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Contents vii
and Careers (PARCC). In addition, we maintained the classical research and theories that
have been the foundation of progress in educational leadership.
• Our reviewers provided us with many excellent ideas for additions and changes to this
edition. Here are a few of the major changes in addition to some of those listed above:
• We moved the chapter on motivation from the end of the book to its new location as
Chapter 5. We made this change because the theory and practice of motivation underlies
the implementation of good leadership.
• We added back to this edition in Chapter 3 a discussion of Mary Parker Follett’s contri-
bution to management theory.
• We have added to Chapter 8 some of the many contributions Michael Fullan has provided
on organizational change.
• The Marzano, Waters, and McNulty research on leadership has been included in the
discussion on leadership in Chapter 9.
• We added a discussion on data-based decision making to Chapter 10.
• Also, new to Chapter 10 is the presentation of Total Quality Management concepts to
assist in organizational decision making.
• The name and content of the chapter related to conflict in organizations (Chapter 11)
has been changed to reflect a better focus on the topic of communications: Conflict
and Communications in Organizations. In addition, we added a discussion on how
principals should deal with difficult teachers, using ideas from Todd Whitaker’s
work.
• Many of the Reflective Activities at the end of each chapter have been revised and updated.
These activities further challenge each student to develop and internalize personal com-
mitment to a defensible theory of practice in educational leadership. By studying this book
and completing the activities, the learner will develop a thoughtful and well-grounded
approach to the practice of leadership in any school setting.
The 11th edition also offers updated support to instructors via two supplements, a Test
Bank and PowerPoint® presentations. Both of these supplements can be downloaded at www
.pearsonhighered.com/educators. The supplements can be located within the Instructor’s
Resource Center, which you can access after a one-time registration.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to those individuals who assisted us with information and reviews of the
11th edition: Heather Duncan, University of Wyoming; Maria Hinojosa, Texas A&M University–
Commerce; Ricardo D. Rosa, University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth; and Rosemarye Taylor,
University of Central Florida. This group of reviewers was particularly thorough and provided
excellent guidance for revising this edition and future editions.
In addition, we want to acknowledge the following practicing administrators who add great
meaning to many of the chapters through their “Voices From the Field,” connecting the research,
theory, and concepts in this book to the “real world” of schooling:
• Kevin Gordon, former Principal, Gibbs High School, St. Petersburg, Florida; currently
Provost St. Petersburg College, St. Petersburg, Florida
• Kendall Hendricks, Director of Finance, Brownsburg Community Schools Corporation,
Brownsburg, Indiana
• Rocky Killion, Superintendent, West Lafayette Community School Corporation, West
Lafayette, Indiana
• Brain Mangan, former Principal, Mariner High School, Cape Coral, Florida; currently
Principal East Lee County High School
• Jorge Nelson, former Head of School in Vienna, Austria; currently administrator for
Myanmar International School, Burma
• LaSonya Moore, Assistant Principal, Pinellas County Schools, Florida
• Steve Ritter, Principal, Lakeland High School, Deepwater, Missouri
Finally, and most importantly, we wish to thank Christopher Parfitt, a doctoral graduate student
and graduate assistant at Florida Gulf Coast University, for his research assistance, his help in
assuring our references were accurate, his help in editing and proofreading, and for his assistance
in revising the PowerPoint® slides.
R.G.O.
T.C.V.
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP POLICY
STANDARDS FOR 2008
(Formerly Known as the ISLLC Standards)
The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards have been at the center
of Educational Leadership program reform for over a decade. In 2008, with support from the
Wallace Foundation, the standards were revised and are now called the Educational Leadership
Policy Standards. Originally, each of the six ISLLC standards included a list of knowledge,
skills, and dispositions (KSDs), totaling nearly 200 KSD indicators. About these indicators,
Joseph Murphy (2003), who was one of the primary authors of the ISLLC standards, wrote the
following:
[T]hese indicators are examples of important knowledge, practices, and beliefs, not a
full map. No effort was made to include everything or to deal with performances in
the myriad of leadership contexts. Leadership is a complex and context-dependent
activity. To attempt to envelope the concept with a definitive list of indicators is a
fool’s errand.
The authors of the ISLLC standards assumed that an entire university preparation pro-
gram, not any single course, should engender all knowledge, dispositions, and performances of
the ISLLC standards, but even then, programs were not to be evaluated based on these indicators
alone. In practice, however, the KSD indicators were used as standards themselves, which was
not the intent of the original ISLLC developers. In the revised standards document, the authors
state that “the very nature of listing examples of leadership indicators was unintentionally limit-
ing and negated other areas that could have been included in an exhaustive listing” (Council of
Chief State School Officers, 2008, p. 5). Therefore, the KSD indicators were abandoned in the
revised standards, and “functions” were added to define each standard and to assist administra-
tors in understanding the behaviors expected for each. The revised standards are purposely called
“policy standards” to help guide policy-level discussions related to educational leadership, rather
than direct practical applications.
The ISLLC standards provide the basis for evaluating university programs by the National
Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the National Policy Board for
Educational Administration (NPBEA). A brief history of the development of the ISLLC stand-
ards might help the reader understand the importance of these standards.
The NPBEA was formed in 1988 with membership from the following 10 national
associations:
• American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)
• American Association of School Administrators (AASA)
• Association of School Business Officials (ASBO)
• Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)
• Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
• National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)
• National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP)
• National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA)
xv
xvi Educational Leadership Policy Standards for 2008
• Revamping the ISLLC and the ELCC standards would be done at the same time.
• The ISLLC Standards for School Leaders need to be updated, not rewritten from scratch.
• The context in which both sets of standards are being revised has changed dramatically in
the past decade.
• NPBEA will own the copyright to the revised two sets of standards.
The plan was to present the final revision of the standards to the NPBEA for approval
in the spring of 2008, a goal that was achieved early because the new Educational Leadership
Policy Standards were approved in December 2007 by the NPBEA. The first of the criticisms
listed above was resolved in this revision. A research base was developed and each of the new
functions is directly connected to supporting research publications (National Policy Board for
Educational Administration, 2009). The resulting document was titled Educational Leadership
Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008.
Although we recognize that the ISLLC standards are not comprehensive of all aspects
of school leadership and that there has been significant critical discourse in the profession
about the standards, we also recognize that, as of 2008, 43 states adopted or adapted the ISLLC
standards as the basis for state certification in educational leadership and as the basis for
evaluating and approving university preparation programs (Council of Chief State School
Officers, 2008). Those states not adopting or modifying the ISLLC standards as their own have
standards with marked similarities to the ISLLC standards (Sanders & Simpson, 2005). In
view of their importance, therefore, we want to identify for you the ISLLC standards and their
accompanying functions that are significant aspects of this book. The tables on pages xx–xxii
are matrices of each ISLLC standard and indicate the functions that are contained in each
chapter. By looking at each standard table, you can see which chapters in our book contain
Educational Leadership Policy Standards for 2008 xvii
related content. It is clear that some standards are covered more thoroughly than others. For
example, you can see from the table that Standard 4 has less related content than Standards 3
and 5. By scanning across the rows for the functions, you can determine which chapter con-
tains related material. We hope that this information is of value to students and professors
alike, and we welcome any feedback that might guide us in making this information more
useful in future editions.
ISLLC Functions by Chapter
STANDARD 1: An education leader promotes the success of every student by facilitating the
development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared
and supported by all stakeholders.
Chapters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Functions
A. Collaboratively develop and implement a shared • • •
vision and mission
B. Collect and use data to identify goals, assess • • • • • •
organizational effectiveness, and promote
organizational learning
C. Create and implement plans to achieve goals • • • • • •
D. Promote continuous and sustainable improvement • • • • • • •
E. Monitor and evaluate progress and revise plans • • • •
STANDARD 2: An education leader promotes the success of every student by advocating, nurturing,
and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff
professional growth.
Chapters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Functions
A. Nurture and sustain a culture of collaboration, trust, • • • • • • • • •
learning, and high expectations
B. Create a comprehensive, rigorous, and coherent • • • • • •
curricular program
C. Create a personalized and motivating learning • • • • • • • •
environment for students
D. Supervise instruction • • •
E. Develop assessment and accountability systems to • • • • • • • •
monitor student progress
F. Develop the instructional and leadership capacity • • • • • •
of staff
G. Maximize time spent on quality instruction • • • • •
H. Promote the use of the most effective and • • • • • • • • •
appropriate technologies to support teaching
and learning
I. Monitor and evaluate the impact of the instructional • • • • •
program
xviii
ISLLC Functions by Chapter xix
STANDARD 3: An education leader promotes the success of every student by ensuring management
of the organization, operation, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.
Chapters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Functions
A. Monitor and evaluate the management and • • • •
operational systems
B. Obtain, allocate, align, and efficiently utilize human, • • • •• •
fiscal, and technological resources
C. Promote and protect the welfare and safety of • •
students and staff
D. Develop the capacity for distributed leadership • • • • • • • • •
E. Ensure teacher and organizational time is focused to • • •
support quality instruction and student learning
STANDARD 4: An education leader promotes the success of every student by collaborating with
faculty and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and
mobilizing community resources.
Chapters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Functions
A. Collect and analyze data and information pertinent • • • • • •
to the educational environment
B. Promote understanding, appreciation, and use of the • • • • • •
community’s diverse cultural, social, and intellectual
resources
C. Build and sustain positive relationships with families • • • • • • • •
and caregivers
D. Build and sustain productive relationships with • • • • •
community partners
xx ISLLC Functions by Chapter
STANDARD 5: An education leader promotes the success of every student by acting with
integrity and fairness, and in an ethical manner.
Chapters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Functions
A. Ensure a system of accountability for every student’s • • •
academic and social success
B. Model principles of self-awareness, reflective practice, • • • • • •
transparency, and ethical behavior
C. Safeguard the values of democracy, equity, and • •
diversity
D. Consider and evaluate the potential moral and legal • • • • •
consequences of decision making
E. Promote social justice and ensure that individual • • • • • •
student needs inform all aspects of schooling
Chapters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Functions
A. Advocate for children, families, and caregivers • •
B. Act to influence local, district, state, and national • • • • • • •
decisions affecting student learning
C. Assess, analyze, and anticipate emerging trends and • • • • • •
initiatives in order to adapt leadership strategies
NPBEA DISTRICT-LEVEL STANDARDS
New to national standards in 2011 were district level standards developed by the National
Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA). The document is entitled Educational
Leadership Program Recognition Standards: District Level (National Policy Board for Educational
Administration, 2011). These standards, based on the ISLLC standards, were designed prima-
rily for university preparation programs to receive national accreditation by the Educational
Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC). The major difference with the ISLLC standards is the
addition of Standard 7 related to internship programs. Due to their importance to preparation
programs, we list these standards below. Matrices (or crosswalks) mapping these district-level
standards to the ISLLC standards and comprehensive research support for each standard are
provided in the NPBEA document listed above. In addition, Canole and Young (2013) provided
an in-depth analysis of the ISLLC and ELCC standards in their report published by the Council
of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). In their report, Canole and Young provided the history
of the standards; the research base for the standards; and crosswalks of the ELCC standards to
not only the ISLLC standards but also to other national standards, such as InTASC teacher stand-
ards, NASSP, and NAESP standards. They also report their analysis of the Wallace Foundation
Principal Pipeline Initiative in which six districts adapted the ELCC standards to develop strong
principal preparation and succession programs (Charlotte-Mecklenburg in North Carolina;
Denver, Colorado; Gwinnett County in Georgia; Hillsborough County in Florida (Tampa area);
New York City; and Prince George’s County in Maryland).
To receive national recognition by the Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC),
university preparation programs are evaluated on the Educational Leadership Program Recognition
Standards: District Level (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2011).
xxi
xxii NPBEA District-Level Standards
and needs, and mobilizing community resources for the district by collecting and analyzing
information pertinent to improvement of the district’s educational environment; promoting
an understanding, appreciation, and use of the community’s diverse cultural, social, and intel-
lectual resources throughout the district; building and sustaining positive district relationships
with families and caregivers; and cultivating productive district relationships with community
partners.
ELCC Standard Elements:
ELCC 4.1: Candidates understand and can collaborate with faculty and community mem-
bers by collecting and analyzing information pertinent to the improvement of the district’s
educational environment.
ELCC 4.2: Candidates understand and can mobilize community resources by promoting
understanding, appreciation, and use of the community’s diverse cultural, social, and in-
tellectual resources throughout the district.
ELCC 4.3: Candidates understand and can respond to community interests and needs by
building and sustaining positive district relationships with families and caregivers.
ELCC 4.4: Candidates understand and can respond to community interests and needs by
building and sustaining productive district relationships with community partners.
influence local, district, state, and national decisions affecting student learning; and anticipating and
assessing emerging trends and initiatives in order to adapt district-level leadership strategies.
ELCC Standard Elements:
ELCC 6.1: Candidates understand and can advocate for district students, families, and
caregivers.
ELCC 6.2: Candidates understand and can act to influence local, district, state, and national
decisions affecting student learning in a district environment.
ELCC 6.3: Candidates understand and can anticipate and assess emerging trends and
initiatives in order to adapt district-level leadership strategies.
REFERENCES
Canole, M., & Young, M. (2013). Standards for educational leaders: An analysis. Washington, DC: CCSSO.
Council of Chief State School Officers. (2008, June). Educational leadership policy standards: ISLLC 2008. As
Adopted by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration, Washington, DC: Council of Chief
State School Officers. Retrieved from http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2008/Educational_Leadership_
Policy_Standards_2008.pdf
Murphy, J. (2003, September). Reculturing educational leadership: The ISLLC standards ten years out. Paper
prepared for the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. Retrieved from www.npbea.
org/Resources/catalog.html
National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2011). Educational leadership program recognition
standards: District level. Alexandria, VA: NPBEA.
National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2009, June). Major projects. Retrieved from http://
www.npbea.org/projects.php
Sanders, N. M., & Simpson, J. (2005). State policy framework to develop highly qualified administrators.
Washington, DC: CCSSO.
Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
The girl beseeches him to leave her.
In form the novel is like Childe Harold. But the descriptions, the
irony, and humour are truly Russian.
As an example of all three in one these may suffice:
"For forty years he nagged with his housekeeper, looked out of the
window and squashed flies."
"Once upon a time the head of a secret team of gamblers, now he
was a kind and simple father of a bachelor's numerous brood, living
the life of a true philosopher: planting cabbages, breeding ducks and
geese and teaching his youngsters the A B C."
All the characters use genuine everyday speech, and yet the realistic
subjects are magically turned into poetry. "One can be a serious man
and yet think of the beauty of one's nails."
An example of his descriptive power may be found in this stanza on
Moscow:
For this daring outburst he was arrested, tried and banished to the
Caucasus, which again acted, as in his childhood, as a direct
inspiration. New poems came flying to Petrograd full of human
passions, and descriptions of a Nature prodigal and passionate as
her devoted lover. No geography book could ever give such a vivid
picture of the Caucasus as Lèrmontov's verse and prose. As the
Arabs say: "They turn our hearing into seeing." Fame at last
descended upon him. Then appeared the "Song of the Tsar Ivàn
Vasìlyevich, the young Opriknik, and the Brave Merchant
Kalàshinkov," in which the Opriknik insults the merchant's wife, and
the merchant challenges him to fight with his fists, kills him and is
executed for it. The poem is written as a folk-song, in the style of
the Byliny: as an epic there is nothing in modern Russian literature
to compare with it for simplicity, appropriateness of tone, vividness,
truth to nature and terseness.
Every line begins with an anapæst, followed by some odd dactyls,
and ends in a dactyl unrhymed. It has been translated by Madame
Voynich admirably, and is published by Elkin Mathews.
While in the Caucasus, his age being now twenty-three, Lèrmontov
finished The Demon, on which he had been at work for so long.
The personality of this Demon, the Spirit of Exile, is quite different
from the Satanic Mephistopheles or Lucifer. With all his contempt for
Earth, Lèrmontov's Demon is fascinating in every way. He is always
musing over his former days in Heaven, and vainly seeking some
relief in the desert of time and space into which he is cast out alone;
he is the embodiment of the idea of loneliness in a proud soul. His
sudden love for the Grùzian girl Tamàra inflames him with the desire
of abandoning his pride, of opening his heart to Good, of making
peace with Heaven ... we are never allowed to forget that the Angel
and the Demon had been brothers. Moved by his love, the Demon is
on the verge of humility and of opening his heart to Goodness when
his pride and hatred return upon him, due entirely to the tone of
enmity which the Angel adopts on meeting him. The Angel is a good
hater and thorough in his scornfulness. Being Tamàra's celestial
guardian, he becomes quite human and understandable when he
meets the Demon (whom he might have conquered by greeting him
with Heavenly grace) with icy contempt and threats. Here we have a
perfect delineation of the kinship between the spirits of good and
evil.
The Demon's wooing of Tamàra is irresistibly bewitching, one of the
most passionate love declarations ever written, in couplets of
sonorous iambics that glow like jewels and tremble like the strings of
a harp. Tamàra yields to him (what human girl could have done
otherwise?) and forfeits her life, but her soul is borne off to Heaven
by the Angel: by death she has expiated her offence, and the
Demon is left as before desolate in a loveless universe.
Owing to his grandmother's persistence Lèrmontov was recalled
before one of his five years' exile had elapsed, and we see him again
in Petrograd with his old regiment, a tremendous source of interest
to all society, half of whom hated, while half loved him.
In 1838 Duma appeared, in which Lèrmontov gave to the world his
view of his contemporaries: it was the severest indictment
imaginable, far saner and truer than Byron's, not of the great
Russian nation of course, but of the shallow side of that human
nature to which he had allied himself. How clear he was of the
shortcomings of that lot of people to which he himself, at least
outwardly, belonged, and how deeply it hurt him is proved by the
exquisite precision with which he exercised his lancet of lampoon.
It is in form a perfect example of his rhymed and scanned prose as it
were—that is, not a single word would have to be altered or shifted
if you wanted to write it out in prose. It is the work not of a
superficial satirist, but of a deep and profound thinker, of a Shelley
rather than a Byron.
In 1840 he was challenged to a duel by a son of the French
ambassador, in which Lèrmontov fired his shot in the air and
received himself a slight scratch. For this he was again arrested and
banished as before to the Caucasus. This, the last year of his life, he
spent at Patigorsk, a town forming the centre of a fashionable
healing-springs district, at the foot of a mountain range. Here he
wrote his only novel in prose, The Hero of Our Times, as great a
piece of artistry as anything that he did in poetry. It is the first
psychological novel in Russia. The hero, Pechorin by name, was
undoubtedly Lèrmontov himself, although he said, and quite
probably thought, that he was merely creating a type.
This Pechorin is an officer in the Caucasus, who analyses his own
character, and lays bare his weaknesses, follies and faults with
extreme candour and frankness. "I am incapable of friendship," he
says. "Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although
often neither of them will admit it: I cannot be a slave, and to be a
master is a tiring business."
Or again: "I have an innate passion for contradiction ... the presence
of enthusiasm turns me to ice, and intercourse with a phlegmatic
temperament would turn me into a passionate dreamer."
On the eve of fighting a duel he writes:
"If I die it will not be a great loss to the world, and as for me, I am
sufficiently tired of life. I am like a man yawning at a ball, who does
not go home to bed because the carriage is not there, but as soon
as the carriage is there, Good-bye! I review my past and I ask
myself, Why have I lived? Why was I born? And I think there was a
reason, and I think I was called to high things, for I feel in my soul
the presence of vast powers: but I did not divine my high calling: I
gave myself up to the allurement of shallow and ignoble passions: I
emerged from their furnace as hard and as cold as iron, but I had
lost for ever the ardour of noble aspirations, the flower of life. And
since then how often have I played the part of the axe in the hands
of fate. Like the weapon of the Executioner I have fallen on the
necks of the victims, often without malice, always without pity. My
love has never brought happiness, because I have never in the
slightest degree sacrificed myself for those whom I loved. I loved for
my own sake, for my own pleasure.... And if I die I shall not leave
behind me one soul who understood me. Some think I am better,
others that I am worse than I am. Some will say he was a good
fellow: others he was a blackguard."
From this it may be easily seen that Lèrmontov must have been a
most trying companion. He had an impossible temperament, proud,
exasperated, filled with a savage amour-propre: he took a childish
delight in annoying: he was envious of that which was least enviable
in his contemporaries. When he could not make himself successful—
that is, felt—by pleasant, he would choose unpleasant means, and
yet in spite of all this he was warmhearted, thirsting for love and
kindness and capable of giving himself up to love—if he chose.
During the course of this second banishment he took an active part
in the fighting with the Circassian tribes, showing striking courage
combined with perfect modesty.
This experience was the direct inspiration of Valèrik, one of the most
beautiful of his long poems on the Caucasus.
After this came his second duel. On this occasion he somehow
contrived to offend a somewhat posing officer called Major Martỳnov,
who could not bear Lèrmontov's jokes in the presence of ladies. As
before, Lèrmontov fired his pistol into the air, but Martỳnov aimed so
long that the seconds began to remonstrate. He then fired and killed
Lèrmontov immediately.
As a result Martỳnov only escaped the anger of the mob by being
arrested.
In 1909 Merejkòvski produced a little book on Lèrmontov as a
counterblast to one by Solovyòv in which Martỳnov was hailed as
"Heaven's weapon sent to punish blood-thirstiness and devilish lust."
It is a blessing indeed that Solovyòv should have been led to attack
Lèrmontov, for Merejkòvski was thus brought to criticise Lèrmontov
with an amazingly accurate insight. He loved the poet and so his
appreciation is the more perfect. "Something like Solovyòv's attitude
towards Lèrmontov," he says, "must have been in the minds of the
poet's contemporaries and successors. Even Dostoievski mentions
him as the 'spirit of wrath.' Nicholas I. expressed grim pleasure at
his death. He has been up till now the scapegoat of Russian
literature. All Russian writers preach humility, even those who began
by heading revolts—Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoievski, Tolstoi ... here is
the one single man who never gave in and never submitted to his
last breath ... he is the Cain of Russian literature and has been killed
by Abel, the spirit of humility. Solovyòv's cry of 'Devilish superman' is
only another proof of the fact that the struggle between
superhumanism and deo-humanism is the eternal problem of life."
Merejkòvski's idea is that Lèrmontov could remember the past of his
eternity ... from the ordinary human mind this previous existence is
excluded, we dwell on the eternity to come ... but Lèrmontov never
did: his mind was concentrated on what he saw left behind him.
From the very first his poetry attracts you uneasily: you may—
Russian youths often are—be taught to hate him as a "spring of
poison" ... he knew the harrowing threat of fruitless ages. Even as a
boy he frequently said: "If only I could forget the unforgettable." His
Demon is never permitted to forget the past. He lives by what is
death to others.
Pechorin, in The Hero of our Days, speaks as Lèrmontov when he
says: "I never forget anything—anything."
In one of his poems he laments that his despair is that no love lasts
through eternity: he means his eternity. He knows of a kind of
existence which is neither this life, nor death as promised by
Christianity. That existence is not deprived of love: his idea is that
the less earthly, the deeper and greater the passion becomes. The
difference between Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations and
Lèrmontov's is that Wordsworth speaks of these intimations coming
to him from outside this world and Lèrmontov speaks from the
outside world himself, as one belonging to it, while realising his
temporary existence in this world to which he does not belong. This
attitude was a continual torment to him; it made him feel very much
of a stranger.
"Usually," says Merejkòvski, "artists find their creation beautiful
because nothing like it has existed before." Lèrmontov feels the
beauty just where it had been always. That is why there is
something so individual and inimitable in him when he speaks of
Nature: 'For several moments spent among the wilderness of rocks
where I played as a child I would give Paradise and Eternity.'
"He is in love with Nature. He longs to blend in an embrace with the
storm and Shelley-like catches of lightnings with his hands. It is the
only non-earthly love for earth to be found in poetry. Christianity is a
movement from here—thither: Lèrmontov's poetry is from there—
hither. He was not-quite-a-man encased in a man's shell. He tried to
conceal this, because people do not forgive anyone for being unlike
them. Hence his reticence, which people mistook for pride. They
thought he was untruthful, posing ... while in reality it was his
tragedy that he felt out of place here and tried to be like everyone
else. This explains his escape into the sphere of dissipations, his
cruel attitude towards the girl he deserted ... when he could feel that
at last he was like his contemporaries.
"The fourth dimension seemed to be squeezed into the three for a
while, and the icy horror of eternity and the inane temporarily
forgotten in the warmth of human vulgarity."
This, Merejkòvski thinks, accounts for that amazing child-likeness in
Lèrmontov which dwelt side by side with his pessimism, sadness,
bitterness, flippancy and sarcasm. He could always play children's
games to the state of self-forgetfulness and had no fear of death,
because he knew that there was no death.
"His Demon never laughs and never lies; he has something of the
child-like in him. He is always genuine, as far removed as possible
from Gogol's spirit of mischief or Dostoievsky's wicked, sneering
Devil. Lèrmontov's Devil is beautiful, because he is not thought out,
but suffered out by the poet himself; he is hardly a devil at all."
There is a legend that once there was a fight between God and
Satan and some of the angels were undecided which side to take. In
order to help them to make up their mind they were sent to be born
on earth, where they should dwell for a little in a limited world: the
soul of Lèrmontov had been in his past one of these. That is why his
duality was always such a burden to him. This explains many queer
things about Lèrmontov: his amazingly deep passion for a girl of
nine when he was ten ("I did not know whence she came") and his
having drawn a detailed picture of his death many times before his
final duel: most strange of all is Merejkòvski's idea that Lèrmontov
remembered the future of eternity. Pushkin is the day-luminary of
Russian poetry and Lèrmontov is the night-luminary: "It is high time
to rise after our final stage of humility and start on our last revolt,
and remember that besides Pushkin we have Lèrmontov and his
message to the world.... Because in the end Satan will make peace
with God."
He owed nothing to his contemporaries, little to his predecessors
and still less to foreign models.
As a schoolboy he imitated Byron, merely echoes these, however, of
his reading. Shelley urged him as Byron urged Pushkin to emulation,
not imitation. His pride and obstinacy if nothing else would have
made him carve out his own path: he chose the narrow path of
romance, the Turner method rather than the Constable in his
depictions of landscape, as may be seen in Mtsysi, the story of a
Circassian orphan educated in a convent, who has ungovernable
longings for freedom: he escapes, loses his way in the forest and is
brought back after three days, dying from exhaustion and starvation.
The greater portion of the poem is given up to his confession: he
then tells how insatiable were his desires to seek out his own home
and people: he describes his wanderings, hearing the song of a girl
... seeing at nightfall the light of a dwelling-place twinkling like a
fallen star, but afraid to seek it. He then kills a panther and in the
morning finds a way out of the woods and lies exhausted in the
grass under the blinding sun of noon. He then fancies in his delirium
that he is lying at the bottom of a deep stream; the fish sing to him
in a voice so unearthly that he is enticed and allured as if the fish
were the Erl-King's daughter.
In The Testament he rises to an unadorned realism that is little short
of magic in its poignancy:
Now an outcast:
We follow him in his exile over the world through the Caucasus to
Gruzia:
The guardian angel departs and the Demon is left victor of the field
to plead his cause. In answer to Tamàra's question, "'But who art
thou? Who?... Answer me,'" he replies:
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