The Demon by Mikhail Lermontov

First published: 1855 (English translation, 1875)

Type of work: Poetry

Principal characters

• The Demon,
• Prince Goudal, heir to a Caucasian robber chief
• Tamara, his daughter, a beautiful Caucasian princess
• The Young Bridegroom, her betrothed
• The Guardian Angel,
• The Aged Guardian,

The Poem:

The Demon, banished from Heaven, soars over the earth despondent about the memories of his once glorious past, when he knew both faith and love. No force challenges him as he spreads evil and strife around the world, but it has all been too easy and he has become bored and indifferent, even to the magnificent beauty of the Caucasus. The created universe leaves him cold and disdainful. Even the lush valleys of Georgia leave him feeling bitter and contemptuous.

Meanwhile, the aged Prince Goudal plans for the marriage of his only daughter, the beautiful Tamara. Outwardly she appears pleased, and she dances and smiles, but within her heart she has misgivings about leaving her home and becoming subservient to her new relatives. The Demon flies past her, sees her dancing, and immediately falls in love with her. His empty and lonely soul is aroused by her beauty and innocence, and he feels confused.

The Demon then espies the young bridegroom excitedly riding toward the wedding, and he distracts the young man from visiting a shrine along the way. The bridegroom pursues a pair of Ossetian robbers, but after a brief chase, he is mortally wounded and his horse shows up at Goudal’s castle in the mountains bearing his corpse. Tamara is anguished, but the Demon’s strange voice calls out to comfort her and to advise her to wait. The words inflame her passions, but when he enters her bedroom as if in a shadowy dream, looking “unearthly handsome” and forlorn in his love, she detects no radiance from his head.

A fearful and suspicious Tamara begs her father to turn the other suitors away and allow her to enter a convent as a nun. Even in a remote convent, however, secluded among the mountains and forests, she continues to sense the Demon’s presence in forbidden dreams and to feel attracted by his unearthly beauty.

Tamara cannot meditate or pray properly, unable to stop thinking about the Demon. She becomes indifferent to the beauties of nature. When she attempts to pray to icons of the Virgin Mary, she ends up thinking about the Demon of her troubled dreams, and she fantasizes passionate embraces with him. She prays to the saints, but her heart yearns for the Demon.

At first, the Demon does not dare approach the convent, but finally he enters the garden and serenades Tamara with such tender, ethereal music that he is himself overwhelmed to the point of dropping a single tear, perhaps the first since his exile from Heaven. The Demon enters her room with love and joy, where he is confronted by Tamara’s Guardian Angel. Their standoff is brief, for the Demon turns aside the angel with a malicious grin, claiming Tamara as his prize because she has already sinned in her heart.

When Tamara asks the Demon what he wants from her, he tells her it is her beauty, and he confesses all of his malice and evil, telling her, “I only kill and never save.” He promises to repent if she will yield to him. When she asks him why he pursued her, the Demon is only able to tell her that he felt as if he had desired her since the beginning of Creation. He professes to regret his loneliness and he expresses some sense of hope, perhaps even for reconciliation with God. He claims his great freedom and his power over puny mortals have come to mean nothing to him.

Tamara attempts to resist his seduction, but she thinks if she could persuade him to renounce his evil ways and to take a solemn oath, she could accept his love. The Demon swears an elaborate and apparently sincere oath rejecting his demonic life and insisting he desires only her love and his reconciliation with God. Holding out the promise of a life of pleasure and power beyond the transitory joys of Earth, the Demon appeals to her for her love, but when Tamara succumbs and allows him to kiss her, she gives out a single shriek and dies instantly.

The Aged Guardian, the cloister’s old watchman, feels a premonition after midnight. He may be unconsciously aware both of the kiss and of Tamara’s dying cry and moan, but when he listens he cannot actually hear anything but the wind. He crosses himself, prays silently, and continues on his dark rounds.

Tamara’s beauty remains even in death. She is more richly attired at her elaborate funeral than she had ever been in life, and her lips retain a strange smile. Her grieving father builds a church high in the mountains as a memorial to her. When an angel begins to fly away with Tamara’s sinful human soul, the Demon attempts to claim her for himself. Only then does Tamara’s soul see the anger and hatred in the Demon, and she prays for protection. The angel informs the Demon that Tamara’s soul has been severely tried and will be granted salvation. The arrogant but defeated Demon is left alone and hopeless, cursing love, humankind, and the world itself.

Thereafter, villagers claim that Prince Goudal’s castle is haunted by a tragic ghost, but in the village life goes on as usual and nothing is left to tell succeeding generations of the old tragedy. Goudal’s castle falls into disarray and becomes the haunt of spiders and serpents. High on a nearby mountain the church remains, but it is deserted and often beset by snowstorms. No pilgrims go that way, and the names of Goudal and Tamara are forgotten.

Bibliography

Allen, Elizabeth Cheresh. A Fallen Idol Is Still a God: Lermontov and the Quandaries of Cultural Transition. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. A critical examination of Lermontov’s writing, placing it within the context of his time and culture. Argues that he is a writer who defies categorization, straddling the line between Romanticism and realism, and sees the Demon as representing no clear idea of evil.

Davidson, Pamela. “The Muse and the Demon in the Poetry of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Blok.” In Russian Literature and Its Demons, edited by Davidson. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000. Suggests that Lermontov explores “the demonic potential inherent in the creative process” in the poem; the Demon’s seduction of Tamara “becomes a mirror image of the act of artistic creation,” but ultimately demonic efforts at creation lead not to salvation or divine union, but to destruction.

Eikhenbaum, B. M. Lermontov. Translated by Ray Parrott and Harry Weber. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1981. Considers The Demon to be the last example of the “Russian lyrico-epic narrative poem.” Offers a concise stylistic commentary on the poem’s emotional-phonic qualities.

Garrard, John. Mikhail Lermontov. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Argues that in The Demon, Lermontov handles an important and complex topic “in an intellectually impoverished context” and, unlike other commentators, that the poem lacks a philosophy. Sees the characters, including the Demon, as insufficiently motivated and under-realized.

Golstein, Vladimir. Lermontov’s Narratives of Heroism. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1998. Focuses on the theme of heroism and the individual in Lermontov’s works, including The Demon. Argues that the Demon, whose dominant feature is not so much “malice” as “indifference” or “boredom,” attempts to deal with his alienation and loss of paradise through his erotic love for Tamara. One of the most perceptive commentaries on the poem.

Kelly, Laurence. Lermontov: Tragedy in the Caucasus. New York: George Braziller, 1977. Reprint. London: Tauris Parke, 2003. An autobiographical reading of the poem, seeing The Demon as embodying Lermontov’s unhappy experiences with romantic love. Salvation through love is impossible for the Demon, as for other fictional Lermontov characters and for the author himself.

Powelstock, David. Becoming Mikhail Lermontov: The Ironies of Romantic Individualism in Nicholas I’s Russia. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2005. Posits that Lermontov had a coherent worldview, which Powelstock defines as “Romantic individualism,” and demonstrates how this philosophy explains contradictions in the writer’s life and works. Suggests that later revisions of the poem shifted the poem’s ethical center from the Demon to Tamara and the poem’s readers.

Pyman, Avril. “The Demon: The Mythopoetic World Model in the Art of Lermontov, Vrubel, Blok.” In Russian Literature and Its Demons, edited by Pamela Davidson. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000. Comments on the relationships between Lermontov’s poem and Mikhail Vrubel’s sketches and paintings and Aleksander Blok’s Symbolist poems. Some reference to Anton Rubenstein’s opera.

Reid, Robert. “Lermontov’s Demon: A Question of Identity.” Slavonic and East European Review 60, no. 2 (1982): 189-210. Considers the polarization between humanistic and metaphysical readings. Notes that Tamara’s beauty attracts the Demon because he confuses it with moral goodness; argues that natural beauty can persuade but not save or redeem. One of the most important approaches to the poem.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Lermontov’s The Demon: Identity and Axiology.” In Russian Literature and Its Demons, edited by Pamela Davidson. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000. Examines the philosophical (ontological and aesthetic) and ethical dimensions of the Demon and finds him “not a whole-hearted malefactor.”