Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Impressions of Russian Literature - V
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
It will also be found that the other great poets have
had a turning-point in their lives when they have been
seized by a religious excitement which has given a new
stamp to their career, according to their own
interpretation a new consecration and a new earnestness, but
which also operates greatly to hamper and diminish
their poetic descriptive powers, nay, generally a little
sooner or later it entirely destroys their poetic gifts.
This turning-point comes in some cases from an
independent conversion, and in others when they are filled
with a national or a national religious mysticism. The
disposition to such mysticism makes its appearance in
this century as a common Slavic trait. It attacked in
the Polish literature, in the forties, Mickiewicz, Slowacki,
Krasinski, Zaleski, and others when Towianski and other
dreamers made their influence felt. It has prevailed
in Russian literature, in different forms, with men of so
great ability as Gogol and Dostoyevski, and manifests
itself, last of all, with Tolstoï — as it would seem, under
the influence of Zhutayef.
Only for Turgenief, with his quiet contemplation,
even religious enthusiasm is a theme like any other,
although he, too, in “Clara Militch” and “The Love
Song of the Conquering Lovers,” pays his tribute to the
mystical. He treats religious enthusiasm without losing
his equilibrium. We recall, for instance, his Sophie
Vladimirovna from “A Strange Story,” the young girl
of good family, who accompanies a wandering saint out
into the wide world.
His melancholy, therefore, is less religious than
philosophical; but it is that of the patriot who has become a
pessimist. In spite of all his seeming cosmopolitanism,
he was a patriot, but a patriot who mourned over his
fatherland and despaired of it. He was attacked for
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
