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p Belinsky’s attitude to French historical criticism is unjust. At the time to which the article we are considering belongs, the most eminent representative of this criticism was Sainte-Beuve. Can it be said that Sainte-Beuve did not, recognise the laws of the beautiful and did not pay attention to the artistic merits of a work? Of course not. Sainte-Beuve’s literary views were in many respects close to those of Belirisky. For him, as for our critic, literature was the expression of the people’s self-awareness.  [184•*  But Sainte-Beuve was not an adherent of absolute idealism; he looked for the ultimate causes of literary movements not in the immanent laws of the development of the absolute idea, but in social relations. "With any great social and political revolution,” he said, "there is also a revolution in art, which is one of the most important aspects of social life; this revolution affects not its inner principle—which is eternal—but the conditions of its existence, its means of expression, its attitudes to the objects and phenomena around it, the feelings and ideas that leave their mark on it, as well as the sources of artistic inspiration."  [184•**  Having adopted this point of view, Sainte-Beuve was, of course, compelled to take into account the historical conditions of artists’ lives. He had to know what was happening in Greece during the lifetime of Aeschylus and Sophocles and what the attitude of these tragic dramatists was to their government and their fellow citizens. He could not regard political events as “trifles”.  But his criticism only profited from this. True, he attached excessive importance to the individual character of writers and the external circumstances of their private lives. This was an indisputable and most 185 important defect of his criticism. But this defect arose not from the fact that Sainte-Beuve "deduced his principles and proofs from facts”, but that what he deduced from the facts was not always correct. In April 1829, giving a description of Boileau, he wrote: "Today people have begun to apply a highly philosophical method in all branches of history. In order to assess the life, activity and works of a famous person, they try to study and describe the age which preceded his appearance, the society in which lie was born, the intellectual movement that was taking place in this society, in a word, the great stage on which he was to play his part.... This method is particularly fruitful where it is a question of statesmen and conquerors, theologians and philosophers. But when we are dealing with poets and artists, who often lead a solitary and secluded life, it must be applied with great caution, because here exceptions are very frequent.” In the sphere of artistic and literary activity "human initiative comes to the fore and is less subject to general causes".

p The only argument which Sainte-Beuve used in support of thisidea was that the artist could, by finding some forgotten corner (un coin oublie) and withdrawing to it, escape from the social movement taking place around him.  [185•*  This argument is very weak. Philosophers and theologians can also withdraw to "forgotten corners”, but their “initiative” does not escape subjection to general causes. Why is this so?

p Sainte-Beuve evidently did not know this himself and rarely gave it any thought. The contradiction between personal initiative and general laws remained unsolved for him.  [185•**  In his literary portrayals (Portraits) he paid attention mainly to one side of this antinomy: to initiative, which in his view was linked primarily with the writer’s individual character and private life. This is why his Portraits are good only from this psychological aspect, while the writers’ historical significance is explained rather poorly in them. But, we repeat, Sainte-Beuve’s mistake arose not because he based himself on facts, but because the philosophical significance of these facts was not entirely clear to him. As a pupil of Hegel Belinsky was not confused by the antinomy that confused Sainte-Beuve; he believed that the general does not contradict the individual and that the concept of freedom is fully reconcilable with the concept of necessity. Here he was expressing the strong aspect of his views. But when he said that the significance of the 186 political history of Greece and the attitudes of Greek tragic dramatists to their fellow citizens (i.e., knowledge of Greek social life) was not important for an understanding of Greek tragedy, and that one need only understand the importance of the Greek people in the absolute life of mankind, he disclosed the weak aspect of his views. Absolute idealism explained the historical movement of mankind by the logical laws of development of the idea. For it history was something in the nature of applied logic. Hegel paid great attention to the events and phenomena of social history and frequently showed remarkable insight even in specific questions of history and political economy. But his idealist viewpoint prevented him from utilising the full power of his own method. And as for his followers, the view of history as applied logic occasionally made them rather inattentive to historical “trifles”. One example of this inattention is provided by Belinsky when he maintained that the "significance of the Greek people in the absolute life of mankind" can be explained without a careful study of the socio-political history of Greece. Hegel himself would have said that Belinsky was wrong here and referred him to his Philosophic der Geschichte.

p In general during the period of his reconciliatory mood Belinsky frequently abused a priori logical constructions and ignored the facts. This is understandable. We already know from a preceding article^^59^^ that at that time he admired Hegel not as a dialectician, but as a proclaimer of absolute truth. This extremely important fact left its mark on the whole of his literary activity during that period. In a review of Michelet’s Short History of France he passionately attacked Lerminier who "declared that the French, like all other peoples, should have their own philosophy”. This idea seems a gross error to him: "According to his (Lerminier’s) theory, there are as many minds as men,” he says, "and all these minds are different coloured spectacles through whicli the world and truth appear in different colours; there is no absolute truth, and all truths are relative, although they do not refer to anything.” There is one truth, truth is absolute—this is the viewpoint from which Belinsky now regards literature. "The task of the true critic,” he says in his review of N. Polevoi’s Essays on Russian Literature, "is to seek in a poet’s creations for the general, not the particular, for the human, not the mundane, the eternal, not the temporal, the necessary, not the accidental, and to determine on the basis of the general, i.e., the idea, the poet’s value, merit, place and importance.” So true criticism does not concern itself with the “temporal”. But in ignoring the “temporal” criticism is turning its back on everything historical.

p From the viewpoint of "absolute truth”, history itself contrary to the true meaning of absolute idealism sometimes appeared as a combination of meaningless accidents. Belinsky sees the French 187 Romantic school as a "perfectly random”, arbitrary and therefore insignificant phenomenon. And the whole history of French literature in general was of little importance in his eyes. "There were four main periods in the history of French art and literature in general,” he says: "The age of Ronsard’s poetry and the sentimental allegorical novels of Madeleine de Scudery, then the brilliant age oi Lonis XIV, after that the eighteenth century, and finally the age of the ideal and the tempestuous (as he calls the Romantic age). And so what? In spite of the external difference between these four periods of literature, they are closely connected by an inner unity, they share a common basic idea which can be defined as follows: inflated, cloying ideality and sincerity in unbelief, as an expression of the finite intellect which constitutes the essence of the French and in which they solemnly take pride, naming it common sense.” Belinsky sees no other idea in the history of French literature, apart from that of cloying ideality and sincerity in unbelief. Hegel was very far from sucli a view of French literature. He sympathised greatly with the social movement in France in the last century. "That was a magnificent sunrise,” he said. "All thinking beings greeted joyously the coming of the new epoch. A festive mood reigned throughout that time, and an entire world was permeated by enthusiasm of the spirit, as if its reconciliation with the deity had taken place for the first time."^^60^^ Compare this with the following comment by Belinsky on Voltaire’s literary activity: "Voltaire in his satanic might, under the colours of the finite intellect, rebelled against eternal reason, raging against his inability to comprehend by his intellect that which is only comprehensible by reason, which is at the same time love, and beatitude, and revelation.” What a colossal difference! In view of this one is perfectly justified in assuming that Belinsky did not understand Hegel at all. But the reader already knows that Hegel the dialectician was quite unlike Hegel the proclaimer of absolute truth. The sympathetic comment on the French social movement belongs to Hegel the dialectician, whereas the sympathy for an order in Germany the perpetuation of which would have halted all social development there belongs to Hegel the proclaimer of absolute truth.

p This was the Hegel that Belinsky knew in the period of his reconciliatory mood and he rightly remarked later that he "was true to him in Feeling, when he reconciled himself to Russian reality".  [187•* 

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p Mr. Pypin maintains that by the end of 1842 or the beginning of 1843 Belinsky "had finally rejected idealist romanticism, and his views began to be dominated by a critical attitude to reality, by the historical and social viewpoint”. This is both vague and incorrect. We have already said in a previous article that Belinsky’s revolt against Hegel’s "philosophical cap" did not mean that he broke with philosophical idealism. After this revolt the historical and social element did begin to prevail in his views. But this happened only because he abandoned the “absolute” viewpoint for the dialectical one. Since we are concerned here with Belinsky’s literary concepts, we shall now trace the effect of this change upon them.

p In the absolute period of his philosophical development Belinsky believed that in a poet’s works the critic should find the“general” and the necessary, and not concern himself with that which is temporal and accidental. In the article "A Look at Russian Literature in 1847”, i.e., shortly before his death, he says: "The poet must express not the particular and the accidental, but the general and the necessary.” This would appear to be the same view. But this view lias been radically changed by the introduction of the dialectical element into it. Belinsky no longer makes a contrast between the “general” and the “temporal” and does not identify the temporal with the “accidental”. The general develops in time, giving temporal phenomena their meaning and their content. The temporal is necessary precisely because the dialectical development of the general is necessary. Only that is accidental which is of no significance for the course of this development, which plays no role in it. A slightly more careful reading of Belinsky’s works shows clearly that it is precisely this important change in his philosophical views, i.e., this introduction of the dialectical element into them, that determines almost all the changes which took place in his literary views after his break with Hegel.

p On abandoning the absolute viewpoint, he began lo regard the historical development of art differently.

p “Nothing emerges suddenly, nothing is born ready-made,” he says in his article on Derzhavin, "everything that has an idea for a starting-point develops moment by moment, moving dialectically from a lower stage to a higher one. We observe this immutable law in nature, in man. in mankind—The same law is true 189 of art as well. Art too goes through different phases of development. Thus, in India it is at the first stage of its development; there it has a symbolical character; its images express ideas conventionally, not directly. In Egypt it takes a step forward, coming .somewhat closer to nature. In Greece it renounces symbolism •entirely, and ils images are clothed in simplicity and truth, which is the highest ideal of beauty."

p Since the content of art is the selfsame eternal idea, which by its dialectical movement determines the whole historical movement of mankind and, consequently, the development of the human spirit, it is obvious that art always develops with the development of social life and the different aspects of human consciousness. At the early stages of its development to a greater or lesser extent it expresses religious ideas; then it becomes the expression of philosophical concepts. Where art expresses religious ideas, its development is naturally determined by the development of the latter. "Indian art could not rise to the portrayal of human beauty because in. the pantheistic religion of the Hindus God is nature, and man is merely its servant, priest and sacrifice.” Egyptian mythology lies in between Indian and Greek: among its gods one already finds human images, but it is only in Greece that the gods are ideal human images, only here is the human image radiant and sublime, expressing the highest ideal of beauty. In Greece for the first time art becomes art in the true sense of the word, because it is now free from symbolism and allegory. ""The explanation of this must be sought in Greek religion and in the profound, quite developed and established meaning of its •world-embracing myths,” Belinsky remarks.

p The development and character of art is also influenced by nature: "The hugeness of the architectural edifices, the colossal size of Indian statues are an obvious reflection of the immenseness of nature in the country of the Himalayas, of elephants and boa constrictors. The nakedness of Greek statues is connected to a greater or lesser extent with the blessed climate of Hellas.... The poor arid majestically wild countryside of Scandinavia was for the Normans the revelation of their grim religion and harshly majestic poetry."

p Belinsky still attacks critics who try to explain the nature and history of a poet’s work by his private life. He now calls them empiricists. In his opinion, empirical critics do not see the general for the particular, the wood for the trees. Having learnt from the biography of some poet that he was unhappy, they imagine that they have found the key to understanding his sad works. With the help of such a device it is extremely easy to explain, for example, the gloomy nature of Byron’s poetry. Empirical critics will point to the fact that Byron was irritable and prone to hypochondria; others will add perhaps that he 190 suffered from indigestion, "good-naturedly unaware, in the base simplicity of their gastric views, that such trivial causes could not result in such phenomena as Byron’s poetry”. In fact, however, a great poet is great only because he is the organ and mouthpiece of his time, his society, and. consequently, mankind. "To solve the riddle of the gloomy poetry of such a colossal poet as Byron, one must first solve the mystery of the epoch expressed by him, and to do that one must throw the light of the torch of philosophy onto the historical labyrinth of events which mankind traversed on the way to its great destination—to be the embodiment of eternal reason, and one must determine philosophically the latitude and longitude of the point at which the poet found mankind on the path of its historical movement. Without this, all references to events, all analysis of morals and manners, of the relations of society to the poet and (of the poet to society) and to his own self will explain nothing at all."

The reader is already aware that Belinsky had formerly been very unjust to French literature. For him Corneille and Racine were poetic monsters.  [190•*  After adopting the new—dialectical—viewpoint, he has a different attitude to these writers. "Corneille’s tragedies are, it is true, very ugly in terms of their Classical form,” he says, "and theorists have every right to attack this Chinese form, to which the majestic and powerful genius of Corneille yielded as a result of the coercive influence of Richelieu, who wanted to be chancellor of literature also. But theorists would be gravely mistaken if they overlooked behind the ugly pseudoClassical form of Corneille’s tragedies the terrible inner force of their pathos.” He continues to regard Racine as stiff and forced, but remarks that in Ancient Greece this stiff and forced Racine would have been a passionate and profound Euripides. In general Belinsky becomes increasingly convinced that the development of talent is determined wholly by the influence of the surrounding" social environment. Therefore his own criticism becomes more and more historical.  As, for example, in his articles on Pushkin, where Belinsky’s penetrating historical vision is clouded by another, also very important element of his criticism, which we shall discuss below.