om, while others blamed him
for dealing with national stuff in a flippant spirit. But the curious
thing is that, while the critics blamed him for his choice of subject,
and his friends and the public defended him for it, quoting all sorts
of precedents, the poem has absolutely nothing in common, either in
its spirit, style or characterization, with native Russian folk-lore
and fairy-tales. Much later on in his career, Pushkin was to show what
he could do with Russian folk-lore. But _Ruslan and Ludmila_, which,
as far as its form is concerned, has a certain superficial resemblance
to Ariosto, is in reality the result of the French influence, under
which Pushkin had been ever since his cradle, and which in this poem
blazes into the sky like a rocket, and bursts into a shower of sparks,
never to return again.

There is no passion in the poem and no irony, but it is young, fresh,
full of sensuous, not to say sensual images, interruptions,
digressions, and flippant epigrams. Pushkin wondered afterwards that
nobody noticed the coldness of the poem; the truth was that the eyes
of the public were dazzled by the fresh sensuous images, and their
ears were taken captive by the new voice: for the importance of the
poem lies in this--that the new voice which the literary pundits had
already recognized in the Lyceum of Tsarskoe Selo was now speaking to
the whole world, and all Russia became aware that a young man was
among them "with mouth of gold and morning in his eyes." _Ruslan and
Ludmila_ has just the same sensuous richness, fresh music and
fundamental coldness as Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_. After finishing
the poem, Pushkin added a magnificent and moving Epilogue, written
from the Caucasus in the year of its publication (1820); and when the
second edition was published in 1828, he added a Prologue in his
finest manner which tells of Russian fairy-land.

After leaving school in 1817, until 1820, Pushkin plunged into the gay
life of St. Petersburg. He wanted to be a Hussar, but his father could
not afford it. In default he became a Foreign Office official; but he
did not take this profession seriously. He consorted with the
political youth and young Liberals of the day; he scattered stinging
epigrams and satirical epistles broadcast. He sympathized with the
Decembrists, but took no part in their conspiracy. He would probably
have ended by doing so; but, luckily for Russian literature, he was
transferred in 1820 from the Forei