1. I have stated in the first lecture that I should treat of Pushkin as
the singer. Pushkin has indeed done much besides singing. He has written
not only lyrics and ballads but also tales: tales in prose and tales in
verse; he has written novels, a drama, and even a history. He has thus
roamed far and wide, still he is only a singer. And even a cursory
glance at his works is enough to show the place which belongs to him. I
say belongs, because the place he holds has a prominence out of
proportion to the merits of the writer. Among the blind the one-eyed is
king, and the one-eyed Pushkin--for the moral eye is totally lacking in
this man--came when there as yet was no genuine song in Russia, but
mere noise, reverberation of sounding brass; and Pushkin was hailed as
the voice of voices, because amidst the universal din his was at least
clear. Of his most ambitious works, "Boris Godunof" is not a drama, with
a central idea struggling in the breast of the poet for embodiment in
art, but merely a series of well-painted pictures, and painted not for
the soul, but only for the eye. His "Eugene Onyegin" contains many fine
verses, much wit, much biting satire, much bitter scorn, but no
indignation burning out of the righteous heart. His satire makes you
smile, but fails to rouse you to indignation. In his "Onyegin," Pushkin
often pleases you, but he never stirs you. Pushkin is in literature what
the polished club-man is in society. In society the man who can repeat
the most bon-mots, tell the most amusing anecdotes, and talk most
fluently, holds the ear more closely than he that speaks from the heart.
So Pushkin holds his place in literature because he is brilliant,
because his verse is polished, his language chosen, his wit pointed, his
prick stinging. But he has no aspiration, no hope; he has none of the
elements which make the writings of the truly great helpful. Pushkin, in
short, has nothing to give. Since to be able to give one must have, and
Pushkin was a spiritual pauper.
2. And what is true of his more sustained works, is equally true of his
lesser works. They all bear the mark of having come from the surface,
and not from the depths. His "Prisoner of the Caucasus," his "Fountain
of Bachtshisarai," his "Gypsies," are moreover weighted down with the
additional load of having been written directly under the influence of
Byron. And as health is sufficient unto itself and it is only disease
which is contagious, Byron, who was sick at heart himself, could only
impart disease and not health. Byron moreover had besides his gift of
song the element of moral indignation against corrupt surroundings.
Pushkin had not even this redeeming feature.
3. Pushkin therefore is not a poet, but only a singer; for he is not a
maker, a creator. There is not a single idea any of his works can be
said to stand for. His is merely a skill. No idea circulates in his
blood giving him no rest until embodied in artistic form. His is merely
a skill struggling for utterance because there is more of it than he can
hold. Pushkin has thus nothing to give you to carry away. All he gives
is pleasure, and the pleasure he gives is not that got by the hungry
from a draught of nourishing milk, but that got by the satiated from a
draught of intoxicating wine. He is the exponent of beauty solely,
without reference to an ultimate end. Gogol uses his sense of beauty and
creative impulse to protest against corruption, to give vent to his
moral indignation; Turgenef uses his sense of beauty as a weapon with
which to fight _his_ mortal enemy, mankind's deadly foe; and Tolstoy
uses his sense of beauty to preach the ever-needed gospel of love. But
Pushkin uses his sense of beauty merely to give it expression. He sings
indeed like a siren, but he sings without purpose. Hence, though he is
the greatest versifier of Russia,--not poet, observe!--he is among the
least of its writers.
4. Towards the end of his early extinguished life he showed, indeed,
signs of better things. In his "Captain's Daughter" he depicts a heroic
simplicity, the sight of which is truly refreshing, and here Pushkin
becomes truly noble. As a thing of purity, as a thing of calmness, as a
thing of beauty, in short, the "Captain's Daughter" stands unsurpassed
either in Russia or out of Russia. Only Goldsmith's "Vicar of
Wakefield," Gogol's "Taras Bulba," and the Swiss clergyman's "Broom
Merchant," can be worthily placed by its side. But this nobility is of
the lowly, humble kind, to be indeed thankful for as all nobility must
be, whether it be that of the honest farmer who tills the soil in
silence, or that of the gentle Longfellow who cultivates his modest muse
in equal quietness. But there is the nobility of the nightingale and the
nobility of the eagle; there is the nobility of the lamb and the
nobility of the lion; and beside the titanesqueness of Gogol, and
Turgenef, and Tolstoy, the nobility of Pushkin, though high enough on
its own plane, is relatively low.
5. Mere singer then that Pushkin is, he is accordingly at his best only
in his lyrics. But the essence of a lyric is music, and the essence of
music is harmony, and the essence of harmony is form; hence in beauty of
form Pushkin is unsurpassed, and among singers he is peerless. His soul
is a veritable Æolian harp. No sooner does the wind begin to blow than
his soul is filled with music. His grace is only equalled by that of
Heine, his ease by that of Goethe, and his melody by that of Tennyson. I
have already said that Pushkin is not an eagle soaring in the heavens,
but he is a nightingale perched singing on the tree. But this very
perfection of form makes his lyrics well-nigh untranslatable, and their
highest beauty can only be felt by those who can read them in the
original.
6. In endeavoring therefore to present Pushkin to you, I shall present
to you not the nine tenths of his works which were written only by his
hands,--his dramas, his tales, his romances, whether in prose or
verse,--but the one tithe of his works which was writ from his heart.
For Pushkin was essentially a lyric singer, and whatever comes from
this side of his being is truly original; all else, engrafted upon him
as it is from without, either from ambition or from imitation, cannot be
called _his_ writing, that which he alone and none others had to deliver
himself of. What message Pushkin had to deliver at all to his fellow-men
is therefore found in his lyrics.
7. Before proceeding, however, to look at this singer Pushkin, it is
necessary to establish a standard by which his attainment is to be
judged. And that we may ascertain how closely Pushkin approaches the
highest, I venture to read to you the following poem, as the highest
flight which the human soul is capable of taking heavenward on the wings
of song.