Mikhail Lermontov - The Demon / Демон. Книга для чтения на английском языке

«What an abundance of power, what a variety of ideas and images, emotions and pictures! What a strong fusion of energy and grace, depth and ease, elevation and simplicity!»

«Not a superfluous word; everything in its place; everything as required, because everything had been felt before it was said, everything had been seen before it was put on the canvas. His song is free, without strain. It flows forth, here as a roaring waterfall, there as a lucid stream».

«The quickness and variety of emotions are controlled by the unity of thought; agitation and struggle of opposing elements readily flow into one harmony, as the musical instruments in an orchestra join in one harmonious entity under the conductor's baton. And all sparkles with original colors, all is imbued with genuine creative thought and forms a new world similar to none».

«Invincible spiritual power; subdued complaints; the fragrant incense of prayer; flaming, stormy inspiration; silent sadness; gentle pensiveness; cries of proud suffering, moans of despair; mysterious tenderness of feeling; indomitable outbursts of daring desires; chaste purity; infirmities of modern society; pictures from the life of the universe; intoxicating lures of existence; pangs of conscience; sweet remorse; sobs of passion; quiet tears flowing in the fullness of a heart that has been tamed in the storms of life; joy of love; trembling of separation; gladness of meeting; emotions of a mother; contempt for the prose of life; mad thirst for ecstasies; completeness of spirit that rejoices over the luxuries of existence; burning faith; pains of soul's emptiness; outcry of a life that shuns itself; poison of negation; chill of doubt; struggle between fullness of experience and destructive reflection; angel fallen from heaven; proud demon and innocent child; impetuous bacchante and pure maiden, – all, all is contained in Lermontov's poetry: heaven and earth, paradise and hell».

The Demon, the Spirit of Evil, craves to free himself from his cold loneliness and to rise to heights of harmony through love for a mortal, the nun Tamar. The scene is set in the Caucasus, and the story is full of the mystic glow of the Orient.

The figure of the Demon was the creation Lermontov loved most. He worked on it practically all his life.

«Lermontov's Demon is not a symbol of the eternal Evil; he is not the Satan, he is a proud spirit, embittered and therefore sowing evil. He lived a lonely, monotonous life. He spread evil without satisfaction to himself. The Demon is an idealist suffering from disappointment. His hatred for mortals is too human. His love for Tamar suddenly transforms him. Her appearance makes him comprehend the sanctity of 'love, the good, and the beautiful' which had never been foreign to his soul, but lay hidden in its remotest corners. A Demon, however, is not destined for joy. Victory does not satisfy his heart, and torn by despair, he goes to tear the one he loves».

The poem of freedom. A Circassian boy brought up in a monastery and ready to become a monk, is lured by the wild freedom of nature. On a stormy night he runs away from his half-voluntary prison. For three days he is absent. On the fourth, he is found in the fields near the monastery. He is exhausted and dying. The poem consists mainly of the boy's story. He tells what he experienced in his dash for freedom.

In Mtzyri, Lermontov expressed one of his strongest emotions: his desire to be free like the wind, like the eagle on top of a mountain, like a powerful horse running through the boundless steppe. It is the fullness of life that lured both Lermontov and his Caucasian hero.

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Much has been spoken about the influence of Byron on Lermontov's poetry. Lermontov himself was aware of a certain kinship of souls between himself and Byron. Careful investigators agree, however, that there was only a certain affinity of moods between both poets, but that Lermontov never imitated Byron.

Lermontov was a singer of heroism. Heroic moods and heroic deeds were at the very heart of his poetry. He found the heroic in his demon, in the wild inhabitants of the Caucasus, but he also looked for heroes in the past of Russia. The Song of Tzar Ivan Vassilyevitch presents a hero coming from the rank of the people and challenging the authority of the Tzar even under the threat of death. The poem is written in the tone and in the spirit of the heroic folk-tales and as such was considered a remarkable contribution to Russian literature.