SOURCE: "Lermontov's Literary Ballads," in his The Literary Ballad in Early Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature, Oxford University Press, 1976, pp. 166-82.

In the following essay, Katz traces the thematic, stylistic, and linguistic sources of Lermontov's literary ballads, highlighting the poet's contributions to the genre.

In 1838 Lermontov became acquainted with Zhukovsky in St. Petersburg and the two poets continued to meet until Lermontov's departure for the Caucasus in April 1841. Zhukovsky's influence on his poetry is evident from the very beginning of Lermontov's literary career, both in his experiments in the ballad genre and in his application of balladic techniques in his lyric poetry. As Pushkin had progressed from imitation to parody of Zhukovsky's ballads, so too did Lermontov. From 1830 Lermontov began to parody precisely those elements of Zhukovsky's style which he had previously imitated. But in his ballad cycle of 1832, and particularly in those works written between 1837 and 1841, Lermontov transformed the...