Cultivated humanity in its last representatives embalmed for scientific edification in some not-so-remote future, is one harbinger of an image found in a work by the nineteenth-century essayist and political prisoner Dmitry Pisarev, yet there it is not alone. Alongside it, but pertaining to his current moment, is another insight about the literary and musical scene more specifically. This light flashes even more briefly than the first, but just as it ends one glimpses him extrapolating from the present, in anticipation of a possibility that might develop out of it.
In medias res of the musical and literary sector, the critic had observed it and its denizens, and so regarded the whole region displayed itself as a habitat typified by the struggle for life such as the scientists of that century and later sought to analyse.
The numbers of these inhabitants increased more and more rapidly, while ever fewer would appear for periods of time long enough to propagate their works. Литературныхъ паразитовъ чрезвычайно много – he says in an 1864 text touched on briefly in the preceding essay – но изъ темной и жалкой толпы умственнаго пролетарiата выдвигаются только тѣ изъ нихъ, которые умѣют усвоить себѣ гибкую и разнообразную форму выраженiя. Literary parasites are exceedingly numerous, but out of the dark and wretched throng of the intellectual proletariat, only those of them emerge who are able to adopt a pliable and variegated form of expression. One has no need to state the names his remark alluded to, for they were already well-known; but is it not implied that such parasitism on the part of his contemporaries also initiated them into a practice of self-prostitution? And, moreover, with regard to those who were capable of expressing themselves so noticeably, what sort of work had they carried out on themselves, beforehand and concurrently, in order to signalise themselves apart from the others? If they enjoyed any distinction at all, beyond the most fleeting semblance thereof, how qualitative or quantitative was it really?
Although those who excelled in profiling themselves, knew how to devise the requisite amount of form, whether literary or musical, nonetheless something was always transacted when they proffered it, an exchange which even the highest attainment of style could not entirely hide. Эти блестящiе паразиты дѣйствительно доводятъ форму до невѣроятнаго совершенства. These brilliant parasites do indeed bring the form to an incredible level of perfection. The caveat to his sentence is implicit but legible – the style of form or the form of style they offer is also a trademark, meant to entice a public or an audience.
Amidst these conditions of the literary and musical sectors, where a premium was put on self-display, and energised by awareness of the rapid development of their technologies, the handling of the instruments became more and more proficient, the possibilities of virtuosity ever greater. For these writers, the language itself was the instrument, and what they could do by a deft use of it, increasingly was their aim to reveal. Они выдѣлываютъ на своемъ языкѣ такiя-же изумительныя рулады, какiя Контскiй выдѣлываетъ на скрипкѣ, или Рубинштейнъ на фортепьяно. With their very language, they perform breathtaking roulades, much as does Kontsky on the violin, Rubinstein on the piano. These two were eminent virtuosi of the essayist’s times, violinist and composer Apollinaire de Kontski (Apolinary Kątski, 1824-79) and pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein (Антонъ ГригорьевичъРубинштейнъ, 1829-94); but here I cannot delve into either their performances or their works.
A comparison of the “instruments” of musical and literary practice, when one pauses to consider it, may offer a key to the better understanding of both.
The standardisation of the various musical instruments from the beginning of the nineteenth century, and their industrial now more than artisanal production (though they were not yet mass-produced on a larger scale), did pose a challenge to those who would play them. By stages a ring was set up, and the instruments themselves stepped into it, as worthy opponents for the musicians, inviting them to a contest which not only in hindsight looks and sounds like an ἀγών. Exertions to new speeds on the keyboards, novel shows of dexterity and prowess in handling the bows – not to mention the physical efforts required by the wind instruments: the virtuosi of the nineteenth century and afterwards made everything seem so easy, in the sheer exuberance of their accomplished performances, but when the eyes are closed, one may hear at least echoes of the strain and sweat that went into their confrontation with the instruments. By the technical refinement of these devices without which they could have done nothing at all, opportunities were afforded the musicians to get beyond their physical limits and advance into the further reaches of technique, while refusing to forfeit their own human nature in the bargain: hence what they would not consent to do, was to agree implicitly that the pinnacle of perfection remained necessarily the prerogative of a machine.
Der Phonograph kann eine musikalische Ausübung verewigen – Künstler, seid auf Eurer Hut!
— Anton Rubinstein, Gedankenkorb
Le progrès de la société se mesure sur le développement de l’industrie et la perfection des instruments : l’homme qui ne sait ou ne peut se servir d’un outil pour travailler est une anomalie, une créature abortive : ce n’est pas un homme.
— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, De la Création de l’ordre dans l’humanité,
ch. iv, § i, 373
Of course, this spirited retort by the musicians in the ring to their mechanical opponents, did not bring the contest between them to a final end; rather, their excellence in its turn was not the least of the factors spurring on the continuing technical development of the instruments, a process which certainly did not slow down towards the end of the nineteenth century and afterwards.
Now, how does this ἀγών of music compare to the challenge facing the writers of those years, those who were most intent on distinguishing themselves from the anonymous masses of their fellows, over against the “instruments” without which they, much like the musicians, could never have done anything?
Musical instruments took on the shapes we still recognise today by dint of the process of technical standardisation met with during the nineteenth century. As did the printed page, in its several variants. This similarity offers a sufficient basis for a comparison; thus the suggestive challenge to the musicians embodied in those materialised aggregates of techniques the standard musical instruments, may be compared to the provocation to more exacting and minute analysis of the linguistic medium, which stared out at writers from every piece of printwork, provocations which very often then possessed them with a new species of enthusiasm, bringing them to do unheard-of things with, to, and for the common paper currency otherwise called written language, not seldom raising it up to an incredible level of perfection (невѣроятное совершенство), though there it neither could nor wanted to circulate for long – at least at first. The intent behind these writers’ experimentation upon the material was still quite mercurial, mercenary; to attain for the results a more lasting validity was far from their minds, then.
For the moment, the new facility, musical or literary, attained in tandem with the development of the instruments, was comprehended in quasi-monetary terms. Когда эта виртуозность прiобрѣтена навыкомъ и практикою, тогда, разумѣется, слѣдуетъ ею пользоваться; это капиталъ, съ которого надо брать проценты. Whenever this virtuosity is acquired with skill and practice, then of course it is to be utilised, it being capital for which interest should be charged. The writer had bills of his own to pay, so it was only to be expected when some extra foam or froth, that is, words more superfluous than necessary, was added in.* Приходится присутствовать при сотворенiи мiра въ малыхъ размѣрахъ: все творится изъ ничего; пустота прикидывается полнотою – the critic avowed. И вотъ гдѣ всякому простодушному читателю приходится только глазами хлопать и диву даваться! One observes the creation of the world on a small scale: everything comes from nothing, emptiness is puffed up into plenitude! – Here any simple-minded reader needs only to bat his eyes and marvel!
* As the thing on offer is also a commodity, what would its analysis disclose, if not metaphysische Spitzfindigkeit und theologische Mucken . . . ?
Yet one should not get carried away by the economic sense of these concepts, construing their meaning narrowly, as the literal- or literary-minded are often enough inclined to do. Imputing irrelevant intentions to those who act for quite other reasons, makes things very easy for oneself.
What Pisarev more specifically meant when he applied the terms “capital” (капиталъ) and “interest” (процентъ) to writers’ work (that is, both the process and the product), he clarified directly. Когда паразитъ начинаетъ брать проценты съ своего капитала, тогда онъ просто и рѣшительно творит для того, чтобы къ чему-нибудь прикладывать свою техническую ловкость. When a parasite starts charging interest on his capital, his decisive turn to creating is undertaken simply in order to apply his technical skill to something. Such as the essayist envisions him, a writer qua writer could hardly do otherwise; inactivity would prove fatal to him, precisely because he staked so much of his time, indeed his whole life, on the acquisition of his capacities as one.
For my part, at this juncture, it seems to me true to the essayist’s line of thought to ask the following question: how could such a writer ever countenance not abiding by the early decision in favour of a prostitution à soi-même,* without which his entry into the profession he chose could not have taken place? ( Je est un autre.)
* As around the same time Proudhon had called this basic disposition (see the Notes & Pensées in his Pornocratie). The attitude is most likely always situated at, entranced by some crossing of the prospects of self-interest on one side, those of amour-propre on the other.
But be the answer what it may. – Such a writer is not a poet in the highest meaning of the word, now forgotten; rather, he is a craftsman of articles, or novels, or poems, and being a deliberate craftsman he does not want his skills to go to waste – не поэтъ въ высшемъ и забытомъ теперь значенiи этого слова; онъ статейныхъ, романныхъ или стиховныхъ дѣлъ мастеръ, и какъ разсудительный мастеровой, онъ не хочетъ, чтобы его умѣнiе пропадало даромъ.
After the passage of some years, with the accrual of so many formal and stylistic perfections in the sphere of literature (or, in quasi-economic terms similar to his, with the paying out of so many dividends), the stage will be set for something else, though this subsequent development would at most have been espied in his times: never could one plausibly say that it had been those writers’ own ultimate aim to establish its preconditions.
How far Pisarev himself might have anticipated what was to spring from the arrangements of literary and musical life he analysed, remains open.
His own conception of the phrase is of lesser importance; as an ambiguous piece of prescience it stands on its own. Where in their aggregation would the mercenary activities of this essayist’s contemporaries, parasites or . . . , lead? To the complete triumph and unending reign of pure art – къ полному торжеству и безграничному господству чистаго искусства.*
* “Цвѣты невиннаго юмора,” ii