If I am going to be at all honest, I am terrible at holding myself responsible for anything before the absolute last minute. I won't say this is a rare trait, but it is still inescapably mine. So, when faced with a comprehensive reading exam for my M.A. program, one that covers four centuries and one niche specialisation, I at least know well enough to worry; I will, inevitably, put the worst of it off. Or at least I will be tempted to.
But this! Well, there is this. I have hopes for this.
What I need to do here is fill in a bunch of holes to a literary canon whose skeleton I've already more or less covered since entering the fray in undergrad. Some of these holes are more forgivable (Il'ya Il'f? Fet? Balmont?), some are outright embarrassing, now six years into the field (I'm looking at you, War and Peace and Anna Karenina). Most are just the result of the limitations of time. Regardless of history, however, everything lacking needs be read and critically understood before March.
This is an experiment, a deviation from how I would traditionally prepare, a (hopefully) valiant attempt to change my worst habits and hammer in some useful eidetic memories of the waves of material before Exam Day looms too large. I mean, I make my bed daily. I fold all my clothes before going to sleep. I eat kale by the handful. I can probably – probably! – handle this.
So alright, slightly massive reading list: Let's Go.
Why Woe from Lit?
Well, of course I'm starting with a pun. Puns are mnemonics of the best variety. In this case, I am helping myself to remember the comedic play Woe From Wit (or, Горе от ума), written between 1822 and 1823 by Pushkin's contemporary, Alexander Griboedov. Though not chronologically the first hole I have to fill in, it is a stanchion of the 19th century Golden Age of Poetry, and its characters, broadly drawn to be types over individuals, are important to the literary tradition that has followed. Also, did I mention comedy? Best always to start with a laugh.
The edition I read was the 1925 translation by University of London professor of Slavonics Bernard Pares, with introduction by Prince D.S. Mirsky, which was entitled not Woe from Wit, but instead The Mischief of Being Clever. Aesthetically this was a treat, as the copy has that lovely pickled, dusty smell so typical of well-loved old books, and the back cover has a check-out slip with a 1948 return date stamped on it. Furthermore, while the translation is dated, it is still lyrical, and seems to hold its own well against the original. As Mirsky points out, one of the most important characteristics of these early 19th century poets is that of lucidity; Pushkin did it effortlessly and fluidly, but Girboedov was "a great wrestler with words… unique for making them comply to his will so strictly and absolutely." Woe from Wit was written in rhyming, conversational verse, and during an age in which spoken Russian was so rarely used as to be rusty in just about anyone's mouth. In Mirsky's words, "He achieved two things which seem incompatible: a metallic strength of the verse and a fluency and natural ease of diction which would seem impossible outside the loosest conversation. Griboedov is the greatest master of Russian dialogue." Though fluency is hard to verify for a contemporary American speaker reading 1925 British verse, an impression was made, and many lines (see below) were more than memorable.
The basic premise of Woe from Wit is that the sophisticated high society of 1820s Moscow can be drawn as a caricature:
° Famusov, the widowed patriarch – head of a government office, born conservative, and in Mirsky's words, "the philosopher of good digestion, the pillar of stable society"
° Molchalin, his sneaky protégé/secretary and erstwhile, two-faced ladies' man
° Lizan'ka, the daughter's servant, confidant, and accomplice, who sees all, understands everyone's secrets, and has a similarly prototypical name as her mistress
° Skalozub, the high-ranking officer who is all smiles, kind, and none too sharp, whom Famusov wants as a son-in-law and who Chatsky considers the symbol of all that is wrong with the urban elite
° Khlestova, the vitriolic and condescending sister-in-law to Famusov, apparently based on the same Natalya Dmitrevna Ofrosimova who was the inspiration for Tolstoy's Akhrosimova in W&P
° Repetilov, the partier, drunkard, "enthusiastic admirer of wit" (again, Mirsky), and egregiously late-coming guest to Famusov's soirée
° ... and a host of guests so wrapped up in themselves and in gossip that an entire farce both passes, and is fomented, by them without an ounce of awareness.
The two principal heroes, Chatsky and Sophya, are the two that Mirsky argues are the least caricatured – that is, the most individual, and it is these characters who both have the most to say, and who suffer the most for what they do. Sophya, tragi-comic heroine with a classically traditional name, is considered by Chatsky to be capricious and indifferent, in his eyes having thrown away his affections only to take up various others at her leisure. In reality, she is in love with Molchalin, who is simple (compared to Chatsky), kind, and ultimately only in it to cozen up to her father and his money. She is not stupid – she is, in fact, sharp and quick with her words – but she is blinded by love.
As Mirsky points out, Sophya is "not a type, but a personality," defined by her drily romantic wit, and her "deep but reticent passionateness" (it was 1925, we will forgive him that awkward slip of phrasing). She is, he further notes, the "structural mainstay of the play… the principal active force in it," the force through whose actions the plot is mainly advanced. It is Sophya who initiates the nightly trysts that require Lizan'ka to stand guard outside her room and defend against Famusov when he drops by, Sophya who invents a nonsense dream to confuse her father that then is referenced to throughout the rest of the play, Sophya whose fainting at the sight of Molchalin falling of a horse prompts Sklozub to rush out of doors and Chatsky to decide to investigate who it is she is in love with, Sophya who hosts the party which introduces the rest of the characters, and Sophya who starts the rumor that Chatsky has fallen mentally ill, the rumor which eventually causes him to leave Moscow for good. Furthermore, it is Sophya who is the focus of all the affections of the other characters, whether familial (Famusov), loyal (Lizan'ka), self-serving (Molchalin), or romantic (Chatsky).
Chatsky, on the other hand, is a skeptic: of society, of Sophya, of everyone's ultimate intentions. He is also unremittingly witty, curious, and romantic – or, "irreverently eloquent and out of proportion to his public," in the words of his critics. If Sophya is the principal active force in the play, Chatsky is the imaginative focus, the driving creative force that gives the story character and value and zest. In Mirsky's words, "there is in him an exhilarating youthful idealism, a go, an élan which infects and braces." Furthermore, it is Chatsky who is apparently the Russian actor's equivalent to Hamlet, the touchstone of dramatic tradition.
And after even one reading, the why is understandable: Chatsky is fantastic. He is so clever and funny even two hundred years and an entirely different language out. His is the dry, witty, entirely reasonable and pragmatic voice that is so popular today in television and literature, and Pares' translation does him justice. Proof, you say? Some examples:
(Act 1)
Famusov: … She made some chance remark/And you are carried off your head! All sorts of hopes allure you.
Chatsky: Oh no! I'm not much spoilt by hopes, I can assure you.
(Act 2)
Chatsky: Well, tell me what you'd say, were I to ask her hand.
Famusov: Well, first, don't play the fool – that's what I'd say/Look after your affairs: you leave them rusting/But chief of all – take the service straight away.
Chatsky: The service? Good! Servility? Disgusting.
•••
Skalozub: I think there's no denying/The fire contributed to Moscow's beautifying?
Famusov: Oh, please don't talk of that: the croakers had their fears/But houses, pavements, streets – I never!/Brand new our Moscow now appears.
Chatsky: New streets, but prejudices old as ever/Rejoice, my friends! No lapse of years/Nor fashions, no, nor fires, from them can sever.
•••
Famusov: …One cannot regret that one as bright as he [Chatsky] –
Chatsky: Oh, can't you please regret for someone else than me?/I find your praise as vexing as your blame!
•••
Sophya: Well! And shall I tell you what I really feel?/If someone's conduct has some oddness in it/Your merriment you can't conceal/You fire off something smart that very minute/But you yourself –
Chatsky: And I? The oddness is my own.
(Act 3)
Molchalin: Come, come! For model style there's none is matched with his/You've read him?
Chatsky: I can't read stupidities/Still less if they are model.
•••
Sophya: …Thank heaven that this reproach no watching eye can know/As 'twas that other time, that moment when I fainted/Then Chatsky too was there –
Chatsky (throwing himself between them): He's here, pretender!
Sophya and Liza: Oh!
Chatsky: Quick! Fall into a faint! Just now it's quite in season/That other time, be sure, there wasn't half the reason.
The moral of the story, though, is (of course) that too much irreverency can limit the degree to which you are taken seriously – and Chatsky is, at the heart of it, quite serious about what he believes.
Example 1 (Act 2)
Chatsky: … Let's grant Molcahlin's mind is keen, his genius bold/But do you find in him such passionate ardor flashes/That all the great wide world can hold/Except for you, is dust and ashes?/That every heart-break takes its measure/And comes more quick for love of you/That nothing he can think and nothing he can do/But has one mainspring – you, your pleasure?/'Tis that I feel myself, though that I ne'er can tell/But what now boils in me, the maddening thoughts that rise –/Not to my bitterest foe I'd ever wish such hell!…
Example 2 (Act 3)
Chatsky: Declare me reprobate, old-fashioned fool/But as for me, I find our North is ten times worse/since everything was changed for all that's its reverse/Our manners and our tongue and all we once revered/Our gracious flowing robes for something new and weird –/A veritable clown's costume… The man who's foe to fake, in face, in manners, speech/Whose hapless head – the more's the pity–/Has half a dozen sound ideas in reach/If once he has the pluck to bring them all to book–/Look!
Here we see, Chatsky genuinely loves Sophya and wishes to marry her, and he genuinely believes that the high society of Moscow is off the rails. These beliefs, though, are so lost on the people who only see the wit bubbling on the surface, that he ends up leaving town with no one understanding or truly believing in him in return.
Two things: it must be remembered that this was written contemporaneously to actions taken by the Decemberists, with whom Griboedov was associated, though he was never an active participant. And on another historical, though very different note, it should be remembered that the urban set being satirized in Woe from Wit is the same set documented more dramatically in War and Peace. Despite these two very specific contextual references, however, Woe from Wit remains a story that is both accessible and relevant to the average reader, a fact in large part due to the two above-mentioned tools: the manner in which Griboedov fashioned his characters, based on types rather than individuals, and the lucid fluency with which he "wrestled" the conversational patter into dialogic verse.
PHEW. Did you get that? I am one step closer to the exam, people. One witty step closer.
(And for anyone interested, a more recent [and less, in my mind, witty] translation that can be read online: Woe from Wit (1995) )
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