222

p If Belinsky was the father of our enlighteners, Chernyshevsky is their greatest representative. His literary and aesthetic views in general had an enormous influence on the subsequent development of Russian criticism. We must therefore pay great attention to them.

p They are set out most fully and strikingly in his famous dissertation The Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality presented in March 1855 in St. Petersburg University for the conferment of a Master of Arts degree. We shall devote this article to an analysis of it, referring to Chernyshevsky’s other works only in so far as they explain and supplement the basic propositions of his dissertation. In this respect an article written by him in connection with the appearance of B. Ordynsky’s Russian translation of and commentary on Aristotle’s treatise on poetics (Moscow, 1854), published in the criticism section of the ninth issue of Otechestvenniye Zapiski^^13^^ for 1854, is of great importance to us. And even more important is his own analysis of The Aesthetic Relation which appeared in the sixth issue of the Sovremennik for 1855.

p But before speaking of Chernyshevsky’s dissertation, it will be useful to explain why it was devoted to aesthetics, and not to any other science.

p In his article "The Destruction of Aesthetics”, which still arouses the ire of all Russian idealist and eclectic philistines, Pisarev says that Chernyshevsky embarked upon his dissertation with the “secret” aim of annihilating aesthetics, smashing it to pieces, then pulverising all these pieces and scattering the powder to the winds. This is witty, but untrue. Pisarev misunderstood the basic idea of The Aesthetic Relation of Art to Reality. In embarking upon his dissertation Chernyshevsky by no means set himself the aim of "annihilating aesthetics”. In order to see this it is enough to read the afore-mentioned article on Ordynsky’s book. Chernyshevsky wrote it during the period when he was working on his dissertation. In it, far from attacking aesthetics, he defends it ardently against people who are “ill-disposed” towards it, who say that as a science which is excessively abstract and therefore lacking in foundation it is not a proper subject for study. "We could un- 223 derstand this hostility to aesthetics if it were hostile to the history of literature,” he says, "but the contrary is the case. We have always proclaimed the need for the history of literature, and people, particularly those who have engaged in aesthetic criticism, have also done a great deal—more than any of our present-day writers—for the history of literature! (This is an obvious reference to Belinsky.) In our literature aesthetics has always recognised that it must be based on an exact study of the facts, and the reproach that its content is abstract and lacking in foundation can apply to it as little as it applies to, say, Russian grammar. If it did not in the past deserve the hostility of the advocates of historical research in literature, it deserves this even less today, when every theoretical science is based on the most exact and fullest possible investigation of facts."

p He goes on to say that even out-of-date courses of idealist aesthetics are based on a much larger number of facts than their opponents think. In support of this he rightly quotes Hegel’s work on aesthetics which consists of three volumes, of which the last two are completely taken up with the historical part, and mora than half of the first is also taken up by historical details. "In short,” he concludes, "we think that the whole dispute against aesthetics is based on a misunderstanding, on mistaken concepts of the nature of aesthetics and of a theoretical science in general. The history of art serves as the basis of the theory of art, and then the theory of art facilitates a more thorough and fuller study of its history; a better study of the history will facilitate the further improvement of the theory, and so forth. This interaction of history and theory to their mutual benefit will continue ad infinitum as long as people study facts and draw conclusions from, them, and not become walking chronological tables and bibliographical lists which need not arid cannot think. Without a history of a subject there can be no theory of the subject; but without a theory of a subject its history cannot even be conceived of, because there are no concepts of the subject, of its purpose and its limits. This is as plain as twice two is four, arid one is one."

p In another passage of the same article he exclaims: "Aesthetics, is a lifeless science! We do riot say that there are no sciences more alive than it; hut it would be a good thing if we devoted our minds to these sciences. No. we praise other sciences that are of far less lively interest. Aesthetics is a barren science! In answer to this we ask: do we still remember Lessing, Goethe and Schiller, or have they lost the right to be remembered by us since we have become acquainted with Thackeray? Do we recognise the merits of German poetry of the latter half of the last century?..."

p We believe that a man who regarded aesthetics as rubbish could not have wrilU’ii like that. And if we were to be told that this 224 ardent defence of aesthetics was not sincere, that it was dictated to Chernyshevsky by his “secret” intention to lull the reader’s suspicions and thereby destroy the principles of the science of aesthetics all the more fully in his mind, we would reply that by setting himself such an aim our author would be contradicting his own philosophical views in general and his own view of the beautiful in particular. According to the latter view the sensation which the beautiful produces in a person is a serene joy similar to that with which we are filled in the presence of someone dear to us.

p Chernyshevsky regarded this selfless joy as a perfectly legitimate feeling which deserved condemnation only when it was aroused in us by subjects that only seem beautiful to us because of the depravity of our taste. In his opinion, one of the most important tasks of aesthetics is to abolish false concepts of the beautiful. And since he was convinced, moreover, that false concepts of this kind are very widespread now, particularly in the upper classes of society, which by their very position are sometimes condemned to almost total idleness, he would have said that aesthetieians who understand the task of their science properly still have a great deal to do and that to “destroy” this science would be premature, to say the least.

p Pisarev thought it was pointless to talk about aesthetics if only for the fact that one does not argue about tastes. "Aesthetics, or the science of the beautiful, has a rational right to exist only if the beautiful has an independent meaning that does not depend on the infinite variety of personal tastes. If the beautiful is only that which pleases us, however, and if as a result of this all the various concepts of beauty are equally legitimate, aesthetics amounts to nothing. Each individual person forms his own aesthetics, and, consequently, general aesthetics, which reduces personal tastes to a compulsory unity, becomes impossible."

Chernyshevsky would have objected that it is human whims, rather than normal tastes, that are infinitely varied, and that the beautiful undoubtedly possesses a meaning quite independently of the infinite variety of personal tastes. According to his definition the beautiful is life. Thus, for example, in the animal kingdom man regards as beautiful that which expresses, in accordance with human concepts, fresh life, full of health and vigour. In mammals, whose organisation compares more closely in our eyes to man’s appearance, we find roundness of form, fullness, freshness and grace beautiful "because a creature’s movements are graceful when it is well built, i.e., resembles a well-built person, and not a monster”. The forms of a crocodile or lizard resemble mammals, but in a distorted way. Therefore they appear repulsive to us. A frog is not only ugly in form, but is also covered with cold slime like that which covers a corpse. Therefore it is even more repulsive to us. In short, at the basis of all our aesthetic judgments 225 lies our concept of life. If we were to meet a person who experienced a pleasant sensation on touching a slime-covered corpse, we would not, of course, try to persuade him that he was mistaken: syllogisms do not eliminate sensations. But we would be perfectly right in regarding his organisation as exceptional, abnormal, i.e., not corresponding to human nature. We might not know exactly which pathological cause produced such a deviation from human nature, but we would not doubt that such a cause existed. The meaning of the beautiful is as independent as the meaning of human nature.