SOURCE: "Demon-Prometheus," in Slavic Studies, edited by Alexander Kaun and Ernest J. Simmons, Cornell University Press, 1943, pp. 64-74.

In the essay below, Lanz considers the similarities between the classical myth of Prometheus and The Demon, noting that "the Demon is the Russian Prometheus."

It may seem strange to say that Lermontov, perhaps more than any other Russian poet or novelist, is entitled to a place in world literature. If we agree to understand under the term "world literature" an interrelated system of themes and dramatic situations that influence each other and are in the relation of parents and children with respect to one another; if we think of world literature as a great circle, every point of which is organically connected with every other point by the same central law of evolution—then the Russian contributions, Russian novels and dramas, however great in themselves, too often go off...