element"-signaling the beginning of the process of objective undifferentiation that concludes with absorption by the abyss of lndifferenz.

In the rhetorical turn against the human ego (chelovecheskoe la) and the rather didactic explanation of the ice floe symbolism in the conclusion, one senses both Tiutchev's Slavophilic indictment of Western egocentrism and a specific Schellingian resonance. The Schellingian aspect of the statement consists in the juxtaposition of self-will, here presented as the human ego, and universal will, suggested by mention of the Element and, aboye all, by the inevitability of the movement of "history" as nature takes its course and carries the ice floes out to sea. 34 This juxtaposition is implicit in many of Tiutchev's metaphysical poems and explicit in such works as "Spring" and "There is melodiousness in the waves of the sea."

Though not a Slavophile in the full sense of the term, Tiutchev .~ ,shared both the Slavophiles' condemnation of the primacy of {~:the ego in Western culture and their corresponding approval of 1 Ithe collective spirit and humility said to be inherent in Russian

culture. But in addition to general Slavophilic principIes, the


poem also offers a statement with specific political implications. In his antirevolutionary essay "Russia and Revolution" (Rossiia i revoliutsiia), written just after the European revolutions of 1848 and only a few years before the poem in question, Tiutchev charges the human ego, the same chelovecheskoe la, with "neither knowing nor accepting any law other than its own desires" and "replacing Cod with itself" in its attempt to dominate world order. 3S It is, then, in the light of both Tiutchev's general philosophical outlook and his response to actual historical events that the vehemence of the poem's conclusion is best understood.

This kind of limited, almost polemical orientation is rare in Tiutchev's metaphysical oeuvre. For the most part, Tiutchev portrays vague, nonspecific metaphysical experiences. Thus, al-tI though he utilizes the imagery of night and the metaphysical abyss, he rarely gives a name to the phenomena he writes about, and the sense of impending oblivion in his poems may stem from such varied sources as mystic transport, artistic inspiration, and sexual ecstasy, as well as from the possibility of death. Boratynskii, on the other hand, tends to focus specifically QILtb..e.-eOllcept.o{'.death, as can be seen from the title of his poems. But both poets tend to portray apocalyptic experience i~ 1 a manner related to Schelling's concept of lndifferenz. Tiutchev most often portrays the dissolution of the self-conscious huma ego in the vast realm of the universal will. In "The Last Death," Boratynskii portrays the destruction of the ultimate product of the human ego, civilization, by the universal will of nature; in "Death" he shows death as the force of lndifferenz at work within both human and natural spheres. Of course Tiutchev and Boratynskii remain metaphysical poets, not philosophers. But the marked coincidence of concepts, images, and vocabulary that centers around the portrayal of apocalyptic experience suggests that the intellectual relationship between the poets and Schel- ) ling was a close one indeed.

195

· 5 .

CONCLUSION

Two Poems o~~oé~o;) ~~. \ Tiutchev and Boratynskii were-the-O"ñly major Russian poets

to write commemorative poems when Goethe died in 1832. The event probably evoked a particularly strong response in them because a great many of Goethe's writings, like theirs, combined metaphysical thought and the art of poetry. In fact, Goethe's contribution to the German Gedankenlyrik is in sorne ways analogous to Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's contribution to Russian poeziia mysli, though the scope of Goethe's literary activity is, of course, much greater. Boratynskii's "On the Death of Goethe" (Na smert' Gete, 1832) and Tiutchev's nOn the tall tree of humankind" (Na dreve chelovechestva vysokom, 1832) not only demonstrate the poets' sharedadmiration f<?J.c;:.;,º,~ll1e1 but also provide a summation of th~-issi.ies~dís'cu-;~~di~ the preceding chapters-the poets' concepts of nature, the role of the poet, and death-and show both the similarities and the differences in the poets' artistic methods and relations to Schelling's thought.

Tiutchev and Boratynskii developed their images of Goethe much the same way they developed their understanding of Schelling. Tiutchev, who had learned German several years before he moved to Munich in 1822, most likely read a number of Goethe's works during his years as a student at Moscow University. Once he settled in Munich, where Goethe's ideas, along with Schelling's philosophy, fioated like pollen in the German air, Tiutchev began to translate Goethe's poetry into Russian. He actually translated more from Goethe than from any other single

,

ti!'x :f; ;.;

x

CONCLUSION

author: of the total of forty-four translations, fifteen-roughly one-third-are from Goethe. 2 Although most of the translations of Goethe's works were made in the 1830's, Tiutchev continued to produce Russian versions of Goethe's poetry from time to time until the very end of his life.'

Boratynskii, on the other hand, did not know German well at all, and his early association with the French-oriented literary circles in Sto Petersburg suggests that as a young man he did not devote much time to German literature even in translation. His idea of Goethe very likely developed in the same manner as his secondhand knowledge of Schelling's philosophy, through participation in the activities of literary circles after he left the army and moved to Moscow in 1826. The paucity of evidence suggesting a more thorough acquaintance with Goethe's thought has even given rise to the assertion that Boratynskii had no firsthand knowledge of Goethe's works at all but was simply inspired by the image of Goethe that prevailed in Russia at the time!

Most educated Russians perceived Goethe much the way they perceived Schelling, as a static figure, a finished intellectual producto They tended to disregard the long process of his literary development and created an image on the basis of those aspects of his life and work that suited their own idea of what he should be. He was known first and foremost as the author of Faust. During the decade from 1825 to 1835, at least eight poets produced short pieces that were explicitly based on Goethe's rendition of the Faust theme and that have been considered worthy of reprinting in the twentieth century.5 If one were to expand this list to include prose versions of the theme and works that were printed once in the journals of the time and then forgotten, the number of Russian Fausts would no doubt increase considerably. In many cases, the popularity oí Faust I~eant that the Russian reading public took Goethe a~. the .a~chr?Il1antic, the creator of the eternally striving figtire~irtFiú¡st,Pá·iTl'~Büt since authors of various literary and philosophicai persuasions adopted the Faust theme, it is clear that the appeal of the work went beyond the bounds of any single literary school or circle.

Because the Lovers of Wisdom functioned as the main conduit

197

,

CONCLUSION196

through which German culture came to Russia, however, the image of Goethe that eventually came to dominate was one refraeted through the Schellingian prism of their views. h After their official disbandment in 1825, members of the group gathered again for the publication of the Moscow Herald, and in this journal they printed numerous articles about Goethe, translations of this works, and even occasional portraits of "the Olympian." 7 For the Lovers of Wisdom, Goethe was the embodiment of Schelling's Philosophy of Identity: a man so perfeetly integrated with the world around him that he understood the workings of both physical and spiritual realms. He was a naturalist, a great metaphysical thinker, the creator of his own philosophy of nature, a genius, a poet, and the author of Gedankenlyrik corresponding to the philosophical poetry the Lovers of Wisdom themselves attempted so earnestly to create. His life and work contained all the aspects of human genius they sought. Therefore, they ignored the aspects that did not suit their Schellinginspired view of the world (for instance, his early ventures in the spirit of poésie précieuse) and created a fixed image of their Goethe from the rest.

Although the starkly Schellingian cast of this approach limited the group's understanding of Goethe, it had some grounding in reality, for Goethe and Schelling did have common interests and ways of thinking during at least a certain period in their lives. The two men were close friends for a time around the turn of the century. Goethe apparently read Schelling's works in 1800 and was so impressed by them that he wrote Schelling a letter in which he declared: "1 rarely test one [philosophical] side or the other, but 1 am definitely attracted by your teachings. 1 desire fuH and open communication with you and hope to achieve it sooner or later by studying your works, or still better, byestablishing personal relations with you." 8 Ayear later Schelling and Goethe were on sufficiently intimate terms to celebrate the New Year together. 9

In addition, their concepts of nature were so similar that critics sometimes argue as to whether one or the other inf1uenced later authors who wrote in the spirit of the romantic philosophy of nature developed by each of them. lO At least two of Goethe's Iyrics, "Weltseele" ("World SouI;' 1801) and "Eins und Alles"

CONCLUSION

("The One and the AH," 1821), ref1eet basic principIes elosely related to Schelling's philosophy. The earlier poem expresses a feeling of pantheistic unity reminiscent of Schelling's early writings, and the later poem develops around ideas emphasized in Schelling's later work.

"Eins und Alles" begins with the lines: "1m Grenzenlosen sich zu finden, I Wird gern der einzelne verschwinden" (The individual will gladly vanish to find himself in the infinite), suggesting the dissolution of individual self-will in the universal will of

~ nature and history, which plays such an important role in Schelling's Inquiries on the Essence of Human Freedom. The poem con

!í' f tinues through several stanzas elaborating the wish for oblivion through a merging with the pantheistic universe, and then coneludes as follows:

~. 1. ~,

t J

j

Es soll sich regen, schaffend handeln, Erst sich gestalten, dann verwandeln; Nur scheinbar steht's Momente still. Das Ewige regt sich fort in allen: Denn alles muss in Nichts zerfallen, Wenn es im Sein beharren will.

lt [that which is now coming into existenceJ must become animated, create as it acts, first be formed then transformed, only seeming to stand still for a momento The eternal comes forth in', all: for everything must disintegrate into nothingness if it de- ) sires to remain in existence. l1

Here the emphasis on constant movement, cr.eativi!y". (l,!)?

traIJsformation il1-3'world that may seem lo be stilHc goes back to t the basic precepts of Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, as does the notion of the manifestatio~..2t!beeternal in all things. The . last two lines again suggest the later philosophy in tI1e assertion ¡¡ that only the dissolution of the individual into "nothingness" ¡) (Nichts) can lead to continued existence. The nature of this \1 "nothingness" exactly parallels the nature of Schelling's Indif

ferenz or universal will. The Schellingian image of Goethe propagated in Russia was

obviously more than a figment of the colleetive imagination of the Lovers of Wisdom. It was also the result of a definite Schellingian orientation in Goethe himself. In view of this faet, Boratynskii's own interest in Schelling's thought, and his ties to the

k" ~,

''¡J

199 198 CONCLUSION

Lovers of Wisdom, it is hardly surprising that his poem "On the Death of Goethe" eulogizes Goethe in terms reflecting several of the main precepts of Schelling's philosophy. Yet at the same time, the poem shows sorne of the ways in which Boratynskii's thinking differs from Schelling's, as well as his tendency to base his poems on tight logical structures differing markedly from Schelling's rambling method of argumentation. Indeed, the poem can be said to follow a typical rhetorical form of argumentation based on the rhetorical pattern exordium, disputatio, COll

clusio. 12 The first stanza is the exordium, which indicates the actual event and points to the truth to be elaborated; stanzas 2-4 are the disputatio in which the speaker presents arguments supporting his original assertion; and the two concluding stanzas offer a double version of the rhetorical conclusio, returning to the original assertion and reinforcing it with a synthesis of the foregoing argumentation.

HA CMEPTb rETE TIpe~cTa~a, il cTape~ Be~ilKilrr CMe~H~

Op~HHille OqH B rroKoe: TIOqH~ 6e3MHTe~Ho, 3aHe cOBepillil~

B rrpe~e~e 3eMHOM BCg 3eMHoe! Ha~ ~ilBHorr Moril~orr He rr~aqh, He ~a~err, ~TO reHilH qeperr - Hac~e~he qepBerr.

TIorac! HO HHqTO He OCTaB~eHO ilM TIo~ CO~H~eM ~ilBillX 6e3 rrpilBeTa;

Ha BCg OT03Ba~CH OH cep~~eM CBOilM, ~TO rrpOCHT y cep~~a OTBeTa;

Kpill~aTOID MillC~hID OH Milp 06~eTe~, B O~HOM 6ecrrpe~e~hHOM Haille~ err rrpe~e~.

Bcg ~yx B HeM rrilTa~o: TPY~ill My~pe~oB, rrCKYCCTB B~OXHOBeHHillX c03~aHhH,

TIpe~aHhH, 3aBeTill MilHYBillilX BeKoB, UBeTYrnilx BpeMeH yrroBaHhH:

MeqTOID rro Bo~e rrpOHilKHYTh OH Mor rr B HKrnYID xaTY il B ~apCKilrr qepTor.

C rrpilpo~orr O~HOID OH *H3HhID ~Nilla~: PyqhH pa3YMe~ ~erreTaHhe,

rr rOBOp ~peBeCHillX ~HCTOB rrOHilMa~, rr qYBCTBOBa~ TpaB rrp03H6aHhe;

5w~a eMY 3Be3~HaH KHHra HCHa, rr e HKM rOBopil~a MopCKaH BO~Ha.

rr3Be~aH, ilcrrillTaH ilM BeCh qe~OBeK! H e*e~il *H3HhID 3eMHOID

TBope~ OrpaHilqil~ ~eTyqilrr Ham BeK, rr Hac 3a Moril~hHorr ~OCKOID,

CONCLUSION

3a MilpOM HB~eHilrr, He *~eT HilqerO,TBop~a orrpaB~aeT Moril~a ero.

H eC~il 3arpo6HaH *il3Hh HaM ~aHa, OH, 3~eillHerr BrrO~He OT~NillaBillilrr

H B 3ByqHNX, r~y6oKilX OT3NBax crrO~Ha Bc~ ~O~hHoe ~o~y oT~aBmilrr,

K rrpe~BeqHoMY ~erKorr ~Yillorr B03~eTilT, H B He6e 3eMHoe ero He CMYTilT.

ON THE DEATH OF GOETHE

It carne, and the great elder elosed his eagle eyes in peace; he went to rest serenely because he had completed all earthly affairs within the earthly realm! Don't weep over the wondrous grave, don't grieve that the skull of the genius is the inheritance of worms.

He has faded away! But he left nothing under the sun of the living without greeting; he responded with his heart to everything that seeks response from the heart; he cireled the world with his winged powers of thought that found limit only in the limitless.

Everything nourished his spirit: the labors of the sages, the creations of inspired art, the legends and legacies of ages past, the hopes of blossoming ages; in fancy he could penetrate the lowliest hut and the king's chamber at will.

He breathed life as one with nature: he comprehended the babbling of the brook, understood the speech of the leaves on the trees, and sensed the growing of the grass; the book of the stars was elear to him, and the sea wave talked with him.

All humankind was known and experienced by him! And if the Creator has limited our fleeting lifetime to earthly existence and nothing at all awaits us beyond the gravestone, beyond the visible world-his grave will justify the Creator.

And if we are given life beyond the grave, having breathed his fill in this life and returned all earthly things in full to life below in sonorous, deep response, he will fly up to the eternal with a light soul, and in heaven earthly matters will not trouble him.

The word death (smert') and the name of Goethe appear only in the title, not in the body of the poem. It is the absence of a subject for the feminine verb predstala (she/it carne) coupled with the fact that the word smert' in the title is the nearest feminine noun that introduces the notion of death within the poem itself. Thus the exordium of the first stanza is modified to the extent that it mentions the occasion of the poem only in obligue fashion; even without the title, however, a reader would still un

I

200 CONCLUSION

derstand that the poem concerns the death of a great mano The words starets velikii (great elder) show that the subject is a significant figure, not just an old man (starik), and they introduce certain religious connotations, since an elder of the church is likewise a starets. In addition, the words smezhil (closed) instead of the more usual zakryl, pochil (went to rest) instead of usnul, umer or byl pogreben, the use of the standard romantic cliché for the vision of genius orlinye ochi (eagle eyes), and the reversal of the usual order of noun and modifier (starets velikii instead of velikii starets)-alI indicate that the event described is something more than an ordinary person closing his eyes and falling asleep. The reverent tone is further enhanced by the balanced rhythm of the amphibrachic meter, which alIows no disruption by pyrrhic feet, here made alI the more solid by the fact that the first two stresses of the poem falI on the same sylIable, -sta-: Predstála i stárets.

The first stanza also introduces the themes that provide the basis of the poem's argumento The persona asserts that the completeness and fulIness of Goethe's life alIowed him to live and die at peace with himself and with fate, the verb sovershil carrying connotations of both perfection (sovershenstvo) and fulfillment (sovershenie). And because of the specific nature of this death, the reader is asked to accept the death calmly, without weeping or grieving.

The emphasis on the general sense of earthly life leads to a discussion of a more concrete aspect of earth in the concluding lines of the stanza: the earth in the form of the wondrous grave, and the earth as the habitat of the worms that inherit the skulI of the genius. The appearance of the word genii (genius) further specifies the image of the gifted individual suggested by the earlier mention of eagle eyes, and the juxtaposition of the images of the worms and the skulI of the genius underscores the basic idea of the poem-that although death may seem to be grotesque, it is but a part of the complete and harmonious experience of life for Goethe, the perfect human being.

The couplet that concludes the stanza establishes an aphoristic pattern of stanza closure that continues throughout the poem. In addition, a counterbalance of opposing or contradictory ideas occurs in the last line of every stanza except the

CONCLUSION 201

fourth. Here the contradiction inherent in the notion that the skulI of a genius could be the inheritance of worms is underlined 1I

by grammatical chiasmus, by alIiteration in the words cherep (skulI) and chervei (worms), and by the fact that alI stresses in Iflll the line falI on the vowel sound e:

Chto geniia cherep nasled'e chervei

L:0mi~~tiv:J "1,11

Gemt1ve 1

The conceptual and structural opposition between the two ~I 111111halves of the line makes the preceding command not to weep or

grieve seem somewhat jarring, and therefore sets the stage for Irthe argumentation that follows in the disputatio of stanzas 2-4·

The second stanza introduces the theme of privet (greeting), which in Boratynskii's lexicon denotes far more than a cursory

1

:11'1

"helIo." It signifies greeting from the depths of one's soul, a !IIIIImomentary opening of the soul for communion with another 111~i

11being. Thus in the concluding stanza of "The Last Death," the I 11fact that nothing is left on earth to greet (proiznesti privet) the '1rising sun shows not only the physical emptiness of the earth

but also the spiritual void. Goethe's ability to give this kind of deep-rooted communication was, however, total and complete: Nichto ne ostavleno im pod solntsem zhivykh bez priveta (He left '! nothing under the sun of the living without greeting). In addi

1

1

1tion, he could respond to the greeting of the world around him ,i1

,

both with his heart and with his mind. Such perfect emotional :1:1

and intelIectual integration was one of the typical characteristics I:!:

of the romantic genius, and also one of the main goals espoused by the Orthodox patristic tradition that influenced Russian culture. Thus Goethe, for Boratynskii, not only was a romantic hero, but suggested a religious model, a holy man or starets, as

1I

~ !.. 'I

11

,ii I

well. '111

Formal and lexical elements underscore the theme of privet. 1The genitive rhyme of priveta and otveta (response, answer), for 1I

instance, demonstrates the relationship between greeting and '1,

response through correspondence of sound as welI as semantic 'II

meaning. In addition, the first four lines of the stanza are built ~ 1

around a kind of morphological addition problem based on the

1:1

203 202 CONCLUSION

morphemes of words denoting communication. The final morpheme of pri-vet (greeting) is added to the prefix of oto-zvat' (respond) to yield the morphological total ot-vet (response, answer). The stanza concludes according to the set pattern with a two-line aphoristic statement in which the second line juxtapases two contradictory ideas. Goethe's thought finds limit (predel) only in the limitless (bespredel'nom).

The third and fourth stanzas list various aspects of Goethe's all-encompassing relationship with the world around him. The third stanza treats the fullness of his life from a cultural point of view: he took in the fruits of both ratiocination and inspiration (trudy mudretsov, iskusstv vdokhnovennykh sozdanii), both the legends of the past and the hopes of the future (Predan'ia ... minuvshykh vekov, tsvetushchikh vremen upovan'ia), both the life of the pauper and the life of the king (proniknut' ... iv nishchuiu kJwtu i v tsarskii chertog). The contrast within each pair of elements-ratiocination-inspiration, past-present, pauper-kingreinforces the pattern of juxtaposition of contrasting ideas that occurs in the last line of most stanzas of the poem.

The fourth stanza focuses on the world of nature rather than on the realm of human culture. Like the third stanza, it opens with a generalization-S prirodoi odnoiu on zhizn'iu dyshal (He breathed life as one with nature)-and then supports the generalization with examples in the following lines: Goethe comprehended the brook's babbling, understood the speech of the leaves and the growing of the grass, could read the book of the stars and talk with the waves.

It is this kind of communion between the human soul and nature that we saw in two of Boratynskii's other metaphysical poems, "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" and "Omens." In the spring poem the persona's own soul achieves unity with nature, and the persona asks in rapture:

qTO e Hero, ~TO e Moefi Ayrnofi Q

e pY~beM oHa py~err rr e rrTil~Kofi rrTil~Ka! e HilM ~YP~ilT,

neTaeT B He6e e Herr!

What's happening to her, what's happening to my soul? 5he's a brook with the brook and a bird with the bird! 5he babbles with the brook and flies in the sky with the bird!

CONCLUSION

"Omens"-which, incidentally, has the same meter as "On the Death of Goethe"-does not have any direct statement about the bond between man and nature, but it makes the connection clear by portraying nature as a mother who laves and protects her innocent human offspring.

However, though these poems and "On the Death of Goethe" all show man at one with nature, the quality of the relationship between man and nature is slightly different in each of the three. In "Spring, spring! How pure the air!" the merging of the firstperson persona's soul with nature leads to zabven'e (oblivion; forgetting of troubles) and serves largely as a means of escape from the implied tedium of daily life. In this sense, the poem is more closely related to Boratynskii's earlier anacreontic poetry, in which wine, women, and comradeship obliterate the dullness of the everyday, than to Schelling's philosophy.

In both "Omens" and "On the Death of Goethe" the experience described is a kind of integration that is potentially far more lasting than the temporary state of oblivion described in the spring poem. Both these poems echo Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, but they portray man at different stages described within the philosophy. The human being described at the beginning of "Omens" is perfectly in tune with nature because he is still in a state of nalve innocence. If he were to remain innocent and unconscious of his own separate identity, he could live in this harmonious state foreverY But he does become conscious of himself, and when he comes to trust his own mind over the amens he has received from nature, he falls from the condition of natural grace.

Goethe, on the other hand, at least according to Boratynskii, has survived the fall from the state of innocence and returned to a higher, conscious state of grace through his genius: his intuitive understanding of art, his rational comprehension of philosophy, and his thorough understanding of the living organism that is nature. Schelling maintains that this higher state of consciousness achieved through art and philosophy is superior to the totally nalve state of grace. 14 It is certainly the only form of philosophical salvation open to such inveterate thinkers as Schelling, Boratynskii, and the romantic saint with Orthodox roots that Boratynskii saw in Goethe.

205 204 CONCLUSION CONCLUSION

opravdaet mogilu ego (The Creator will justify his grave). Tvorets Boratynskii saw in Goethe's life, but usually found lacking in his

The disputatio of stanzas 2-4 elaborates three qualities that (the Creator) would again be the subject of the sentence, and the

own. The ability to communicate, the ability to understand all direct object would again fall at the end of the lineo The point, aspects of human life and culture, and the ability to become one however, is that even without the prospect of afterlife, Goethe's with nature are all absent, for instance, in the autopsychological character of Boratynskii's persona in "Autumn." And unlike the

~~ Ipeople in "The Last Death," Goethe successfully combines intellectual nature (umstvennaia priroda) with physical nature (telesnaia priroda), and so comes to know nature as a whole. As noted by one scholar, Goethe's capacity to integrate nature and intel II

¡

lect, spontaneity and erudition, made him "the very incarnation ~I..of [Boratynskii'sl own yearnings and aspirations." 15 Ji!

"The conclusio of Boratynskii's rhetorical argument follows the prescribed pattern by presenting a synthesis of the disputatio and restating the truth posited in the exordium. But because of the questing nature of Boratynskii's mind, the poem offers not one but two conclusions that can be drawn from the foregoing argument: one based on the idea that there is no afterlife, the other based on the idea that there is alife beyond this one. This leaves the reader with a set of alternatives rather than a definite resolution of the problem of Goethe's fate. Both alternatives, however, reassert the justness and naturalness of Goethe's death in the light of the completeness of his life.

The first line of the fifth stanza emphasizes completeness by repetition of the prefix indicating thoroughness, is-liz-, and the alliteration on slz and v: Izvedan, ispytan im ves' chelovek. The rest of the stanza is structured around the dissonance between word order and meaning in lines 3 and 6:

Line 3 Tvorets ogranichil letllchií nash vek

Line 6 Tvortsa opravdaet mogila ego

Line 3 states the condition: the Creator has limited our fleeting lifetime. Line 6 states the conclusion arising from the condition: Goethe's grave will justify the Creator. This message is distorted, however, by the traditional image of the Creator as the one who has the authority to justify man's life and death, and the expectation that words in similar positions serve the same grammatical function. Thus one would expect line 6 to follow the syntactical order of line 3, resulting in the statement: Tvorets

I .~~~ ,

¡~,

!í.. ,f i' i

~'~, J( :f.: Ai_ ·S

~í

','. !

J'

!-f'

earthly life was so full and complete that his grave will justify the Creator who has limited human life to earthly existence. The reversal of the standard word order and play on the reader's expectations give this point extra impact and continue the pattern of including sorne form of contradiction in the last line of the stanza.

The final stanza presents the alternative of life after death. The notion of the completeness of Goethe's life reappears in the words vpolne (fully) and spolna (in full) and in the line Vse dol'noe dolu otdavshei (Having returned all earthly things to life below), which is underscored by the repetition of the sounds o (e), d, and l. The concept of Goethe's responsiveness recurs not only in the phrase v zvuchnykh, glubokikh otzyvakh (in sonorous, deep response) but also in the completion of a series of words with the prefix ot- denoting reaction to another being: otozvalsia (responded), otvet (answer, response), otzyv (response), otdavshii (having given back, returned). The word dllsha (soul) in the penultimate line of the stanza likewise concludes a series of words based on a common morpheme, here the root -dukh-I-dysh(spirit, breath): dllkh (spirit), dyshal (breathed), otdyshavshii (having breathed his fill), and dusha (soul). The repetition of the morphemes -dukh-I-dysh- and ot- underlines Goethe's most important qualities: his spiritual vitality, his ability to "inhale" all of life, and his ability to reflect this vital energy back to the world around him.

The concluding lines return to the aphoristic pattern established earlier, and the last line of the poem shows the typical tension between two contradictory elements-nebo (heaven) and zemnoe (the earthly; earthly matters). These two words are part of a particular complex of ideas that connect the concluding stanzas. The complex consists of concepts of time and concepts of space that are connected by the notion of flying, with its combination of temporal and spatial denotations. In the fifth stanza, life below on earth (zhizn' zemnaia) is linked with temporal transience through the image of our fleeting or flying lifetime (/etu

206 CONCLUSION

chii nash vek (letuchii means both "fleeting" and "flying"). In the sixth stanza, life aboye in heaven (v nebe) is associated with the eternal (predvechnoe). The imagery of flying, which recurs with emphasis on its spatial meaning, then joins the earthly and heavenly, transient and eternal as Goethe's soul takes leave of the earth and flies up (vozletit) to heaven. Goethe's life was so full that the limits of time and space lose their usual significance,

"On the Death of Goethe" provides a good example of the way in which Boratynskii made use of much of Schelling's philosophy, yet at the same time managed to maintain his own distinct identity as a poet and thinker. The romantic notion of the all-embracing power of genius, for instance, stems largely from Schelling's philosophy, particularIy the Philosophy of Art.16 Boratynskii exaggerates the idea almost to the point of the absurdo Words or phrases indicating completeness appear no fewer than twelve times in the six-stanza poem:

Stanza 1 sovershil-completed vse zemnoe-all earthly matters

Stanza 2 nichto ne ostavleno bez-nothing was left without, Le., everything received na vse otozvalsia-responded to everything predel v odnom bespredel'nom-limit only in the limitless

Stanza 3 vse ... pitalo-everything ... nourished

Stanza 4

Stanza 5 izvedan-completely, thoroughly known ispytan-completely, thoroughlyexperienced ves' chelovek-all humankind

Stanza 6 vpolne-fully spolna-in full vse do!'noe-all earthly things

Other Schellingian aspects of Boratynskii's image of Goethe include the emphasis on the harmonious relationships between intellect and intuition and between mind and heart, and the implicit assertion that both aspects are necessary for metaphysical wholeness. Schelling maintained that pure intellectual reflection

CONCLUSION 2°7

was a spiritual illness, but he also insisted that intellect (Ver1I

nunft) played an essential role in the universe: "Nothing exists I beyond the intellect, and everything is within it ... The intellect is the Absolute." 17 This repudiation of the usual notion that 1 1'

all romantics rejected intellect completely in favor of feeling 11,I

must have been warmly accepted by Boratynskii, an intellectual in the strictest sense of the word.

Acceptance and even glorification of human intellect also carried over into Schelling's and Boratynskii's ideas on arto In his Philosophy of Art, Schelling writes that poetry, as the art of words, surpasses other forms of art in its ability to convey the artist's act of metaphysical recognition directIy within the realm I

!of ideas, and is therefore superior to other forms of art. 18 Bora1 ¡tynskii's poem "Thought, always thought! the poor artist of the

word!" (Vse mys!', da mysl'! Khudozhnik bednyi slova!, 1840) re !

flects the same notion with the addition of Boratynskii's own sense of the pain of deep intellectual life. The artist of the word suffers because he cannot avoid understanding the brutal truth in the direct verbal expression of his visiono But at the same time, words give him power. All earthly life pales before the incisiveness of his thought. Goethe was a true "artist of the word" in Boratynskii's sense of the phrase. The combination of hard, intellectual perception and emotional sensitivity in his works naturally suited him to the role of the Schellingian poet-genius which makes such an important contribution to the image of ·,11

Goethe in the poem. The poem also diverges from Schelling's philosophy in a num

ber of significant ways. The major breach occurs in the concept of death. Both Boratynskii's poem and Schelling's writings preach acceptance of death. But Schelling discusses death within the context of nature as a whole-the return of individual entities to absolute Indifferenz where they cease to exist as separate beings yet continue to exist as a part of the general life force. Though Boratynskii works with this concept in his poem "Death," here he seeks the reader's acceptance of death not as an aspect of the general arder of the universe but rather as a part of Goethe's own unique situation-his ability to die having partaken of life to the fullest. The whole emphasis of the poem falls on Goethe

208 CONCLUSION

as an outstanding individual, a genius, and not on the workings of nature in general.

The double conclusion moves the poem even further away from Schelling's concept of death, for Boratynskii focuses on the problem of afterlife in a way that specifically suggests the polarity of religion and agnosticism rather than a more general philosophical or metaphysical approach. He poses the question in i terms of heaven (nebo), earthly life (zhizn' zemnaia), and nothing 'jness (ne zhdet nichego). These are terms that have little in common with Schelling's idea that things may, for a time, exist sepa 'í rately in the world but will ultimately return and dissolve in absolute Indifferenz when they "die."

Repeated mention of the Creator (Tvorets) further emphasizes the religious element, as does the sense of moral justification inherent in the verb opravdat' (justify). Even Schelling's late writings, which have a more distinctly religious cast than his early works, do not deal in single instances of individual morality. Schelling was concerned neither with the justification of the Creator by one individual, nor with the justification of one individual by the Creator, but with the larger, abstract questions of good and evil.

As a poem, a eulogy on the death of an outstanding cultural figure, Boratynskii's "On the Death of Goethe" naturally differs from Schelling's philosophical tracts in form as well as in content. Yet contrary to what one might usually expect, the poet expresses his thought in a more tightly organized logical fashion than the philosopher. In the structure of this poem as well as in poems like "What use are dreams of freedom to a slave?" and "Autumn," one can follow the precise and logical pattern of Boratynskii's thought as he reflects on the problem and argues with himself until he has explored all possible angles. In Schelling's writings, on the other hand, very rarely if ever does one find a passage that resembles the careful rhetorical argument in "On the Death of Goethe." Schelling and Boratynskii had many similar ideas, but they developed and expressed them in different ways. The prose of the philosopher undoubtedly relies more on the reader's impressionistic comprehension and contains more "poetic vagueness" than the verse painstakingly constructed

CONCLUSION 2°9

from the finely chiseled, rock-hard facets of Boratynskii's thought.

Tiutchev's "On the tall tree of humankind" (Na dreve chelovechestva vysokom, 1832) rests on the same basic concept as Boratynskii's poem-Goethe as the epitome of human developmento But rather than expressing the idea through a drawn-out logical argument, Tiutchev states his case concisely by focusing on a single metaphor:

Ha ~peBe qe~OBeqeCTBa B~COKOM

TbI ~yqmliM 6bTn ero ~liCTOM,

BocrrliTaHH~rr ero qliCTerrrnliM COKOM, Pa3BliT qliCTerrrnliM cO~HeqH~M ~yqOM!

C ero Be~HKOID ~yrnoID

C03ByqHetl Bcex Ha HeM T~ TperreTa~!

ITpopOqeCKIi 6ece~OBa~ C rpo30ID M~b Bece~o C 3eTlipaMIi lirpa~:

He rro3~HHrr BHXPb, He 6YPH~rr ~liBeHb ~eTHlirr Te6R copBa~ C pO~liMoro cyqKa: E~~ MHorliX Kparne, MHorliX ~o~ro~eTHerr, M caM C060ID rra~, KaK li3 BeHKa!

On the tall tree of humankind you were its finest leaf, nurtured on its purest sap, developed by the purest ray of the sun!

Most harmoniously of all you trembled together with its great soul! Whether you conversed prophetically with a thunderstorm or played joyfully with the zephyrs.

No late whirlwind, no stormy summer downpour tore you from your native bough: you were more beautiful than many, longer lived than many, and fell of your own accord, as from a wreath.

The most obvious differences between the two poems, apart from length, lie in the total absence of a title and the use of the metaphor of the leaf in Tiutchev's work, as opposed to the very specific title and image of the great elder in Boratynskii's. In Boratynskii's eulogy the stated occasion of the death of a great elder naturally gives rise to the slightly removed and lofty style and the stately meter; Tiutchev chooses the image of a leaf falling from a tree and handles the event in a correspondingly simpler fashion. Tiutchev's persona addresses the leaf with the familiar ty form rather than speaking of the fallen master in the third persono Likewise, the shorter line length and more flexible

211 210 CONCLUSION

meter (iambic pentameter) move the tone of Tiutchev's poem away from the rhetorical style used by Boratynskii. The absence of a title and the absolute predominance of metaphor within the poem mean that Tiutchev once again confronts his readers with a poem that could relate to a number of metaphysical experiences. Only literary-historical tradition and certain elements suggestive of Goethe's thought within the poem provide any information on the occasion of the composition. 19

The first stanza introduces the metaphor of the best leaf on the tree of humankind and depicts the first stage in the life cycle of the leaf. The idea that the leaf is nurtured (vospítannyí) on the very purest elements both conveys a sense of the leaf's excellence and emphasizes the quality of its growth.

This particular metaphor also furnishes perhaps the main clue \ to the subject of the poem, for one of Goethe's major interests'\ .1 during the mid-1780's was the search for the leaf form of the

'\". IJ lJ.rp.J1a;u.ze, the original and ultimate plant wh()se'strnctu~s .( the model for all other plants in nature. Goethe believed that the

concept of the Urpfianze was "an awareness of the basic form with which nature, as it were, always plays, and through this play generates the diversity of existence. If I had time in the short course of my life, I would venture to expand my search for the Urpfianze into all realms of nature." 20 One could, he suggested, discover the form of the Urpfianze "even in eternity." 21

Tiutchev, then, portrays Goethe in Goethe'S"OWl'rTéf'ffisás the leaf of the Urpfianze. He is not just any leaf, but the finest leaf, the ultimate model for the rest of his species on into eternity.22

The second stanza describes the leaf's "mature" life and develops the theme of unity with nature, a theme already implicit in the leaf metaphor. As Boratynskii's Goethe breathed life as one with nature, Tiutchev's Goethe trembles most harmoniously of all with the great soul of the tree of humankind. But for Boratynskii, harmony with nature is only one aspect of Goethe's completeness and general ability to communicate with the world around him. For Tiutchev, harmony is all.

The extent to which Goethe's harmonious existence distinguishes him from the rest of humankind becomes evident if one compares this poem with Tiutchev's later poem "There is melodiousness in the wav~s '2f the sea" (1865). In the later poem man is

CONCLUSION

portrayed as a part of nature, a reed (trostník), just as Goethe is portrayed as a leaf. But whereas Goethe takes part in the harmonious workings of nature-sozvuchnei vsekh ty trepetal (most harmoniously of all you trembled)-generalized man creates dissonance (razlad) in a world characterized by full consonance or harmony (sozvuch'e polnoe). Goethe, the leaf, converses propheti cally (prorocheskí besedoval) with a thunderstorm, but man, the thinking reed, simply grumbles (ropshchet). The notion that Goethe converses with thunderstorms also contrasts with the portrayal of the anti-Schellingian public that does not converse with thunderstorms (ne soveshchalas' s nimi v besede druzheskoj groza) in "Nature is not what you think." Tiutchev finds fault with mankind in general, and admires Goethe specifically only as a part of nature.

The final stanza carries the theme of harmony into the realm of death, the conclusion of the leaf's life cycle .. The first two lines of the stanza use several poetic devices to underline the message that Goethe's death was not caused by any violent, external forces-Ne pozdníí víkhr', ne burnyí líven' letníi / Tebia sorval s rodímogo suchka (No late whirlwind, no stormy summer downpour tore you from your native bough). Repetition of the negative particle ne (no) rather than the more usualní ... ni (neither ... nor), reinforced by alliteration on the n sound, and full realization of stress, which occurs nowhere else in the poem, all give the first line more than usual impact. The rhyming of líven' letnií (summer downpour) and dolgoletneí (longer lived) contains a possible pun suggesting that the stormy downpour of years (let) was also unable to tear Goethe away from life.

In the second line, alliteration on s and r marks the verb sorval (tore off) and the mention of the locus of the leaf's life-s rodímogo suchka (from your native bough). As shown in the preceding chapters, the concept of the native or kindred element in nature, here expressed by the word rodimyí, carries a special weight in Tiutchev's poetry: in "Nature is not what you think," the most powerful charge against the symbolic deaf-mute is that he does not hear the voice of his own mother-Mother Nature; in "What are you howling about, night wind?" the most important aspect of the night wind's song is that it sings about ancient and native (rodímyi) chaos; and in "Holy night has risen into the

213 212 CONCLUSION

firmament," the ultimate revelation is man's discovery of his native (rodovoe) heritage. Given this context, the impact of the phrase s rodimogo suchka (from your native bough) balances the violent power of the verb sorval (tore off), and it gives extra weight to the whole statement, since anything that has found its "native" place in the universe exists in a state of complete harmony and is virtually impossible to move by external force.

The concluding lines explain the circumstances of the leaf's falling-Byl mnogikh krashe, mnogikh dolgoletnei / 1 sam soboiu pal, kak iz venka (You were more beautiful than many, longer lived than many, and fell of your own accord, as from a wreath). The leaf falls rather than being torn off, and it falls of its own choosing. The emphatic double form sam soboiu (yourself of your own accord) answers the implicit question of how the leaf finally fell from the bough, and counterbalances the repeated negative in the first clause of the stanza-Ne pozdnii vikhr', ne bunzyi liven' letnii (No late whirlwind, no stormy summer downpour). By portraying Goethe's death in terms of a leaf falling of its own accord, Tiutchev maintains the focus on natural harmony as the main characteristic of Goethe's existence. And by closing the poem with the image of a wreath, a symbol of victory, he conveys the same message stated explicitly by Boratynskii's imperative-Ne plach', ne zhalei, chto geniia cherep-nasled'e chervei (Do not weep, do not grieve that the skull of the genius is the inheritance of worms). Tiutchev, like Boratynskii, portrays Goethe's life as an achievement that justifies itself. His death, we see, is not a tragedy but the triumph of the fulfillment of his life.

Although the notion of a great man's total harmony with the universe can be traced to Schelling's Philosophy of Identity, the 'concept of death in the poem is perhaps closer to the philosophically sim..l2~E. acceptance of death posited by Goethe himself. In his essay "Oie-NilfÜr'"'T'Náfüre:- 1782), Goethe says: "Unbidden, nature takes us into the circular course of her dance ... until we are tired and collapse in her arms.... All is new but still [retains] the old.... The most beautiful perception [of Nature] is Life, and Oeath is the artifice she uses in order to have more life." 23 In Tiutchev's poem, the leaf remains on the tree until it is "tired" and "collapses" of its own accord. And its falling makes it part of the process that allows the tree to renew itself,

CONCLUSION

to "have more life," to make something new while retaining the basic form of the Urpfianze. Tiutchev neither names Goethe nor alludes to him through any standard image of the poet, yet Goethe's thought provides the most basic substance from which the poem is made.

Alternatives in Russian Romanticism

The fact that Tiutchev and Boratynskii were the only two major Russian poets to write poems on Goethe's death underscores the qualities that set them apart from their contemporaries: to a greater degree than other poets, they inhabited the same world of deep metaphysical concern that provided Goethe's own spiritual environment-and, like him, they possessed the poetic mastery to express this concern with forcefulness and grace. And though neither Tiutchev nor Boratynskii shared the allencompassing veneration of German culture practiced by the Lovers of Wisdom, each became intensely involved with those aspects of German thought that coincided with his own world view. Hence the death of the German poet and thinker who had embodied their highest cultural values evoked a strong response. Furthermore, both encouraged calm or even triumphant acceptance of Goethe's passing. Tiutchev and Boratynskii not only shared a metaphysical cast of mind that caused them to reflect constantly on man's position in the universe but also engaged in a common quest for a means of living in harmony with that universe. For both of them, Goethe was the model of aman who had actually achieved the goal of harmony, and whose death, . therefore, was an occasion of triumph rather than defeat. . j,

It was this similarity in outlook that allowed Tiutchev and Boratynskii to establish metaphysical poetry as a recognizable strain among the alternative forms of Russian romanticismo Yet there are alternatives within those alternatives, for each of the two poets remains a distinct and distinctive figure in Russian literature. Their poems on the death of Goethe, specifically their concepts of the kind of harmony and achievement he symbolized, also exemplify the differences that appear throughout their metaphysical oeuvres.

Boratynskii's idea of harmony is based on his concept of Goethe's completeness as an individual, on the harmony arising

215 214 CONCLUSION

fram the perfect balance of psychological forces within Goethe's soul. The title "On the Death of Goethe" indicates a direct focus on a particular human being. The notion of Goethe's completeness is reflected in the way the poem is set up as an exhaustive argument discussing all the various human qualities that contribute to Goethe's greatness: his genius, his ability to communicate, and his powers of thought. The entire conceptual framework of the poem rests on human perceptions of genius, communication, morality, and time. /. 0-_

Tiutchev, in a different way, perceive~.~he harmony of Goethe's life as a result of unification with nature-onarmony based precisely on the denial of such human perceptions. His poem does not need a title to specify the occasion, nor does it mention any human attributes once the metaphor of the tree of humankind is intraduced. Like many of Tiutchev's other metaphysical poems, "On the tall tree of humankind" describes a metaphysical experience in a nonspecific manner allowing a relatively wide range of interpretations. The poem might refer to any kind of metaphysical fall-not necessarily death-experienced by any outstanding figure who existed in harmony with nature.

The themes of communication, morality, time, genius, and reason are far less important in Tiutchev's metaphysical poetry than in Boratynskii's because Tiutchev seeks ultimately to eliminate all that is specifically human in the universe for the sake of absolute harmony within nature. For someone like the persona of "Gray blue shadows merged" or the person addressed in "Spring" who seeks freedom fram the spiritual burdens of human existence, communication is no longer important. Human consciousness must be annihilated, not let out to pollute the purity of nature's unconscious existence. When the theme of communication does occur in "On the tall tree of humankind," it is merely part of the larger theme of natural harmony: a leaf converses wíth a thunderstorm. All action takes place within a natural, not human, contexto

Because human concepts of time and morality are irrelevant in a universe that belongs completely to nature, Tiutchev's metaphysical poems portray moments that can exist at any time wíthín the whole span of eternity. And though the human emotions that give ríse to the poems range fram terror to bliss, they

CONCLUSION

are rarely accompanied by any absolute sense of good or evil, or of moral or rational judgment. 24 Boratynskii's poems, of course, take just the opposite direction: human notions of historical time and rational and moral justification form the essence of poems like "On the Death of Goethe," "The Last Poet," and "The Last Death."

Again differing from Boratynskii, Tiutchev refuses to associate Goethe with specific images of genius or inspiratíon. Because harmony within nature automatically excludes individual human consciousness, when Tiutchev does write about inspiration it is in terms of the natural metaphysical phenomena described in "A Vision" and '1\s the ocean embraces the earthly sphere." And when the human ego-the essence of the individualism of ramantic genius-tries to assert itself, it is inevitably destroyed, as in "Dream at Sea" and "Look, on the river's expanse." In "The Swan," Tiutchev actually rejects the kind of eagle-eyed vísíon of geníus Boratynskii attríbutes to Goethe: the soaríng flight of the eagle may create a dramatic spectacle, but the quiet contemplatíon of the swan leads to a deeper knowledge of metaphysícal truth.

Tíutchev's metaphysíc líkewise deníes the indívidual consciousness called forth by human reason. The kínd of emphasis on Goethe's role as a great thínker that appears in Boratynskii's poem ís totally absent in Tiutchev's, in spite of the fact that the depth and pantheístíc aspect of Goethe's thought were undoubtedly among the majar forces that attracted Tíutchev to Goethe. In two poems not discussed here, "The Fountain" (Fontan, 18J6) and "Wave and Thought" (Vaina i duma, 1851), Tiutchev presents hís belíef in the límitations and even emptíness of human thought. In the poems díscussed earlier he conveys theI same ídea maínly by ímplicatíon. All the metaphysical poems re1

I lated to ínspíration or mystíc transport, for instance, portray revelations contíngent upon the obliteratíon of the rational forces of day and the domínance of the chaotíc, írrational forces of níght. Wíthin this graup of poems, "Holy níght has rísen ínto the firmament" offers the most explicit statement of Tiutchev's antirationalism in the line Uprazdnen um, mysl' osirotela (Mínd ís abolished, thought is orphaned). It is only after mínd ís abolíshed that man can receíve knowledge of his ancient heritage.

217 216 CONCLUSION

Tiutchev clearly goes beyond the bounds of Boratynskii's COncept of harmony and Schelling's philosophy in his insistence on the obliteration of individual human consciousness. Boratynskii ' admired Goethe precisely because he managed to combine harmonious relationships with nature and society with a higher form of artistic and philosophical consciousness. Schelling may have seen dissolution in Indifferenz as the end of a11 existence, but his universe of existing things still had a special place for the individuality of the genius and the higher consciousness of the philosopher. Only Tiutchev felt that the human soul should pour the totality of its existence into nature's ever changing moldo

Tiutchev's rejection of human ratiocination affects the form of his poetry as well. His biographer 1. S. Aksakov noted this characteristic and explained it as follows:

[Tiutchev's poetry] is not thinking poetry [mysliashchaia poeziia], but is rather poetic thought [poeticheskaia mys/']. Because of this, his thought does not appear to be dressed up in artistic form the way a hand is

:~' ressed up in a glove. Instead, the form develops along with the ," thought, like the covering of skin that grows along with the body, cre\ated together at the same time by the same process: [form] is the very

1flesh of the thought. 2'

<.,--- _._-_.._-----

Thus, whereas Tiutchev's poems tend to be short and focus on a single, finished, and fully integrated poetic impulse, Boratynskii's poetry reflects the lengthy and complex thought processes of the poet as he explores any number of ideas and images. Such detailed intellectual investigation naturally results in poems of considerable length, and when the poet's mind perceives both sides of an issue all too well, as in the double ending of "On the Oeath of Goethe," the ideas may seem ambiguous.

Whatever differences there may be between Tiutchev and Boratynskii, the two ultimately share the honor of establishing metaphysical poetry as a genuine alternative among the other forms of Russian romanticism and assuring its position as a major aspect of the Russian poetic tradition. Though the Lovers of Wisdom talked headily of establishing a new "philosophical lyric," their own efforts fell short of their ideals. Pushkin's influence, once the lifeblood of Russian literature, could not carry a whole generation through the middle decades of the nineteenth

CONCLUSION

century. For various reasons peculiar to the times, revolutionary, historical, and ethnic varieties of Russian romanticism failed to mature into major sources of literary strength. After the failure of the Decembrist Revolt, the conspirators were hanged or sent into exile, eliminating one group of poets directly and just as effectively silencing those who might have liked to give voice to the same brand of "revolutionary" nationalism. The same fundamental confusion about national identity, about the nature of the Russian state and "Russianness," that prompted the Oecembrist Revolt and caused the authorities to quell it in such a brutal manner made the full development of historical and ethnic romanticism impossible. Individual authors did succeed in creating works on such themes, but no Russian Walter Scott appeared to give this alternative the sense of continuity and strength it needed. It was, of course, Lermontov with his Byronic hero, the personification of alienation, seething emotion, and bitter wit, who actually carried Russian literature through this time of troubles and on into the proto-realistic grotesques of Gogol and the early Dostoevsky.

But between, behind, and beyond the brilliantly spotlighted figures of Pushkin and Lermontov stand two poets who were never accorded a comparable degree of public acclaim, yet made an equally weighty contribution to the substance of Russian literature. To the loosely associated-in fact, barely identifiablemetaphysical strain in Russian poetry, a motley combination of 1;

Russian Orthodox meditative prayer, bits of the German Ce dankefllyrik, and whatever skills and ideas a given author migh have, Tiutchev and Boratynskii added a measure of Schelling philosophy, and, more important, the striking intensity 4f

their own thought and the consummate skill of their poefic

expression.

NOTES

l. The Context

1. Katenin cited in L. Ginzburg, "O probleme narodnosti i lichnosti v poezii Dekabristov," O russkom realizme XIX veka i voprosakh narodnosti v literature, ed. P. P. Gromov (Moscow-Leningrad: Goslitizdat, 1960), p. 60; V. G. Belinskii cited in E. A. Maimin, O russkom romantizme (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1975), p. }.

2. Jacques Barzun, in Classic, Rommztic, alld Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 98, gives a similar set of dates for European romanticismo

}. The most outstanding works on Russian romanticism are 1. 1. Zamotin's Romantizm dvadtsatykh godov XIX stoletiia v russkoi literature (Warsaw, 190}) and Romallticheskii idealizm v russkom obshclzestve i literature 20-30-kh godov XIX stoletiia (St. Petersburg, 1907). E. A. Maimin's O russkom romantizme (1975) marks an advance in Soviet scholarship with its direct typological approach to the problems of Russian romanticism, and Bodo Zelinsky's Russische Romalltik (Cologne: B6hlau Verlag, 1975) is usefui because of its broad encyclopedic nature, but neither matches the depth of analysis offered by Zamotin. Rudolph Neuhauser's Towards the Romantic Age: Essays on Sentimental and Preromantic Literature ill Russia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), as indicated by the title, focuses on the period just before the full development of romanticism in Russia.

4. These matters are discussed in more detail by Lidia Ginzburg in the first two chapters of O lirike (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1964; expanded ed., 1974). All references here are from the 1964 edition.

5. Cited in K. V. Pigarev, Zlzizn' i tvorchestvo Tiutcheva (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1962), p. 201. See also Maimin, O russkom romantizme, pp. 146-47, and D. S. Mirsky, A History o[ Russian Literature (New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 107.

6. Mirsky, pp. 128-29. 7. Ibid., p. 102. 8. A. S. Pushkin, "Baratynskii" (18}0), in A. S. Pushkin, Pollloe so


braníe sochínmíí, 17 vols. (Moscow: lzdate!'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1937-49), 11: 185; V. C. Belinskii, "Stikhotvoreniia E. Baratynskogo" (1842), in V. C. Belinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenií, 13 vols. (Moscow: lzdate!'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1953- 59), 6: 479·

9. Cinzburg, O lírike, chapo 2.

10. See Louis L. Martz, The Poem of the Mínd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).

11. One possible source of direct inf1uence from England, a visit by the poet Andrew Marvell, seems not to have left any traces at all on Russian culture. This is hardly surprising, since very few people in Russia in the seventeenth century would have been acquainted with English literature, and Marvell carne as the secretary of a diplomatic delegation rather than as a recognized cultural emissary. An amusing account of the journey, which involved numerous bureaucratic difficulties but concluded happily with the British delegation in possession of two live bears and the head of a sturgeon presented to Marvell by the tsar, can be found in John Dixon Hunt's Andrew Marvel/: Hís Life Imd Writíngs (London: P. Elek, 1978), pp. 144-48. See also Hilton Kelliher, Andrew Marvel/: Poet and Polítícian, catalogue for British Library Exhibition (London: British Museum Publications, 1978), pp. 82-83. It is perhaps worth noting that although Marvell is now recognized as a poet in Russian language reference books, his trip to Russia is not mentioned in either the Kratkaía líteraturnaía entsíklopediia or the Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopedíia, nor in the prerevolutionary Brokgauz-Efron Entsiklopedicheskií slovar'.

12. Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Medítation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), pp. 4-13.

13. Martz, Poem of Mínd, p. 33. 14. Martz, Poetry of Meditatíon, pp. 25- 39· 15· Ibid., p. 14· 16. T. S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets," in T. S. Eliot, Seleeted Essays

(London: Faber, 1932), p. 287. 17. See Harold B. Segel, The Baroque Poem: A Comparative Survey (New

York: Dutton, 1974). 18. Definition of "metaphysics" in the Oxford Englísh Díetionary. 19. See M. H. Abrams, "Structure and Style in the Creater Romantic

Lyric," in Essays Presented to Frederíck A. Pottle: From Sensíbilíty to Romanticism, ed. Fred W. Hilles and M. H. Abrams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 527-60; Martz, Poem of Mind.

20. See Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin, 1976), p. 312; Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clark, 1957), p. 42.

21. Ware, p. 74. 22. See the discussions of prayer in introductory essays about and se

lection by Sto Nilus Sorsky, Sto Tychon (often transliterated "Tikhon"), and "The Pilgrim" in Ceorge P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian Spirituality (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1975).

221NOTES TO PAGES 8-11

23. Ware, p. 110.

24. Ibid., p. 129; Fedotov, pp. 182-241. 25. Mirsky, p. 42; A. A. Morozov, "Vstupite!'naia stat'ia," in M. V.

Lomonosov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow-Leningrad: Sovetskii pisate!', 1957), pp. 16-20.

26. Derzhavin's turn to the carpe diem theme at the end of the "Ode on the Death of Prince Meshcherskii," however, goes precisely against

,;: ¡ the English poets' intention to suffer like Christ through contemplation of death. See Martz, Poetry of Medítatíon, chapo 1.

27. V. S. Solov'ev, "Poeziia F. I. Tiutcheva," in V. S. Solov'ev, Sobranie sochíneníi (St. Petersburg, 1895), 7: 117-34·

28. See V. la. Briusov, "Legenda o Tiutcheve," Novyí put', no. 11 (190 3); also Temira Pachmuss, Zinaída Híppius: An Intel/ectual Profile (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961), pp. 362, 380.

29. Because there is a fine array of background material available, only brief outlines of Tiutchev's and Boratynskii's lives are given here. The most comprehensive studies of the poets' lives and works are in Russian, K. V. Pigarev's Zhízn' í tvorchestvo Tiutcheva and Ceir Kjetsaa's

l· Evgenii Baratynskíi: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo (0510: Universitetsforlaget, 1973)· Both are extremely well researched and written with deep respect for.) their subjects. Richard Cregg's Fedor Tiutchev: The Evolution ofa Poet (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), uses an approach grounded in the principIes of psychoanalysis, and offers a useful and convincing interpretation of Tiutchev's life and thoughtful discussions of many of his poems. Benjamin Dees's E. A. Baratynsky (New York: Twayne, 1972) provides an adequate if somewhat cursory introduction to Boratynskii in English, though it in no way approaches the depth of Kjetsaa's study. Biografiia Fedora Ivanovicha Tiutcheva (Moscow, 1886), by I. S. Aksakov (who married Tiutchev's daughter Anna), P. P. Filippovich's Zhizn' i tvorchestvo E. A. Boratynskogo (Kiev, 1917), and M. L. Cofman's Poeziia Boratynskogo (Petrograd, 1915) offer slightly idiosyncratic but lively and perceptive views of the poets. The authors share both the advantages and the disadvantages of being closer to their subjects and the people who knew them, but the sense of life and scholarly devotion conveyed by the works makes tnem well worth reading.

30 . Aksakov (p. 23) calls these years "the most important of Tiutchev's life-the period of his intellectual and spiritual formation."

31. F. I. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie stikllOtvorenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii

pisatel', 1957), p. 376. 32 . There are several stories about Tiutchev casually jotting down

lines of poetry on scraps of paper while presumably giving his attention to other matters. One such instance was noted during a meeting of the State Censorship Committee, of which Tiutchev was a member, in 1867= "Kapnist [a lesser known poet and also a member of the committee] noticed that Tiutchev seemed extraordinarily absent-minded and was drawing or writing something on a piece of paper that lay before him on the table. After the meeting, Tiutchev left, stilllost in thought, leav

222 NOTES TO PACES 11-18

ing the paper where it layo On the forgotten piece of paper Kapnist found the poem Kak ne tiazile/ poslednii chas." la. O. Zundelo'vich, Etiudy o lirike Tiutcheva (Samarkand, 1971), p. 48.

33· For details on the spelling of Boratynskii's name see the follow ing: V. Valerianov, "Neobkhodimoe utochnenie: imia pisatelia (E. A. Boratynskogo)," Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 50 (December 9, 1970); A. L. Boratynskii, "1 vse-taki Boratynskii!" Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 31 (July 28, 1971); V. V. Kozhinov, "Legendy i fakty ... Zhiznennyi podvig Boratynskogo," Russkaia literatura no. 2 (1975): 148-53.

34· Kjetsaa, p. 203. 35· S. P. Shevyrev, "Vzgliad russkogo na sovremennoe obrazovanie

Evropy," cited in Glynn R. Barratt, ed. and trans., Se/ected Letters of Evgeny Baratynsky (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), p. 108.

36. Pigarev, Zhizn', pp. 11-12; K. V. Pigarev, Muranovo: Putevodite/' (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1957), p. 122; D. Stremooukhoff, La poésie et /'idéologie de Tiouttchev (Paris: University of Strasbourg Publications, 1937), p. 35.

37. Kjetsaa, chapo 1. 38. Del'vig cited in Gofman, p. 7. 39· D. E. Maksimov, "ldeia puti v poeticheskoa soznanii Bloka," in

Blokovskii sbornik: II (Tartu, 1972), pp. 28- 29. 40. Kjetsaa, pp. 266-67; Gofman, p. 8. 41. See Friedrich Schiller, "Uber naive und sentimentalische Dich

tung," in F. Schiller, Werke, 43 vols. (Weimar: Bóhlau, 1943-67), 20: 413-50 3.

42. For more on this matter see Norman Fruman, Coleridge: The Damaged Archangel (New York: Braziller, 1971); Thomas McFarland, Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 310- 16.

43· E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Wordsworth and Schelling: A Typological Study 01 Romallticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960).

44· lt has, for example, been pointed out that Schelling "turned to electricity and its laws as the model for an entire metaphysic of existence." McFarland, p. 298; see also pp. 297-303. This aspect of Schelling's thought had a striking resonance in England but faded rapidly out of focus in Russia after the initial infiuence of the Schellingian prafessors.

45· See Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter (Düsseldorf: Schwann Verlag, 1954).

46. [bid., p. 34; F. W. J. Schelling, Siirnmtliche Werke, 14 vols. (Stuttgart: Cotta'scher Verlag, 1856-61), Part 1,3: 309; 4: 127-28. All citations fram this edition of Schelling's Werke are fram Part I.

47· Schelling, 3: 272-73; 4: 129. 48. [bid., 1: 149-244. 49· [bid., 3: 340. 50. [bid., 7: 13-14. 51. [bid., p. 140. 52. [bid., 2:13, 57-58. 53· [bid., p. 14· 54. [bid., p. 12. 55· [bid., 3:627;5:269. 56. [bid., 3:620.

NOTES TO PACES 18-21 22}

57· [bid., p. 625. 58. [bid., pp. 619, 623. 59· [bid., p. 627; 5: 460. 60. Fuhrmans, pp. 75-80; Robert F. Brawn, The Later Philosophy of

Schelling: The [nfluence 01 Bohme on the Works 0118°9-1815 (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1977).

61. Schelling, 7:331~416.

62. Fuhrmans, Part Ir; Alexandre Koyré, La Philosophie et le probleme national en Russie au début du X[Xe siec/e (Paris: Champion, 1929), p. 150.

63. Wsewolod Setschkareff, Schellings Einfluss in der russiscizell Literatur der 20er und 30er Jahre des XIX Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Schulze, 1939), pp. 99- 106.

64· Aksakov, pp. 42, 64; Gregg, p. 25. The prablem here is that the information handed down through several generations stems primarily from reports made to Aksakov by Tiutchev's father-in-law, Baran Pfeffel, who describes a dispute between Tiutchev and Schelling on the relationship between Christianity and philosophy. Aksakov himself, however, occasionally questions Pfeffel's reliability (p. 318), and N. S. Popov, whose artic1e "Tiutchev i Shelling" unfortunately remains unpublished in the Muranovo Museum Archive (Archive Unit N-17), states fiatly that as far as the alleged dispute is concerned .. "there is every reason to deny the accuracy of Pfeffel's testimony."

65. Pigarev, Zhizn', p. 58. 66. Kjetsaa, pp. 138, 147, 412-13; Ginzburg, O lirike, pp. 76-78;

Dees, pp. 76, 135. There is a serious typographical errar on page 76 of Dees's book: the quotation fram Boratynskii's letter to Pushkin should read "Not knowing German ..." rather than "Now knowing German ..."

67. These voices can be c1assified generally as follows. (1) Affirm connection between Tiutchev's or Boratynskii's metaphysical views and Schelling's philosophy: B. la. Bukhshtab, "Vstupitel'naia stat'ia," in F. I. Tiutchev, Polnoe (1957), pp. 10, 23; William A. Coates, "Tiutchev and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and Culture," dissertation, Harvard University, 1950, chaps. 4-6; N. S. Popov, "Tiutchev i Shelling"; E. N. Kupreianova, "Esteticheskie vzgliady Baratynskogo," Literaturnaia ucheba, no. 11 (1936): 114; Wsewolod Setschkareff, "Zur philosophischen Lyrik Boratynskijs," Zeitschrift lür slavische Philologie, 19 (1947): 380-89. (2) Deny connection: Stremooukhoff, p. 44; V. N. Kasatkina, Poeticheskoe mirovozzrenie F. [. Tiutcheua (Saratov, 1969), p. 12. (3) lntermediate position: Ginzburg (about Tiutchev), O lirike, pp. 89-101; D. Chizhevskii, "Tjutéev und die deutsche Romantik," Zeitschrift lür slavische Philologie, 4 (1927): 299- 323; I. L. Al'mi, "ldeino-tvorcheskie iskaniia E. A. Baratynskogo kontsa dvadtsatykh-pervoi poloviny tridtsatykh godov," Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo gosudarstuCIlllogo illstituta imeni Gertsena, 308 (1966): 3-31; I. L. Al'mi, "Lirika Baratynskogo," Kandidatskaia dissertatsiia, Leningrad, 1970).

68. Boratynskii reported that he did not know German in a letter

224 NOTES TO PAGES 21-27 NOTES TO PAGES 27- 34 225

written to Pushkin in the mid-1820'S (see note 66 aboye), and in the 87· Riasanovsky, pp. 57, 173· 88. James Billington, The leon and the Axe (New York: Vintage, 1970), early 1830's he lamented to Kireevskii that he could not read Karolina

p. 312; N. O. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy (New York: InternaPavlova's German translations of his own poems. Barratt, p. 99. tional Universities Press, 1951), p. 15; Peter K. Christoff, An Introduction69· Ware, pp. 224-30; Vladimir Lossky, pp. 205-6, 217, 241. to Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, vol. 2, l. V Kireevskij (The70. Ware, pp. 217, 23T Vladimir Lossky, chapo 2.

t Hague: Mouton, 1972), p. 58.71. Schelling, 3: 167, 258, 260. 89. 1. V. Kireevskii, "On the Necessity and Possibility of New Princi72. Cited in P. N. Sakulin, Iz istorii russlaigo idealizma: Kniaz' V E

pies in Philosophy," in Edie et al., p. 211. Odoevskii (Moscow, 1913), 1: 241, n. 2. See also Ivan Kireevskii's discussion of Schelling's later philosophy, "O neobkhodimosti i vozmozhnosti .~ 90' Zenkovsky, 1: 153; Raymond T. McNally, Chaadaev and His Friends novykh nachal dlia filosofii," in 1. V. Kireevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, ed. Gershenzon (Moscow, 1911), 1: 223-64, translated by Peter Christoff as "On the Necessity and Possibility of New Principies in Philosophy," in James M. Edie, et al., Russian Philosophy (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 1: 171-213. See also Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationr.!ity in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 173-7T Koyré, pp. 187-88, 192-93; V. 1. Sakharov, "O bytovanii shellingianskikh idei v russkoi literature," in Kontekst 77, Institut mirovoi literatury (Moscow, 1978), p. 216.

73· Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 4· 74. A. A. Galaktionov and P. F. Nikandrov, Russkaia filosofiia XI-XIX ,')1

vekov (Leningrad: Nauka, 1970), p. 14T P. V. Sobolev, Ocherki russkoi estetiki pervoi poloviny XIX veka (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'noekonomicheskoi literatury, 1972), p. 82.

75· E. Bobrov, Istoriia filosofii v Rossii, 5 vols. (Kazan, 1899-1903), 2: 3; Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 6.

76. Galaktionov, p. 154. 77. Sobolev, pp. 82, 120. 78. Zamotin, Romantizm, pp. 111-17; see Boratynskii's letter to Push

kin cited on p. 29 of this study. 79. Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 12. 80. The comment is Miliukov's, cited in V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of

Russian Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 1: 123. 81. Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 16. 82. Herzen cited in D. 1. Chizhevskii, Gegel' v Rossii (Paris: Dom

knigi, 1939), p. 38. 83. Ibid., pp. 4°-41; L. A. Ozerov, Poeziia Tiutcheva (Moscow: Khu

dozhestvennaia literatura, 1975), p. 12. 84. Peter K. Christoff, The Third Heart: Some Intellectual-Ideological Cur

rents and Cross-Currents, 1800-1830 (The Hague: Mouton, 1970), pp. 50-54; Setschkareff, Einfluss, p. 32; Mirsky, p. lOT Maimin, O russkom romantizme, pp. 146-47.

85, A. 1. Koshelev cited in E. A. Maimin, "Filosofskaia poeziia Pushkina i liubomudrov," Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, vol. 6 (Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1969)'

86. V. F. Odoevskii, "Neskol'ko slov o Mnemozine," cited in Zamotin, Romantizm, pp. 102-3'

n (Tallahassee: Diplomatic Press, 1971), pp. 192-93. fi 91. Edward J. Brown, Stankevich and His Moscow Circle (Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1966), pp. 15, 50; Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 87-90; Herbert E. Bowman, Vissarion Berl

: linskii, 1811-1848 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 40; Chizhevskii, Gegel', p. 48; N. O. Lossky, p. 31; Sakharov, p. 216.

92. Kjetsaa, pp. 136-37, 168-69' 93. K. A. Polevoi cited in Kjetsaa, p. 139· 94. N. A. Mel'gunov cited in Kjetsaa, p. 169. 95. Cited in N. R. Mazepa, E. A. Baratynskii: Esteticheskie i literaturno

kriticheskie vzgliady (Kiev, 1960), p. 16. 96. Cited in Kjetsaa, p. 122. 97. Dees, p. 20; see also Koyré, pp. 131-32. 98. Kjetsaa, pp. 412-13. 99. V. Liaskovskii, Brat'ia Kireevskiia: Zhizn' i trudy iklz (St. Petersburg,

1899), p. 31. 100. Kjetsaa, p. 155. 101. S. A. Rachinskii, Tatevskii sbornik (St. Petersburg, 1899), p. 26. 102. Ibid., p. 49.

I 103. Kjetsaa, p. 230- 31. 104. Cited in Rachinskii, p. 29. 105. See L. G. Frizman, "K istorii zhurnala Evropeets," Russkaia liter

atura, no. 2 (1967): 117-25. 106. Rachinskii, p. 40. 107. Ibid., p. 45· 108. Ibid., p. 51. 109· Ibid., p. 53· 110. Barratt, p. 12. 111. Liaskovskii, p. 45· 112. See, for instance, Boratynskii's letter to Kireevskii written on

June 20, 1832, in which he states: "The poetry of faith is not for uso ... We have cast down the old idols and have not yet gained faith in new ones." Rachinskii, pp. 47-48. See also Boratynskii's poems Posledniaia smert', Poslednii poet, and Osen'.

113. Kireevskii cited in Kjetsaa, pp. 198-99. 114. Both positive and negative reactions to Schelling's philosophy

provided bases for Boratynskii's poetry from roughly 1827 on. One of his last poems, Nas posev lesa, has been said to contain "a mystical, Schelling-like connection between nature and poetry." Dees, p. 127.

.~ 'j

226 NOTES TO I'AGES 34- 52

115. See Pigarev, Muranovo, p. 122; Stremooukhoff, p. 35. 116. Pigarev, Zhizn', p. 17. 117. Pogodin cited in Briusov, "Legenda ° Tiutcheve," p. 24. 118. P. V. Kireevskii, "Pis'ma," Russkii arkhiv, 2 (1905): 121. Thiersch

was head of the Department of Rhetoric and Ancient Languages at the University of Munich. See also P. V. Kireevskii, "Otryvki iz chastnykh pisem o Shellinge," Moskovskii vestnik, part 1, no. 1 (1830): 11-116.

119. P. V. Kireevskii, "Pis'ma," p. 122. 120. Ibid., p. 125; see also "Otryvki," p. 115. 121. G. Plitt, ed., Aus Schellings Leben in Briefen, 3 vols. (Leipzig,

1870), 3: 39·

2. Nature

1. See M. H. Abrams, "Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric," in Hilles and Abrams, eds., Essays Presented to Frederick A. Pottle; also Charles Peake, ed., Poetry of the Landscape and the Night: Two Eighteenth-Century Traditions (London: Arnold, 1967)'

2. V. F. Savodnik, Chuvstvo prirody v poezii Puslzkina, Lermontova i Tiutcheva (Moscow, 1911), pp. 166-67.

3. M. Iu. Lermontov, Mtsyri, in M. Iu. Lermontov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 4 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1947-48), 2: 56.

4. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Wordsworth and Schelling: A Typological Study of Romanticism, pp. 16-20, 48-49,

5. William Wordsworth, The Recluse, 11. 800~811 (Oxford ed., ed. de Selincourt and Darbishire, 5: 4-5)·

6. K. V. Pigarev, Zhizn' i tvorchestvo Tiutcheva, p. 86. 7. Tiutchev, Lirika, 1:244· 8. F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtliche Werke, 2:174. 9· Ibid., 7: 363, 366. 10. A few other meanings also exist, none of them relevant here. See

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Warterbuch, 16 vols. (Leipzig: Hirzel Verl~g, 1854-1954).

11. Slovar' Akademii Rossiiskoi (1806-1822), vol. 5 (reprint, University of Odense, Denmark, 1971).

12. B. O. Unbegaun, Russian Versiftcation (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 13.

13. Schelling, 2: 70. 14· Ibid., 3: 351. 15. For more examples of est' see lines 3 and 4 of Ne to, chto mnite vy,

priroda, line 10 of Silentium, and the poems Est' v oseni perl'onachal'noi, Est' v moem stradal'cheskom zastoe, Est' mnogo melkikh bezymiannikh ... , and Est' telegraf za neimen'em nog.

16. R. F. Gustafson, "Tjutcev's Imagery and What It Tells Us," Slavic and East European ¡oumal, n.S., 4 (18), no. 1 (Spring 1960): 1-16.

NOTES TO I'AGES 53-94 227

17· Schelling, 3: 278-79. 18. [bid., 5:465. 19· [bid., 7:363. 20. V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy, 1 :235-36; also

James M. Edie et al., Russian Plzilosoplzy, 1: 163. 21. Richard A. Gregg, Fedor Tiutchev: The Evolution of a Poet, p. 234;

Friedrich Schiller, Die Riiuber, act 4, scene 5, Werke, vol. 3. 22. Tiutchev, Lirika, 2: 62,344; see also William A. Coates, "Tiutchev

and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and Culture," pp. 301-3.

23. Heinrich Heine, Die Nordsee (Zweiter Zyklus), in H. Heine, Werke und Briefe (Berlin: Aufbau, 1961), 1: 2°7-8.

24. Pascal, Pensées, transo H. F. Stewart, Dual Text ed. (New York: Pantheon, 1965), p. 83. For further discussion of Tiutchev's relation to Pascal see Gregg, pp. 76-77, 97-99, 109, 198. In his Essays on Mandel'Stam (Harvard Slavic Studies, vol. 6; Cambridge, Mass., 1975), pp. 52- 53, Kirill Taranovsky discusses the epithet "thinking reed" as it was passed along fram Tiutchev to Mandel'shtam.

25. Pascal, p. 83· 26. See ibid., pp. 21-29' 27. For an explicit statement of this desire to merge with nature see

Tiutchev's poem Teni sizye smesilis', discussed in chapter 4, "Mystic Transformations," and Lidia Ginzburg's perceptive comments on the poem in O Lirike, pp. 102- 3.

28. Rousseau, Les Pensées de J. J. Rousseau (Amsterdam, 1763), p. 173, cited by Geir Kjetsaa, Evgenii Baratynskii: Zlzizn' i tvorchestvo, pp. 467-68 (my translation).

29. Schelling, 2: 12. 30. [bid., 7:365-66. 31. V. F. Odoevskii, "Nauka instinkta," cited in Baratynskii, Polnoe so

branie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957), p. 367. 32. Kjetsaa, p. 279. 33. Louis L. Martz, The Poem of tlze Mind, p. 7· 34. See Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation, pp. 35-39· 35. Schelling, 3: 278-79; 5:465. 36 . Cited in P. P. Filippovich, Zlzizn' i tvorchestvo E. A. Boratynskogo,

P·41. 37. See Glynn R. Barratt, "Eighteenth-Century Neo-Classical French

Influence on E. A. Baratynsky and Pushkin," Comparative Literature Studies, no. 4 (1969): 435- 61.

38. Schelling, 7: 363. 39· [bid., 4:91. 40. See 1. M. Semenko, Poety pushkinskoi pory (Moscow: Khudozhe

stvennaia literatura, 1970), pp. 267-68. 41. Kjetsaa, p. 491. 42. Schelling, 2: 13.


3. The Poet and Poetry

1. The image is from M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Norton, 1958).

2. Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der WcltaIter, p. 37. 3. F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtliche Werke, 3: 621. 4· lbid., 5:380. 5· lbid., 3: 620.

6. lbid., 5:459. 7. lbid., 3:626. 8. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Wordsworth and Schelling: A Typological Study of

Romanticism, pp. 1-14. 9· Schelling, 5: 348. 10. Cited in L. la. Ginzburg, "Opyt filosofskoi liriki," Poetika, no. 5

(Leningrad, 1929): 78. 11. D. V. Venevitinov, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (Leningrad: Sovet

skii pisatel', 1960), p. 143. 12. A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 3: 65, 223· 13· lbid., p. 30. 14· Venevitinov, p. 145. 15. M. lu. Lermontov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 1 :34. 16. Hirsch, pp. 120-21.

17. Schelling, 3:626-27;5:64°. 18. M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: TraditiOll and Revo1zdioll in

Romantic Literature (New York: Norton, 1971), p. 28. 19. Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book Third, 11.- 144-46 (Norton ed.,

1979, ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, Stephen Gill). 20. A. S. Khomiakov, Stikhotvoreniia i dramy (Leningrad: Sovetskii

pisatel', 1969), p. 91. 21. Pushkin, 3: 141. 22. Lermontov, 1: 228. 23. Schelling, 7:331-416. 24. V. A. Zhukovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 4 vols. (Moscow

Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1959), 1: 148.

25. Lidia Ginzburg, O lirike, p. 94. 26. V. 1. Tumanskii, Muzy, in Poety lS20-1S30-kh godov, ed. L. la.

Ginzburg (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1961), p. 176. 27. See K. V. Pigarev, Zhizn' i tvorchestvo Tiutcheva, p. 11. 28. Hesiod, "Theogony" in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, transo

H. G. Evelyn-White (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943), p. 87,

29. Ovid, Metamorphoses, transo F. J. Miller (New York: Loeb Classical Library, 1933), pp. 2- 5.

30. See Richard A. Gregg, Fedor Tiutchev: The Evolution of a Poet, chapo 7; also Tiutchev's poems Liubliu glaza tvoi, moi drrrg and Vchera, v mechtakh obvorozhemllfkh.

31. MetamorpilOses, pp. 4- 5. Miller has translated circumfluus umor as

NOTES TO PAGES 112-20 229

"streaming water," but Innes's translation as "encircling sea" makes the parallelism clearer in this case. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, transo Mary M. Innes (Baltimore: Penguin, 1955), p. 30. Tiutchev could also have gleaned sorne of this imagery from the German romantics. Novalis, for instance, links sleep and ocean imagery, saying, "Sleep is nothing but the flood tide of an invisible world sea, and awakening is the ebbing of the tide"; and Brentano links the night and the sea through the image of an embrace, saying, "The holy night embraces us like a gently moving sea." See D. 1. Chizhevskii, "Tjutcev und die deutsche Romantik," p·312.

32. Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, pp. 130, 109. 33· Schelling, 3: 346. 34· lbid., pp. 620-21; 5=380. 35· B. la. Bukhshtab, "F. 1. Tiutchev," in Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie

stikhotvorenii, pp. 29- 30. 36. lbid., p. 53. In addition to the "blissful" and "stormy" worlds,

Bukhshtab suggests a Tiutchevian "winter world" (zimllii mir) characterized by the cold deadness and stagnation of winter in northern Russia.

37. R. F. Gustafson, "Tiutchev's Imagery and What It Tells Us," Slavic and East European foumal, Spring 1960, pp. 2, 9-10.

38. It is a curious coincidence that Boratynskii, in writing to his mother in 1824, expressed a similar concept of human genius ruling the seas and other elements: "1 feel that I always need something dangerous to occupy me, otherwise 1am bored. Imagine me, my dear, on deck amid furious seas, amad storm-dociIe to me, a wooden board between me and death, and sea monsters marveling at the amazing occurrence-a product of human genius ruling the elements." Cited in G. Struve, "Evgeny Baratynsky," Slal'Onic alld East European Review, 23, no. 62 (January 1945): 110.

39. Rolf Kempf, F. l. Tjutéev: Personlichkeit und Dichtzmg (Gottingen: University of Base!, 1956), p. 13.

40. F. 1. Tiutchev, Liubovnitsy, bezumtsy i poety, in Lirika, 2: 104. Pigarey dates the translation "the end of the 1820'S or beginning of the 1830'S," and tentatively attributes Son na more to the year 1833. Tiutchev probably made the translation from a German or French version of Shakespeare since he seems not to have known English.

41. See Gregg, pp. 96-99. Gregg's discussion of Pascal's influence is usefu!, but his dismissal of Matlaw's interpretation and his failure to investigate other Schellingian overtones leave his analysis of the poem incomplete. See Ralph Matlaw, 'The Polyphony of Tiutchev's Son na more," Slavic and East European Review, 36 (December 1957-June 1958): 198- 204.

42. Schelling, 7:363. 43. lbid., p. 390 .

44· lbid., p. 374·

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230 NOTES TO PAGES 123 - 56

45. Benjamin Dees, E. A. Baratynskii, p. 77. 46. 1. S. Aksakov, Biograftia Fedora Ivanovicha Tiutcheva, pp. 23, 41. 47· Tiutchev, Polnoe (1957), p. 376; Ginzburg, O lirike, p. 94. 48. Aksakov, p. 83. 49· Friedrich Schiller, Werke, 3: 399· 50. Geir Kjetsaa, Evgenii Baratynskii: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo, p. 14. 51. N. Kotliarevskii, Starinnye portrety (St. Petersburg, 1907), p. 18. 52. Ginzburg, O lirike, p. 71. 53. See Baratynskii, Polnoe (1957), p. 366. 54. 1. V. Kireevskii, "Deviatnadtsatyi vek," Evropeets, no. 1, part I

(1832): 15· 55. S. P Shevyrev, "Slovesnost' i torgovlia," Moskovskii nabliudatel',

part I (1835): 19. 56. B. O. Korman, in his artic1e "Sub"ektivnaia struktura stikho

tvoreniia Baratynskogo 'Poslednii Poet,''' in Uchenye zapiski: pushkinskii sbornik, Leningradskii gos. ped. insto im. Gertsena, 483 (1972): 115-30, suggests an alternative interpretation in which the Poet (Poet) and man (chelovek) are taken as one and the same. This means that the Poet only talks of suicide and then reappears in the last stanza as "man." The poem thus acquires a strong iranic tone based on an image of the Poet as an indecisive figure prone to melodramatic gestures and devoted to "childlike dreams" that he himself does not take seriously. I find Korman's interpretation interesting but not convincing because the word chelovek is used twice earlier in the poem, both times with the meaning "mankind." It seems doubtful that Boratynskii would switch the identi ties of such specifically marked figures as mankind and the Poet, who is referred to as Poet or on (he) throughout the poem.

4. Mystic Transformations

1. Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der WeItaIter, p. 84. 2. Cited in ibid., p. 149. 3. A. S. Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 1: 123. 4. M. lu. Lermontov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 1 :93-94. 5. Ibid., pp. 250-51. 6. V. A. Zhukovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 6: 366. 7. P A. Pletnev, Noch', in Ginzburg, ed., Poety 1820-1830-kh godov,

P·345· 8. Titov, "Radost' i pecha!'," Moskovskii vestnik, no. 8 (1827): 333-34,

cited in E. A. Maimin, "Filosofskaia poeziia Pushkina i liubomudrov," Pushkin: Issledovaniia i materialy, 6: 103.

9. See William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Modern Library, 1902), p. 371. .~,

10. Ibid. 11. The following passage fram a letter written by Tiutchev to his i

wife in 1866 shows sorne interesting parallels with the poems under .;: ';;1

~

1NOTES TO PAGES 156-60 2311

!I! discussion here, especially "How sweetly slumbers the dark green garden" and "Gray blue shadows merged": "Twilight has come and I must finish [my letter]. I sense the same twilight within my whole being and all impressions from the external world enter my being like the sounds of music fading in the distance (udaliaiushcheisia muzyki)." Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii (1957), p. 351.

12. Although this emphasis on sound imagery might seem to counteract the universal silence characteristic of the creative experience described earlier, the mystic tenor of the poems under discussion resolves the seeming discrepancy. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James notes that "in mysticalliterature such self-contradictory phrases as ... 'whispering silence' are continuaIly met with," and he offers the following selection fram the writings of the early twentieth-century spiritualist and occultist Mme Blavatsky to show how the concepts of silence and sound can be combined: "He who would hear the voice of Nada, 'the Soundless Sound,' and comprehend it, he has to learn the nature of Dharana.... When he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the oNE-the inner sound which kills the outer. ... For the soul will hear, and will remember. And then to the inner will speak THE VOlCE OF SILENCE ... THE VOlCE unbraken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, fram sin exempt, the seven sounds in one, the VOlCE OF SILENCE." In a similar manner, Tiutchev's "miraculous nightly hum" originates fram the persona's gradual turn inward toward the night chaos that resides both within him and within the universe at large. See James, pp. 411-12.

13. In Tiutchev, Lirika, pp. 365-66, Pigarev dates both poems simply "before 1836," thus leaving considerable room for speculation. He has, however, placed them on facing pages in the 1965 "Nauka" edition and the 1970 "Narodnaia biblioteka" edition, perhaps indicating that he sees sorne relationship between them.

14. Even in view of the parallels within Tiutchev's own work and Schelling's philosophy, it is, perhaps, the description of the mystic state of samiidhi achieved in the practice of yoga that comes c10sest to the portrayal of cosmic bliss so avidly sought by Tiutchev's persona. James de

Iscribes samiidhi in the following manner: "The mind itself has a higher state of existence beyond reason ... and when the mind gets into that higher state, then knowledge beyond reasoning comes.... There is another mind at work which is above consciousness, and which, also, I

is not accompanied with a feeling of egoism.... There is no feeling of 1, and yet the mind works, desireless, free fram restlessness, objectless, bodiless. Then the Truth lies in its full effulgence, and we know ourselves ... for what we truly are, free, immortal, loosed from the finite, and its contrasts of good and evil altogether, and identical with the Universal Soul." In the portrayal of a state beyond consciousness involving ::1

no egoism, hence no sense of separation, a state of perfect peace and integration with the universal soul, one again sees the parallelism be

2)2 NOTES TO PACES 164- 90

tween Tiutchev's metaphysical world and the principies of mystic thought. See James, p. 391.

15. F. W. J. Schelling, SiimmtlicheWerke, 7:359-60. 16. Ibid., p. 363. 17. For a more detailed discussion of this topic see Sarah Pratt, "The

Metaphysical Abyss: One Aspect of the Bond between Tiutchev and Schelling," Cermano-Slavica, vol. 4, no. 2 (1982), pp. 71-88.

I

18. Schelling, 7:359-60. 19. The notion of fertility inherent in this image might also be related

to the Bible, where the abyss is associated with the basis of creation. What is rendered in Genesis 1: 2 in the King James and Luther versions, respectively, as "darkness was upon the face of the deep" and "es war ' finster auf der Tiefe," is related more specifically to the concept of the abyss in the Church Slavonic version that Tiutchev could have known (i t'ma [byla] nad bezdnoiu) and in the Latin version that Schelling may have used, especially during his years of increasing religious fervor in Catholic Bavaria (et tenebrae erant super facium abyssi).

20. Here again Tiutchev's mystic tendencies foreshadow the con- \; sciously studied mysticism of the twentieth century in addition to paralleling certain mystic strains in Schelling's philosophy. Mme Blavatsky seems to be describing the same kind of experience portrayed in "Holy night has risen into the firmament" when she writes: "When to himself his form appears unreal, as do on waking all the forms he sees in dreams; when he has ceased to hear the many, he may discern the oNE-the inner sound which kills the outer.... And now thy Self is lost in SELF, thyself unto THYSELF, merged in that SELF from which thou first didst radiate.... Behold! thou has become the Light, thou has become the Sound, thou art thy Master and thy God. Thou art THYSELF the object of thy search." Here, as in Tiutchev's poem, man experiences a sense of unreality like that of dreams or visions, a sense of being lost in his own self, and the final revelation that he has returned to his original source-the essence of his own soul. See James, p. 412.

21. Schelling, 4:259. 22. Ibid., p. 278. 23· Ibid., 7:361-62. 24. Ibid., p. 360. 25. Ibid., p. 380. 26. Ibid., p. 379. 27. For an interesting commentary on this poem related to other mat

ters see I. M. Semenko, Poety pushkinskoi]JEry, pp. 263-66. 28. Schelling, 7: 406. 29. Charles Peake, ed., Poetry of the Landscape and the Night: Two

(1Eighteenth-Century Traditions, p. 54. A complete Russian translation of Young's "Night Thoughts" was published by Aleksander M. Kutuzov in 1785, and over twenty translations of various sections of the poem appeared in Russia during the last third of the eighteenth century. See Rudolf Neuhauser, Towards the Romantic Age: Essays on Sentimental and Preromantic Poetry in Russia, p. 71.

30. G. R. Derzhavin, Stikhotl'Oreniia (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1968), pp. 5-7.

NOTES TO PACES 190- 96 2))

31. Ibid., p. 462. 32. Schelling, 7:406. 33· Ibid., 6: 57; 4: 181 and 157· 34· Ibid., T 363, 390-91. 35· F. I. Tiutchev, Polnoe sobranie socllinenii (1913), pp. 296, 344. In an

other poem written in 1848, More i utes, Tiutchev portrays the waves of revolution as "hellish forces" temporarily turning the sea's abyss (puchina) upside down until they "tire" of crashing against the mighty cliff, which, of course, symbolizes Russia. Here, however, the abyss lacks the metaphysical meaning that it has in "Look, on the river's expanse" because the poetic statement is purely political.

5. Conclusion 1. For a different kind of discussion of the two poems see Wjatsche

slaw lwanow, "Zwei russische Gedichte auf den Tod Goethes," Corona, book 6 (1934): 697-703. See also Bodo Zelinsky, Russische Romantik, pp. 140-51.

2. William A. Coates, "Tiutchev and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and Culture," p. 227. Coates points out that Tiutchev tended to use a very free method of translation, so that the number of his works considered translations varies between 44 and 47 depending on one's understanding of the termo

3. D. Stremooukhoff, La poésie et l'idéologie de Tiouttchev, p. 121. 4. V. M. Zhirmunskii, "Gete v russkoi poezii," Literatumoe nasledstvo,

4- 6 (1932): 566 . 5. A. S. Pushkin, Stsena iz Fausta, in Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie so

chinenii, 2:434-38; F. I. Tiutchev, [z Fausta Cete, in Tiutchev, Lirika, 1: 88-93 (we would have more of Tiutchev's translations of Faust if these had not been among the papers he accidentally burned in 1836); D. V. Venivitinov, Otryvki iz Fausta, in Venivitinov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, pp. 134-39; S. P. Shevyrev, Elena, in Shevyrev, Stikhotvoreniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1939), p. 40; A. A. Shishkov, Iz Ceteva Fausta, in L. Ginzburg, ed., Poety lS20-1S30-kh godov, 1 :417-18; M. D. Delariu, Mefis tofeliu , in ibid., 1 :501-2; A. V. Timofeev, Poet, in ibid., 2: 599-637.

6. See André von Gronicka, The Russian Image of Coethe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968).

7. I. I. Zamotin, Romantizm dvadtsatykh godov XIX stoletlia v russkoi literature, p. 123.

8. Kuno Fisher, Istoriia novoi filosofii: Shelling, ego zhizn', sochineniia i uchenie (St. Petersburg, 1905), pp. 44-45.

9. Heinrich Knittermeyer, Schelling und die romantische Schule (Munich: Reinhardt Verlag, 1929), p. 295.

10. For example, N. la. Berkovskii, in his article "F. I. Tiutchev," in F. I. Tiutchev, Stikhotl'Ormiia (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1962), and Stremooukhoff tend to emphasize Goethe's infiuence on Tiutchev's view of nature, while many other critics tend to view Tiutchev's thought in terms of Schelling's philosophy.


11. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Werke, 14 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1981), 1: 368-69.

12. See Vadim Liapunov, "Poet in the Middest: Studies in the Poetry of E. A. Baratynskij," dissertation, Yale University, 1969, p. 33.

13. F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtliche Werke, 2:12.

14. lbid., p. 14; 3:627; 5:269. 15· von Gronicka, p. 95. 16. Schelling, 3: 61 9, 627; 5 :460. 17· lbid., 2: 13; 4: 115-16. 18. lbid., 5:631, 635, 482. 19. Nonetheless, the assumption that the poem relates to Goethe's

death has never been disputed. See Pigarev's notes in Tiutchev, Lirika, P·356.

20. Emil Staiger, Goethe (Zurich: Atlantis Verlag, 1952- 59), 1: 497. 21. Ludwig Hansel, Goethe: Chaos und Kosmos (Vienna: Verlag Herder,

1949), pp. 46-47; H. Henel, "Goethe und die Naturwissenschaft," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 48 (1949), no. 4: 507-33.

22. See Fritz Strich, Goethe and World Literature (London, 1949), P·299·

23. Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter, p. 23. 24. Many of Tiutchev's later patriotic and religious poems, of course,

are based on liUle but moral judgment. But with the exception of the transitional poem "Look, on the river's expanse," these poems cannot be counted among Tiutchev's metaphysical works.

25. 1. S. Aksakov, Biografiia Fedora lvanovicha Tiutcheva, p. 107.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The bibliography that follows is intended to be comprehensive in relation to Tiutchev and selective in relation to Boratynskii. Works not directly relevant to one or the other of the poets have been given full references in the notes but are not repeated here.

1 have been as thorough as possible in seeking and listing entries on Tiutchev because there is no recent comprehensive bibliography of literature on his life and works. Entries relevant to Tiutchev are marked with an asterisk. Thanks to the excellent bibliography in Geir Kjetsaa's Evgenii Baratynskii: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo, such treatment is unnecessary for studies of Boratynskii, and the entries here are limited to works cited in this book and works not listed by Kjetsaa (in most cases these appeared after the publication of his study).

1 have cited Tiutchev's poems from F. 1. Tiutchev, Lirika (Moscow: Nauka, 1965). According to the editor, K. V. Pigarev, this is the only complete annotated edition of the poems. (Most other editions omit a large portion of Tiutchev's political verse.) There are three major collections of Tiutchev's verse translated into English: Jesse Zeldin's Poems and Political Letters of F. l. Tyutchev (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973), which contains a greater range of material than the other editions; Eugene M. Kayden's Poems of Night and Day (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1974); and Charles Tomlinson's Versions from Fyodor Tyutchep (London: Oxford University Press, 1960). Since no translation can match the rich subtlety of Tiutchev's Russian, the question of a preferred translation is largely a maUer of taste. To sorne degree, however, Tomlinson's "versions" reproduce the spirit of Tiutchev's poetry with greater success than technically precise translations.

Boratynskii's poems are cited from E. A. Baratynskii, Polnoe sobranie stikhotvorenii, Biblioteka Poeta, Bol'shaia seriia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957). To my knowledge, there are no major collections of Boratynskii's verse in English translation.

237 236 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Quotations from Schelling are taken from F. W. J. Schelling, Siimmtliche Werke, 14 vols. (Stuttgart and Augsburg: Cotta'scher Verlag, 1856- 61).

*Aksakov, 1. S. Biografiia Fedora lvanol'icha Tiutcheva. Moscow, 1886. Al'mi, 1. L. "E. Baratynskii: Vse mysl' da mysl'." In Poeticheskii stroi rus

skoi /iriki, edited by G. M. Fridlender. Leningrad: Nauka, 1973. ---o "Ideino-tvorcheskie iskaniia E. A. Baratynskogo kontsa dvad

tsatykh-pervoi poloviny tridtsatykh godov." Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta imeni Gertsena, Issue 308 (1966), pp. 3-31.

---o "Lirika E. A. Baratynskogo." Dissertation. Leningrad, 1970. ---o "O vnesub"ektivnykh formakh vyrazheniia avtorskogo sozna

niia v lirike Baratynskogo i Tiutcheva." Voprosy literatury: Khudozhe~~¡

stvennyi metod-khudozhestvennoe sl'oeobraziia, Vladimirskii gos. pedo inst., Issue 9 (1975), pp. 68-85.

Baratynskii, E. A. Po/noe sobranie stikhotuorenii. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957.

Barratt, Glynn R. "Eighteenth-Century Neo-Classical French Influence on E. A. Baratynsky and Pushkin." Comparatil'e Literature Studies no. 4 (1969), pp. 435-61.

---, ed. and transo Se/ected Letters of Eugeny Baratynsky. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.

*Bel'chikov, N. "Dostoevskii o Tiutcheve." By/oe, no. 5, book 3 (1925), pp. 155-62.

*Belyi, A. Lug ze/enyi, pp. 230-46. Moscow, 1910. *---. Poeziia sloua, Part 1. Petrograd, 1922. *Berkovskii, N. la. "F. 1. Tiutchev." In F. 1. Tiutchev, Stikhotvoreniia,

pp. 5-78. Moscow-Leningrad, 1962. *---. "Kniga o Tiutcheve, izdannaia v Finliandii" (Review of Va

khros, Poeziia Tiutcheva: Priroda u lirike Tiutchem). Russkaia literatura, no. 2 (1967), pp. 191-92.

*Bilokur, Borys. A Concordance to the Russian Poetry of F l. Tiutchev. Providence, R. l.: Brown University Press, 1975.

*---. "Statistical Observations on Tjutcev's Lexicon." S/avic and East European ¡ourna/, vol. 14 (1970), no. 3, pp. 3°3-16.

*Binshtok, L. "K voprosu o mirootnoshenii Tiutcheva." Trudy Samarkandskogo universiteta, Issue 254, pp. 83-100.

*Bitsilli, D. M. "Derzhavin, Pushkin, Tiutchev i russkaia gosudarstvennost'." In Sbornik statei posviashchennykh P. l. Mi/iukovu, pp. 351-74. Prague, 1930.

*Blagoi, D. "Genial'nyi russkii lirik (F. 1. Tiutchev)." In Literatura i deistvite/'nost', chapo 7. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1959.

*---. "Iz materialov o F. 1. Tiutcheve: Pis'ma F. 1. Tiutcheva k M. P. Pogodinu." Krasnyi arkhiu, vol. 4 (1923), pp. 383-92.

*---. Muranovo: Literaturnaia ekskursiia. Moscow, 1925.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

*---. "Sotsiologiia tvorchestva Tiutcheva." Novyi mir, no. 6 (1931), pp. 162-79·

*---. "Tvorchestvo Tiutcheva" and "Tiutchev i viazemskii." Tri veka, pp. 180- 2 35, 236- 68. Moscow, 1933.

Bonamour, lean. "Contribution a l'étude des rapports entre le sujet et le theme de la révo!te métaphysique chez Baratynskij." Communications de /a dé/égation fram;aise, VIIe congres international des Slavistes, Varsovie, 1973. Paris: Institut d'études slaves, 1973.

Boratynskii, A. L. "1 vse-taki Boratynskii!" Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 31 (luly 28, 1971).

*Borodkin, M. M. "O poezii F. 1. Tiutcheva." Mirnyi trud, no. 4 (1904), pp. 44- 66.

*Brandt, R. F. "Materialy dlia issledovaniia: Fedor Ivanovich Tiutchev i ego poeziia." lzvestiia otde/eniia russkogo iazyka i s/ouesnosti lmperatorskoi akademii nauk, vol. 16, Book 2; vol. 17, Book 3.1911.

Brang, Peter. "Zur sprachsch6pferischen Leistung von E. A. Baratynskij." In Festschrift für Margarete Woltner zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by P. Brang, pp. 23-38. Heidelberg, 1967.

*Briskman, M. "F. 1. Tiutchev v komitete tsensury inostrannoi." Literaturnoe nas/edstvo, 19-21 (1935): 565-78.

*Briusov, V. la. "F. 1. Tiutchev: Kritiko-biografischeskii ocherk." In F. 1. Tiutchev, Po/noe sobranie sochinenii. St. Petersburg: Marks, 1913.

*---. "F. 1. Tiutchev: Letopis' ego zhizni." Russkii arkhiu, 2 (1903): 481-98,641-52; 3 (1906): 310- 20.

*---. "Legenda o Tiutcheve." Novyi put', no. 11 (1903), pp. 16-30. *Bubnoff, N. von. "Tjutcevs philosophische Dichtung." In Festschrift für

Max Vasmer zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by M. Woltner and H. Brauer, pp. 91-1°4. Wiesbaden, 1956.

*Bukhshtab, B. la. "F. 1. Tiutchev." In F. 1. Tiutchev, Po/noe sobranie stikhotuorenii, pp. 5-52. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1957.

*---. Russkie poety: Tiutchev, Fet, Koz'ma Prutkou, Dobroliubou. Leningrad, 1970.

*Chicherin, A. V. "Obraz vremeni v poezii Tiutcheva." lzvestiia AN SSSR, Seriia literatury i iazyka, vol. 28, no. 5 (1969), pp. 403-7.

*---. "Stil' liriki Tiutcheva." In Kontekst 1974, edited by N. K. Gei et al., pp. 275-94. Moscow: Nauka, 1975·

*Chizhevskii, D. 1. (Cyzevskyj]. "Das Nachtmotiv bei Tjutcev." Zeitschrift für s/avische Phi/%gie, 8 (1931): 51.

*---. "Tjutcev und die deutsche Romantik." Zeitschrift für s/avische Phi/%gie, 4 (1927): 299-323.

*---. "Uraniia: tiutchevskii al'manakh" (Review). Zeitschnft für s/avische Phi/%gie, 7 (1931): 459-67,

*---. Zu einem Gedicht Tjutcevs." Zedschrift für s/al'ische Phi/%gie, 14 (1937): 325-31.

*Chopyk, D. B. "Schelling's Philosophy in F. 1. Tyutchev's Poetry." Russian Language ¡ourna!. 27 (1973): 17- 23·

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*Chulkov, G. Letopis' zhizni i tvorchestva F. l. Tiutcheva. MoscowLeningrad, 1933.

*---. "O Tiutcheve." In G. Chulkov, Sochineniia, pp. 9-17. Sto Petersburg: Shipovnik, 1912.

*---. "Perevoda Tiutcheva iz Fausta Gete." lskusstvo, no. 2-3 (1927), pp. 164-70 .

*---. Posledniaia liubov' Tiutcheva. Moscow, 1926. *---. "Stikhotvoreniia, prislannye iz Germanii (k voprosu ob otno

shenii Pushkina k Tiutchevu)." Zven'ia, Book 11 (1933), pp. 255- 67. *---. "Tiutchev i Geine." lskusstvo, no. 1 (1923), pp. 356-64. Chumakov, lu. N. "'Osen" Pushkina v aspekte struktury i zhanra."

Uchenye zapiski (Pushkinskii sbornik), Leningradskii gos. pedo insto im. Gertsena, 483 (1972): 29-43. (Compares Pushkin's work with Boratynskii's Osen'.)

*Coates, William A. "Tiutchev and Germany: The Relationship of His Poetry to German Literature and Culture." Dissertation. Harvard University, 1950.

*Cornillot, Fran<;ois. Tiouttchev, poete-philosophe. Lille: I'Université de Paris, 1974.

*Darskii, D. S. Chudesnye vymysly: o kosmicheskom soznanii v lirike Tiutcheva. Moscow: Evenson, 1913.

*Darvin, M. N. "Poeziia F. I. Tiutcheva i zhurnal Sovremennik." Dissertation. Leningrad, 1975.

Dees, Benjamin. E. A. Baratynsky. New York: Twayne, 1972. *Dolgopolov, L. K. "Tiutchev i Blok." Russkaia literatura, no. 2 (1967),

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*Eikhenbaum, B. Melodika russkogo liricheskogo stikha, pp. 79-90. Petrograd, 1922.

*Fedina, V. S. "Flora i fauna v poezii Feta i Tiutcheva." In A. A. Fet: materialy i kharakteristika, pp. 89-109. Petrograd, 1915.

*Fet, A. A. "O stikhotvoreniiakh Tiutcheva." Russkoe slovo, no. 2 ( 1859), pp. 63- 84.

*Filevskii, I. "Religiozno-filosofskie vozzreniia Tiutcheva." Mirnyi trud, no. 4 (1904), pp. 86-95.

Filippovich, P. P. Zhizn' i tvorchestvo E. A. Boratynskogo. Kiev, 1917. *Florovsky, G. "Historical Premonitions of Tiutchev." Slavonic Review, 3

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slavische Philologie, 3 (1926): 20- 58. *---. "Kosmicheskoe chuvstvo v poezii Tiutcheva," Russiaia mysl',

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Nekrasova. Moscow: Nauka, 1973. (Contains diseussion of Boratynskii's elegies.)

*Gifford, H. "The Evolution of Tyutchev's Art." Slavonic and East European Review, 37 (December 1958- January 1959): 378-86.

*Ginzburg, L. la. O lirike. Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1964; expanded ed., 1974.

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*Gippius, V. "F. I. Tiutchev." Ot Pushkina do Bloka, pp. 201- 24. Leningrad: Nauka, 1966.

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*Girshman, M., and V. Kormachev. "Den' i noch' Tiutcheva." lzvestiia AN SSSR, Seriia literatury i iazyka, vol. 32, no. 6 (1973).

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vetskaia Rossiia, 1972. *Gregg, Richard A. Fedor Tilltchev: The Evolution of a Poet. New York: Co

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*Gronicka, André von. "Fedor Iwanowitsch Tiutschew und Goethe." In Literatllr und Geistesgesch ich te, Festgabe für Heinz atto Bruger, edited by R. Grimm and C. Wiedemann, pp. 422-32. Berlin, 1968.

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INDEX

Abrams, M. H., 122 Aesthetic Oiscourses (Ansilion), 23 Aksakov, I. S., 20, 54, 123, 216,

221, 223 Aksakov, K. S., 54 Angelus Silesius, 7 Ansilion, Friedrich, 23 "Anti-Criticism" (Antikritika; B),

31

Apocalyptic experience, 147, 170 - 83, 193

Art and the artist, 18-23 passim, 95-97, 100, 114-15, 207. See also Creator




204,208 "Autumn" (Osen'; Karamzin), 9,

40

"Autumn" (Osen'; Pushkin), 39, 148


(Slovesnost' i torgovlia; Shevyrev), 125


71

Blavatsky, Mme, 231f B6hme, Jacob, 19, 22, 146 Boliashchii dukh vrachuet pesnopen'e,

see "Song healeth the affIicted spirit"

Boratynskii, Evgenii Abramovich (B), 4-5, 9-15 passim, 20-21, 24,28-37 passim, 217, 221-25 passim, 229; and nature, 39, 43, 58-94 passim, 210; and the poet or poetry, 97, 122-45, 207, 230; and mysticism, 141, 17089, 193; and Goethe, 194-216 passim

Brentano, Clemens, 229 Briusov, V. la., 10 Brodskii, Iosif, 10 Bruno (Schelling), 169 Buhle, Johann, 23, 25 Bukhshtab, B. la., 229 Byronic romanticism, 3, 7; Ler

montov and, 3, 12, 40-41,

tiuchev russian metaphsysical romantism1

Documents

tiutchevs nature

sense of nature

separation fram nature

romantic art

man fram

concepts of art

poetry romantic images

new romantic cuit of