Note 16 — Chapter V · THE PLACE OF TOURGENIEV

The most striking instance I have come across lately of the cult for Tourgeniev in England is in Mr. Frank Harris’ remarkable book on Shakespeare. He illustrates his thesis that Shakespeare could not create a manly character, by saying that Shakespeare could not have drawn a Bazarov or a Marianna. Leaving the thesis out of the discussion, it is to me almost incredible that any one could think Tourgeniev’s characters manly, compared with those of Shakespeare. Tourgeniev played a hundred variations on the theme of the minor Hamlet. He painted a whole gallery of little Hamlets. Bazarov attains his strength at the expense of intellectual nihilism, but he is a neuropath compared with Mercutio. And Bazarov is the only one of Tourgeniev’s characters (and Tourgeniev’s acutest critics agree with this,—see Brückner and Vogüé) that has strength. Tourgeniev could no more have created a Falstaff than he could have flown. Where are these manly characters of Tourgeniev? Who are they? Indeed a Russian critic lately pointed out, à propos of Tchekov, that the whole of Russian politics, literature, and art, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, suffered from the misfortune of there being so many such Hamlets and so few Fortinbrases. I am convinced that had Mr. Harris been a Russian, or had Tourgeniev been an Englishman, Mr. Harris would not have held these views.