SOURCE: Brown, William Edward. “Alexander Griboedov and Woe from Wit.” In A History of Russian Literature of the Romantic Period, Vol. 1, pp. 105-15. Ann Arbor: Ardis Publishers, 1986.

In the following excerpt, Brown claims that Woe from Wit marked a turning point in Russian drama in which many of the conventions of classical comedy were modified or overturned.

As has been remarked several times in the course of our survey of the Russian comedy of the early nineteenth century, a decisive landmark, dividing the old from the new, is Griboedov's famous piece Gore ot uma. The translation of this title has been a stumbling-block from the beginning. Literally rendered, it would be “sorrow (or misfortune) out of intelligence.” Sir Bernard Pares in his verse translation dubbed it epigrammatically Woe from Wit; this has become the common translation and we shall use it here, although it is too stilted and...