My Soul Did Long To Be There
Yesterday I finished reading the book The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The title is an allusion to the devils that the Savior cast out of the man in the country of the Gadarenes and sent into a herd of swine (see Luke 8:26-36). The story is a tragedy and shows where the philosophy of nihilism—the rejection of any real meaning in life—leads. At one point in the novel one of the main characters, Stepan Trofimovitch, gave voice, I believe, to Dostoevsky’s feelings in the face of Russian nihilism when he said to a large crowd, “The enthusiasm of the youth of today is as pure and bright as in our age. All that has happened is a change of aim, the replacing of one beauty by another! The whole difficulty lies in the question which is more beautiful, Shakespeare or boots, Raphael or petroleum?... I maintain that Shakespeare and Raphael are more precious than the emancipation of the serfs, more precious than Nationalism, more precious than Socialism, more precious than the young generation, more precious than chemistry, more precious than almost all humanity because they are the fruit, the real fruit of all humanity and perhaps the highest fruit that can be. A form of beauty already attained, but for the attaining of which I would not perhaps consent to live.” In other words, there is such a thing as beauty (and this has nothing to do with “good-looking” here) to which the human soul aspires. Ultimately it is the divine that is exhibited in the works of man—such as Shakespeare’s plays and Raphael’s paintings or Handel’s music—that are indeed of more value than boots or petroleum or the physical stuff that we surround ourself with. There are indeed ideals and beauty and truths that give substance and meaning to life and life man above the terrestrial to God.
This painting by Raphael of
Mary and the baby Jesus (the “Sistine Madonna”) was mentioned repeatedly by the
characters in the novel and was used to highlight the struggle between nihilism
on one hand and a belief God and the divine and beauty on the other. The governess
of the town, Julia Mihailovna, filled with vanity and seeking power and praise
of the world, described her feelings about the painting this way: “I spent two
hours sitting before that picture and came away utterly disillusioned. I could
make nothing of it and was in complete amazement. Karmazinov, too, says it’s
hard to understand it. They all see nothing in it now, Russians and English
alike. All its fame is just the talk of the last generation.” She and other
characters insisted that it was useless and meaningless, that “the rumble of
the carts carrying bread to humanity being more important than the Sistine
Madonna.” On the other hand, Stepan affirmed its beauty and power, calling it “that
ideal of humanity” and connecting it with “the ideas of eternal beauty.” Trying
to convince him not to speak of the painting at an important literary gathering,
his long-time friend Varvara Petrovna said to him, “Now, there’s no one,
absolutely no one, in ecstasies over the Madonna; no one wastes time over it
except old men who are hopelessly out of date. That’s established.” But he
insisted, “Don’t ask me. I can’t. I shall speak of the Madonna.” He was
convinced that it was of more value than material things for it was true beauty
that would lift one to the divine.
Comments
Post a Comment
Comments: