llads of Cabman Kudryavitch," "The Perfidy of the Affianced
Bride," and others, not only belong to the most notable productions of
Russian lyric poetry, but are also representatives of an important
historical phenomenon, as the first attempt to combine in one organic
whole Russian artistic literature and the inexhaustible vast inartistic
poetry of the people. "The Perfidy of the Affianced Bride," which is not
rhymed in the original, runs as follows:

Hot in heaven the summer sun doth shine,
But me, young though I be, it warmeth not!
My heart is dead with cold
Through the perfidy of my affianced bride.

Woe-sadness upon me hath fallen,
Upon my sorrowful head;
My soul by deadly anguish is tormented,
And from my body my soul doth long to flee.

Unto men have I resorted for help--
With a laugh have they turned away;
To the grave of my father, my mother--
But they rise not at my call.

The world grew dark before mine eyes,
Upon the grass I swooned.
At dead of night, in a dreadful storm,
They lifted me from the grave.

At night, in the storm, I saddled my steed;
I set out, caring not whither I went--
To lead a wretched life, to console myself,
With rancor to demand satisfaction from men.

Romanticism established, as its first principles, freedom of creation
and nationality of poetry, and these principles survived romanticism
itself. Now, while romanticism preached freedom of creation, it
circumscribed this freedom by selecting as subjects for poetical
compositions chiefly the extraordinary sides of life, its majestic
moments. Its heroes were always choice, powerful natures, who suffered
profoundly because of the lot of all mankind, and were capable of
gigantic conflicts against the whole world. Classicism had bequeathed
this habit of regarding as worthy of poetical treatment only heroes who
stood out from the mass, and of depicting these heroes only at critical
crises. All this depended, in a great degree, upon the political and
social conditions which prevailed at that epoch--the beginning of the
nineteenth century. But quieter, more peaceful times dawned, and with
them men's tastes and habits of mind underwent a change. They grew tired
of scorning and hating reality, because it did not conform to their
cherished dreams, and they began coolly to study it. The titanic heroes,
who had become tiresome and anti-pathetic to the last degree