The essay speaks of a conversion from the frivolity of carefree youth to the serious concerns of maturity. What Batyushkov calls the “age of reading” (i.e., enthusiastic openness to the various visions of the world) gives way to the “age of doubts,” where the individual realizes the need for solid values that will stand the test of reality. This is particularly urgent because he and his contemporaries live “unfortunately…in an unhappy age when human wisdom is not sufficient to cope with the ordinary concerns of the most simple citizen.” We have seen, he says, “the terrible ruins of the capital, amidst the even more terrible ruins of all order and the sufferings of all humanity throughout the enlightened world” (Essays, 184). This destruction is all the more fearful because it has been inflicted on Europe by a nation that was taken as a model of civilization and enlightenment.
To ease his doubt, then, Batyushkov reviews the currently fashionable philosophies, the writings of the ancient Stoics and Epicureans, of course, but also a series of modern French thinkers: Duclos, La Rochefoucauld, Helvétius, and the whole materialistic school, whose morality is founded on interest and pleasure. None of these can satisfy the seeker of lasting values. Even the Epicureanism of the great Montaigne is found wanting: Batyushkov aligns himself rather with the Christian apologist Pascal’s double refutation of the Epicurean Montaigne and the Stoic Epictetus. Among recent writers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although “gifted with great genius,” provides an eloquent example of the failure of philosophy to deal with human weakness; his posthumous (and for Batyushkov shocking) Confessions demonstrate the inadequacy of the simple love of virtue: “So a man born for virtue committed a terrible, previously unheard-of, crime, a crime engendered by human wisdom.” There is only one true remedy for human weakness, and that is faith: “Only religion could comfort and calm the suffering man; he knew and felt this truth, but led astray by his own pride, he constantly turned away from this light yoke of salvation” (Essays, 191–92). And Batyushkov is happy to see in his native Russia the power of a Christian country to overcome the rationalist infidels:
The spear and the saber, bloodied by holy water on the banks of the quiet Don, have flashed in the house of dishonor, in sight of the temples of reason, fraternity and liberty, erected by atheism; and the banner of Moscow, of faith and of honor, stands in the place of the greatest crime against God and humanity.
(Essays, 195–96)
Looking back on the war, Batyushkov seems now to be leaning toward a traditional, not to say reactionary, view of society and history, a view that was at odds with those of many of his liberal or radical friends. Certainly, as he himself admitted to Zhukovsky, he was not the person he had been: “My character has changed greatly: I have become thoughtful, silent, quiet to the point of stupidity, and even uncaring” (SP, 391). Put more positively, his experience had brought him a new seriousness, which expressed itself in his advice in the same letter to Zhukovsky not to content himself with ballads, but to seek out a form of poetry more worthy of his gifts. Younger poets, notably Pushkin and Vyazemsky, were dismayed to see Batyushkov abandoning the Epicurean stance of his earlier poetry. In a verse epistle, the fifteen-year-old Pushkin asked: “Why on his gold-stringed harp has the singer of joy fallen silent?” As he saw it, his elder’s particular gift was for beautiful play rather than solemn public verse.4 And the irreverent Vyazemsky lamented the change that had come over his once playful friend in a rather brutal letter:
Zhukovsky scared me; now I can see that he was merely unwell, whereas you are sick. Perhaps Zhukovsky’s unhappiness was the mother of his genius; yours—forgive me—is the mother of stupidity. Imagine a madman who picks a rose, taking away all its freshness and its scent—and then admires the stem. You are just like that madman; you are attempting to ruin the charm of your life…Be the Batyushkov you were, when I gave you a piece of my heart, or else don’t expect me to love you, since I was born to love Batyushkov and not some other person.
(WP, 204)
It may have been in response to reproaches of this kind that Batyushkov in this same crucial year of 1815 wrote a serious long epistle to Vyazemsky. Referring directly to the early death of the prince’s friend Varvara Kokoshkina (“Lila,” the subject of an elegy cited in chapter 3), and to the tragic events of 1812, in which his Moscow house (“the house of joy”) had burned down, Batyushkov takes up the themes of his essay on morality: the inadequacy of worldly philosophy and the hope offered by faith (“Hope” is also the title of a short poem of 1815 on the same subject):
TO A FRIEND
Tell me, young thinker, what in this world will last?
Where can good fortune live forever?
We have played among the phantoms of the dust
And we have drained the cup of pleasure;
But where are they, those feasts, those golden times?
Where are they now, the brimming glasses?
Where the bright wisdom of those worldly minds?
Where your Falernian wine, our roses?
Where is your house, the house of joy? All gone.
The place it stood is deep in nettles,
But I still know it, and my heart pours out
Tribute to what it still remembers.
Where the city’s constant noise is stilled
And Venus’ bright rays flood the darkness
Of northern skies, your melancholy friend
Stands in the quiet night and wonders.
From my young days I served at the sweet shrine
Of the divinities of pleasure,
But now I seek relief from passion’s fire
For my full heart in contemplation.
Can you believe it? Here, in the temple’s ash,
I lay aside the crown of revels
And often, stirred by feeling, all abashed,
Hiding my face, I cry to heaven:
“On our brief road our path is lined with tombs,
And every day is marked by losses.
On wings of joy we fly to seek our friends
And find…just urns and funeral crosses.”
Say, was it long ago that Lila here
Dazzled your friends with her great beauty?
It seemed that kindly heaven had given to her
All blessings granted to a mortal:
A calm, angelic nature, golden speech,
Fine taste, the cheeks and eyes of Venus,
The open brow of a majestic muse,
The charms of the unsullied graces.
And you, who shunned society’s empty buzz,
Delighted in her conversation
And plunged in quiet joy, admired this rose
That flowered in the dusty desert.
Alas! the rose has faded like a dream;
Suffering, she fell asleep forever;
In that dread hour she left the world behind,
Fixing her eyes on her friend’s features.
Perhaps friendship forgot that she had lived,
And laughter dried the tears of sorrow,
Or the breath of slander in this sorry life
Ruffled the purest shadow’s surface.
So in this vain world all is vanity—
Friendship, affection, all is fleeting.
But where, my friend is there a constant light?
What is there that is pure, unfading?
In vain I asked the wisdom of the past
And the obscure archives of Clio;
In vain I asked the sages of the earth—
All answered me with vacant silence.
Like a feather on the wind swirled here and there,
Or like a dust cloud on an eddy,
Or like a ship adrift among the waves
And seeking vainly for the jetty,
Even so my mind drowned in a sea of doubt,
All life’s enjoyments had been banished,
My guardian spirit had gone, my lamp was out,
And the bright muses all had vanished.
Fearful, I listened t
o the inner voice—
And darkness fled, my eyes were opened,
And faith poured out her all-redeeming oil
To light my lamp, all pure, all hopeful.
My way to the grave is lit as by the sun;
On a firm footing I step forward,
And shaking dust and darkness from my gown,
Soar to a better world in spirit.
(Essays, 250–53)
The moralizing here is emphatic enough, but it would be a mistake to imagine that the old irreverent Batyushkov had vanished forever. At the end of 1815 he was able to leave his dreary southern exile and return to Moscow, Khantonovo, and St. Petersburg, where in the next two years he would play a central role in the distinctly lighthearted operations of the new literary group, Arzamas.
Arzamas was a writers’ circle that made its appearance in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1815. The immediate stimulus for its creation was a play by A. A. Shakhovskoy, an active member of the Circle of Lovers of the Russian Word that Batyushkov had mocked in a number of writings, notably the “Vision on the Banks of Lethe.” The play satirized Zhukovsky, and through him the innovative writers who followed in the footsteps of Karamzin. The Karamzinians fought back, and this time they went further and set up a society named mockingly after a provincial town in the Nizhny Novgorod district. The activities of the society were both a somewhat frivolous game and a serious literary enterprise. The members parodied the rituals of the Circle in their meetings, wearing red bonnets and composing comic obituaries for their opponents. They had a definite aim, which was “to bury the late Academy and the Circle of Destroyers of the Russian Word” (to quote the schoolboy Pushkin, soon to become a member). But also, as one of their number, S. S. Uvarov, remembered, “the purpose of this society, or rather of these conversations among friends, was essentially critical. The members devoted themselves to a strict analysis of literary works, applying to the national language and literature all the sources of ancient and foreign literature, seeking for the founding principles of a solid and independent theory of language, etc.” (WP, 230). Among the two dozen members were some of the most important Russian writers of the period, including Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, the society poet Vasily Pushkin, his young nephew Aleksandr, and of course Batyushkov.
The members all adopted nicknames. The young Pushkin was “Cricket”; Batyushkov was “Achilles.” This may have been a jokingly ironic reference to his small stature, but it also indicates that he was a champion of Arzamas. Living far from St. Petersburg, for two years he was a corresponding member, whether in Kamenets, Moscow, or Khantonovo; in December 1815, he wrote to Zhukovsky that he was proud of his new name, but that for the time being Achilles would remain inactive “behind the crimson and black ships” (SP, 389). Even from a distance, however, he participated in the society’s activities, submitting in 1816 his newly composed dialogue, “An Evening at Kantemir’s” for his colleagues to discuss. And in March 1817 he sent Vyazemsky a “Question for Arzamas,” a playful epigram juxtaposing three different poets called Pushkin (not including the subsequently famous Aleksandr). Later on, once he had returned to St. Petersburg in the late summer of 1817, he was an active member, since this new grouping corresponded very well with his own literary orientation.
Meanwhile, at the end of 1815, Batyushkov was able at last to shake the dust of Kamenets from his feet. He obtained leave from General Bakhmetev, and made his way to Moscow, where he was lodged by his hospitable relation Ivan Muravyov-Apostol, and greeted by Vyazemsky and other old friends. Soon he found that he had been transferred, as he had long wished, to the Guards, but this appointment did not last long, since in April 1816 he was allowed to take the retirement from military service that he had requested. He was now a collegiate assessor (the equivalent of major in the army), but this did not give him a position or a salary. For the next two years he mentions in letters his desire for some sort of government service that would give him security and allow him to feel that he was doing something useful and honorable. He was often ill, and constantly short of money, too poor to live permanently in either of the capitals. As a result, he would spend much of 1817 on his estate at Khantonovo in order to live more cheaply. And in the country, although oppressed by skuka and cold, he had more time to read and to write poetry.
In spite of illness and shortage of cash, these two years spent largely in Moscow and Khantonovo saw Batyushkov reach the peak of his literary career. In February 1816, he was elected with Zhukovsky to the Society of the Lovers of Literature, which had rejected him five years earlier. He marked the occasion with a speech, which was read at a meeting of the society, on the subject of “the influence of light verse on the language.” This was partly a formal affair, with some rather blatant flattery of the members; Batyushkov wrote in a letter to Gnedich, parodying a line of Derzhavin: “I spoke the truth to donkeys with a smile” (SP, 400). But this “truth” was an important one for him, and he chose to place the speech at the head of the two-volume edition of his works that appeared the following year. The “light verse” of the title is the society verse that Batyushkov and his friends had written in imitation of Parny and other French poets. This is placed in opposition to the grander forms of poetry; where the epic or the ode demand a more formal, archaic style, epistles, elegies, and epigrams offer a more direct reflection of the language of modern polite society.
Citing a whole range of models, ancient and modern, from Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius to Petrarch, Marot, Waller, and Derzhavin, Batyushkov remarks:
In the lighter kind of poetry, the reader demands all possible perfection, purity of expression, elegance of style, supple and flowing verse; he demands truth of feeling and the strictest propriety in every respect…. Beauty of style is essential here and nothing can take its place. It is a secret known only to talent and especially to the constant application of attention to one subject, since poetry of the lighter kind is a difficult art that demands a person’s whole life and mental exertions.
(Essays, 11–12)
He goes on to note that this urbanity was cultivated in the great age of Catherine, “so auspicious to science and literature,” and that those who practice it have profited from “the attentive reading of foreign authors, some of them ancient, others very recent.” One can see how close this ideal was to Batyushkov’s own practice.
An important element in the speech is patriotic pride in Russia, a pride heightened by the Napoleonic wars. The Society’s essential aim, says Batyushkov, is to enrich “a language, so closely bound up with the civic education, the enlightenment and thence the prosperity of the most glorious and most extensive country in the world,” and it pursues this aim “in the most ancient shrine of the national Muses, which is rising again from the ashes together with the capital of Russia and will eventually become worthy of its former greatness” (SP, 8). The cultivation of light verse therefore has its part to play in the creation of a sophisticated literary culture that will establish Russia alongside the prestigious cultures of Western Europe. The same ambition is expressed, as we saw earlier, in the dialogue “An Evening at Kantemir’s,” also written in 1816. This is a conversation between Antiokh Kantemir, a polyglot poet and Russian ambassador in Paris, and two French men of letters, Montesquieu and a character labeled “Abbé B.” The Frenchmen express surprise that Kantemir writes poems in Russian, for them a barbarous tongue. The response is a hymn of praise to Peter the Great and to his literary equivalent Lomonosov. Writing some eighty years after Kantemir, Batyushkov can put into his mouth hopes and prophecies that are already being fulfilled—he even mischievously has the Abbé remark that to imagine the flourishing of civilization in Russia is comparable to imagining Russian troops marching into Paris (SP, 47). Russia’s time, it is implied, has come.
Among other things, Kantemir remarks on the beauties of Russian popular culture: “We Russians have folk songs: they are filled with the tenderness and eloquence of the heart; you can see in them the quiet deep thoughtfulne
ss that imparts an inexplicable charm to even the most unpolished productions of the northern muse” (SP, 46). In this period, Batyushkov, like many of his fellow poets, was showing a new interest in the themes and forms of Russian folk literature. In 1817 he asked Gnedich to send him some examples of traditional Russian poetry, since he was planning a poem called “The Water Sprite” or “Mermaid” (“Rusalka”) set in the legendary days of Russian antiquity. A letter to Vyazemsky outlines the plot of this poem (SP, 413–14), but unfortunately the plan remained unrealized, and it was left to the young Pushkin to illustrate the genre a couple of years later with his pathbreaking Ruslan and Lyudmila. All that Batyushkov managed was a brief unfinished poem in which we see and hear a Russian soldier back from the wars in a part of Russia remote from his own native region—which he calls the “motherland.” His nostalgic lament recalls that of the earlier poem, “The Prisoner.” Here are the central stanzas of this fragmentary song (the original sounds more peasant-like than the translation):
Sails on the water, where do you ply?—
To the holy motherland.
Birds of the air, why does your band
Soar up so high into the sky?—
To the woods of home we fly.
All things living fly to their home,
But I must wander here,
I sing a sad song through my tears,
Along the roads and paths I roam
And sing a song of home.
(CP, 204)
In a similar vein, Batyushkov did homage to the “northern muse” with his free translation of the currently popular ancient poem previously translated into English by William Mason as the “Song of Harald the Valiant.” This piece, taken from one of the sagas, is spoken by the eleventh-century Norwegian King Harald Sigurdson, known to the English as Harald Hardraade, who fell at the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. It tells of a heroic adventurer who is disdained (in the last line of every stanza) by a Russian maiden (see Essays, 287–88). The poem echoes the “nordic” sentiments expressed in ‘ “On the Ruins of a Castle in Sweden” and in the central section of his very early poem “Dreaming,” which Batyushkov kept reworking and expanding, evoking the romantic appeal of the old North, and confusing as he did so the very different worlds of Ossian and the sagas.
Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry Page 14
