Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin & Mikhail Lermontov

Onegin's Journey by Pushkin

"Whatever feelings may have smarted
inside me then, they fled away:
They're all transmitted or departed...
Peace to you storms of yesterday!
Then my imagination ordered
deserts, and billows pearly-bordered,
sea-tumult, summits craggy-browed,
with my ideal, the maiden proud
And sufferings quite beyond redeeming...
and yet new seasons always bring
new visions; humbled is my spring
with its inebriated dreaming,
and, as a poet, I've topped up
the water-quotient in my cup."

The visual imagery here so marvelously describes the energy of the storm, and by positioning the "maiden proud" right in the middle of this electricity, cries out poetry in its most violent form. For what poet does not dream of this exact scene, this scene that is so dramatic which provides so many contrasts? -this extreme violence of nature, and the maiden proud standing it through all.

Also, I was extremely excited to find this book- because it was a "missing part" to the real Eugene Onegin. But of course this did not affect the ending whatsoever, just the journey part of Onegin was explained in more detail in this story/poem.

Pushkin is so extremely entertaining! It is as if one is watching comedy in a play. Like Graf-Nulin; hilariously written!

Mozart and Salieri by Pushkin

"I murdered sounds, and the dissected
Music like a cadaver. Harmony
Became for me an algebra."

I am so afraid of doing that! Goodness. I hope it won't become a science for me- because then it will kill it all.

" No.
To me, nothing's for laughter when a useless
Dauber is botching up Raphael's Madonna;
To me, nothing's for laughter, when some base
Buffoon in an ignoble parody
Degrades the name of Dante..."

I can actually relate to that. Some people don't accept that they don't have talent, and by this denial they blaspheme masterpieces that humble.

" If only
everybody could so feel the strength
Of harmony! But no: for in that case
The world could not continue: no one would
Trouble about life's grosser cares.' and all
Would dedicate themselves to untrammeled art!
How few of us there are, we happy idlers,
Chosen ones who spurn the ignoble call
Of mere utility, priests dedicated
Only to beauty."

Spurn means to disdain. It is interesting that he uses the same word ignoble- for both characters. It shows that they both believe in the same idea, but in different ways. Mozart here, of course, is the real genius. He is the "god: of music- so to speak and the true worshiper. And Salieri is only a novice in his worship. And yet, as he himself describes- he forgot how to truly worship- to get lost in it- and only the "idea" of worship remains. Not the act itself. Salieri raised Mozart up to the stars- consciously knowing that he himself is drifting farther away from it. Maybe that is why it bothers him so much when the old man sings Mozart- because it is insulting the rank of his ideal. Mozart on the other hand is still a worshiper, "a priest", and by getting lost in this harmony, this music, he learned its secrets. One has to let it (the mysteries of the universe, the beauty of nature) teach him. That is true genius. Maybe that is why Salieri killed Mozart- because he knew he had lost it...as I went back in the poem he clearly says,

"No, I can't fight my fate
I've been picked out to stop him, otherwise
We'll all be ruined, music's priests, its servants,
not I alone, with my dull reputation..
No, what use is it, if Mozart lives on
and reaches a new summit? by so doing
will he raise art up higher? No! as soon
As he is gone, it will sink down again:"

There! Mozart only continues to go up higher, while Salieri would descend lower. he raised the bar not only for all humanity to see, but for other Salieris- while knowing what is happening...the contrast will provide greater failure on their part. Because then, it will be all too apparent that they cannot continue being music priests at all, they would know that it is all a lie- that all their harmony became "algebra". And that is something they cannot accept- they failed their "idol".

--
Pub by Vintage Books