ruistic tendencies of the
neo-Christian period, which found an arch enemy in Nietzsche, whose
philosophy evidently influenced Merezhkovsky. However, this
evolution did not have a very favorable effect on his poetry; it
bordered on an art the clarity of which approached dryness, while at
the same time its lack of tenderness reduced its symbolism to an
artificial lyricism or to lifeless allegories.

* * * * *

Merezhkovsky works with untiring constancy to glorify antiquity. He
has made excellent translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and of
"Daphne and Chloe," that idyl of Longus that charmed both Goethe and
Catherine II. He chooses the characters of his new poems from Greek
and Latin mythology, and from themes inspired by an ardent love of
paganism. He has written three prose works of considerable value:
"The Death of the Gods," "The Resurrection of the Gods,"[12] and
"Peter and Alexis." The general idea of all of these is the struggle
between Greek polytheism and Christianity, between Christ and
Antichrist, to use the author's expression, or, as Dostoyevsky used
to say, between the "man-God" and the "God-man."

[12] Also called "The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, the
Forerunner."

This struggle touches upon the gravest problem that can occupy the
human mind, and continually puts before us this perplexing question:
"Should the purpose of life be only the search for happiness and
beauty, or must we admit, as a law of nature, the dogma of suffering
and death?" The former of these conceptions found its supreme
formula in Greek paganism. The ultimate expansion of the latter
leads us, on the one hand, to faith,--to the religion of sacrifice,
and, on the other hand, into the domain of philosophy,--to the
destruction of the desire to live, as conceived by Schopenhauer. It
is this struggle between the two principles of Hellenic philosophy
and Christian faith that Merezhkovsky has tried to show us by
fixing, in his novels, the historic moments when this struggle
reached its greatest intensity; and by making appear in these
periods the characters who, according to him, are most typical and
representative. For this reason he has chosen to give his readers
pictures of the three epochs which he considers as culminating:
first, the last attempt made to restore the worship of the gods a
short time after the Emperor Constantine had brought about their
ruin; secondly, the Renaissance, which, in spite