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supernatural beings, — “angels,” “guiding stars,” as he called
them in his festal poems.
As he had already translated a number of notable
European poems, among them Gray’s “Elegy in a
Country Churchyard,” existing in all languages, and Bürger’s
“Leonore” (Liudmila), he now displayed to this circle
of hearers an incredible productiveness as a translator:
a large number of the poems of Goethe and Schiller,
whole plays of the latter, like Die Jungfrau von Orleans,
Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon,” Moore’s “Lalla Rookh,”
the Indian poem, “Nal and Damasjanti,” Fouqué’s
“Undine,” and Hebel’s Allemanic poems, Homer’s
“Odyssey,” and Rückert’s “Rusten and Sohrab,” — all
these different kinds of poetry with his subtile talent
he transmuted into flowing Russian verse.
In 1821, on a journey to Germany, he contracted a
friendship with Justinus Körner, whom he resembled
in superstitious mysticism, and made a visit to Goethe,
but without winning any favor from the old man. He
was more agreeable to “the romanticist on the throne,”
Frederick William IV., who introduced him to Tieck,
and also to other leaders of the German romanticism.
Some years after his return to Russia, a re-action towards
all the youthful desires of Alexander I. for an
enlightened despotism in the aid of progress ascended the
throne in the person of Nicholas. Soon the tender
Zhukovski, with painful astonishment, saw the best of
the friends of his youth banished; others, less
prominent, but still strong characters, leave the vicinity of
the court, and isolate themselves in obscure silence on
their estates. Nevertheless, when at this time a genius
of Pushkin’s rank turned around and extolled the
victories of Nicholas over unhappy Poland, it will not
astonish any one that Zhukovski issued from this crisis
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