"God"
18th century
19th century
A01=Ilya Vinitsky
academia
academics
Academy of Sciences
antipoetry
anxiety of influence
Arzamas
Author_Ilya Vinitsky
bad poetry
Bavius
Bogdanovich
Boileau
Borodino
By
Byron
Category=DSBF
Category=DSC
Catherine II
classical era
classicism
critical reception
Derzhavin
didacticism
Dmitriev
Dr. Ow-it-Hurts
Ekaterinhof
epigraphs Khvostov
epitaphs
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eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
falsification
Franco-Russian literary relations
genealogy
golden age
graphomania
intertextuality
Izmailov
Karamzin
Karin
Khvostov
Kniazhnin
Kuprin
literary criticism
literary longevity
literary mockery
literary rivalry
literary studies
lyric poetry
Maevius
marriage
May Promenade
Napoleon
ode
parodic
parody
Paul I
Pereslavl-Zalessky
pigeons
poet and tsar
poetic cosmology
poetry
poetry studies
poor-houses
Pushkin
Rousseau
Russian golden age
Russian Golden Age culture
Russian poetry
Saltykov-Shchedrin
sentimentalism
Slobodka
suicide
Sumarokov
Suvorov
the Academy of Sciences
the anxiety of influence
the court
the fable
the Holy Synod
the Kubr
the ode
The Trusting Soul
theater
Tynianov
verse
Vigel
Voltaire
Vyazemsky
Product details
- ISBN 9780810148741
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jul 2025
- Publisher: Northwestern University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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On the unexpected pleasures and provocations of bad poetry
The only Russian Count of Sardinia, Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov (1757-1835) didn't achieve fame in his lifetime- he achieved infamy. Pathologically prolific and delusionally dedicated to a craft for which he had no talent, the count was renowned for his compulsive output, driven by a passion for poetry that was as strong as his abilities were weak. Only the country that gave the world Pushkin, however, could produce Khvostov, in whom we find a distorted yet illuminating reflection of his poetic epoch, with all its numerous cultural manifestations and hidden impulses, its desires and prejudices.
As he leads us on a playful journey across Russia's Golden Age and beyond, from neoclassical salon to faculty lounge, Ilya Vinitsky reflects on the challenges and necessities of literary critique and on the unexpected rewards of bad art as a subject of study, not just ridicule. Mischievous but erudite, sensitive but never self-serious, The Graphomaniac is an intellectual biography of the anti-hero, a cultural figure whose paradoxes yield new insights into his era.
The only Russian Count of Sardinia, Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov (1757-1835) didn't achieve fame in his lifetime- he achieved infamy. Pathologically prolific and delusionally dedicated to a craft for which he had no talent, the count was renowned for his compulsive output, driven by a passion for poetry that was as strong as his abilities were weak. Only the country that gave the world Pushkin, however, could produce Khvostov, in whom we find a distorted yet illuminating reflection of his poetic epoch, with all its numerous cultural manifestations and hidden impulses, its desires and prejudices.
As he leads us on a playful journey across Russia's Golden Age and beyond, from neoclassical salon to faculty lounge, Ilya Vinitsky reflects on the challenges and necessities of literary critique and on the unexpected rewards of bad art as a subject of study, not just ridicule. Mischievous but erudite, sensitive but never self-serious, The Graphomaniac is an intellectual biography of the anti-hero, a cultural figure whose paradoxes yield new insights into his era.
Ilya Vinitsky is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of Vasily Zhukovsky's Romanticism and the Emotional History of Russia (Northwestern University Press).
James H. McGavran III is an associate professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Kenyon College. He is the translator of Selected Poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky (Northwestern University Press).
James H. McGavran III is an associate professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Kenyon College. He is the translator of Selected Poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky (Northwestern University Press).
