BOOKS
A VIEW OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE
THE EPIC OF RUSSIAN LlTERATU RE (From Its Origins Through Tolstoy).
By More Sionim. Oxford University Press. $5.00.
The author begins by inviting the reader to treat this, the
first of a projected two-volume history of Russian literature, as being
the first systematic treatment in English of this great subject, and
promises to provide the relevant social and political background
without which, he rightly observes, the story is not easily comprehen–
sible. This is a large claim and not,
prima facie,
altogether plausible
in the face of the justly celebrated volumes, r.ecently reprinted, by
Prince D. S. Mirsky, which between them cover most of the same
ground. Mr. Slonim's knowledge of his subject is solid and his treatment
systematic-like any competent literary historian he works according to a
strict chronological plan, advancing slowly from the earliest native and
semi-Byzantine ballads, chronicles and folk songs, through the beginnings
of imitation of Western literature in the eighteenth century, to the
rising ground of the early nineteenth century mounting suddenly to
great heights dominated by the mountain peaks of Pushkin and Tolstoy.
His treatment is sober, clear and exceedingly orthodox. The minor
writers are summed up in a few sentences or paragraphs; the major
figures are accorded full scale essays. The author is throughout careful,
serious, and painstakingly thoughtful.
No greater contrast with Mirsky's outlook and style could well be
conceived. Mirsky wrote with confidence, spontaneity, and a combination
of fastidious taste and intellectual gaiety which communicated to his
books the brilliance and freedom of the best and most illuminating
kind of conversation about literature. His judgments were recklessly
personal, and his facts and dates sometimes inaccurate. He lavished
magnificent encomia upon authors, who, for reasons not always clear,
delighted or excited him, and launched violent personal attacks on
writers both great and small, men of genius and forgotten hacks, who
happened to bore or annoy him. His use of ·English was very vivid
and very original, his judgments were first-hand and derived from
direct contemplation of the object.
In
everything he wrote there was a
