A hero of our time

Lermontov was strongly influenced by Byron and Schiller, writing striking confessional poems that presented him in typically romantic defiance toward society. In his final years, he wrote more reflective and philosophical lyrics, as well as longer narrative poems, also derived from Byronic models. The most important of these is The Demon (1839), on which he worked for a number of years. The story of a fallen angel's love for a woman, it has provided Russian literature and art with a powerful archetype. Besides poetry, Lermontov also wrote plays and fiction, of which A Hero of Our Time is the most important. Made up of several tales by different narrators, the novel centers on Pechorin---a seminal example of the egotistical nineteenth-century "superfluous man," a specifically Russian derivative of the Byronic hero. Both this protagonist and Lermontov's complex narrative technique gave a powerful stimulus to Russian realist fiction.

(Bowker Author Biography)