Mikhail Lermontov is considered by many to be the greatest poet of Russia's Golden Age after Aleksandr Pushkin. Although he died at the age of twenty-six, his legacy in poetry and prose gained him a firm place in Russian literary history. The handful of mature lyrics upon which his reputation as a poet rests are characterized by a direct intimacy and personal pathos that distinguish him from his virtuosic predecessor. These poems bear the imprint of a strong Romantic individualism: the hero battles for the poet's right to self-expression against the background of a society viewed as antagonistic to poetry and poets. Indeed, the 1830s, when Lermontov wrote, was a period marked by the “turn to prose” in Russian literature. Critics began to react against the gentry-dominated school of Pushkin's age, branding poetry “a golden plaything.” They demanded a new literature to deal with current cultural concerns (such...