SOURCE: Fizer, John. “A. P. Sumarokov.” In Selected Tragedies of A. P. Sumarokov, translated by Richard and Raymond Fortune, pp. 3-39. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970.

In the excerpt below, Fizer explains the social conditions that gave rise to Sumarokov's interest in French culture and ideas, and offers an appraisal of the aesthetic significance of Sumarokov's work on the growth of Russian literature.

Life

Works of art should be judged and appreciated in themselves. However, at a certain stage of critical judgment one comes to realize that art originates in an intricate matrix of sociocultural and aesthetic trends as well as in an equally intricate matrix of the creator's psychic vitality. The art of Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov is not an exception to this truism. Its emergence, its character, indeed, its goals, are deeply rooted in the context of Russia's post-Petrine socio-cultural conventions, mostly transplanted from France, and in...