Woe from Wit

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Title page of Griboyedov's manuscript

Woe from Wit (Russian: Го́ре от ума́, romanized: Gore ot uma, also translated as "The Woes of Wit", "Wit Works Woe", Wit's End,[1][2] and so forth) is Alexander Griboyedov's comedy in verse, satirizing the society of post-Napoleonic Moscow, or, as a high official in the play styled it, "a pasquinade on Moscow."[3]

The play, written in 1823 in the countryside and in

Tiflis, was not passed by the censors for the stage, and only portions of it were allowed to appear in an almanac for 1825. But it was read out by the author to "all Moscow" and to "all Petersburg" and circulated in innumerable copies, so it was as good as published in 1825; it was not, however, actually published until 1833, after the author's death, with significant cuts, and was not published in full until 1861.[4]
The play was a compulsory work in Russian literature lessons in Soviet schools, and is still considered a golden classic in modern Russia and other minority Russian-speaking countries.

The play gave rise to numerous catchphrases in the Russian language, including the title itself.

Language

The play belongs to the classical school of comedy, with principal antecedents in Molière. Like Denis Fonvizin before him and like the founders of the Russian realistic tradition after him, Griboyedov lays far greater stress on the characters and their dialogue than on his plot. The comedy is loosely constructed but in the dialogue and in the character drawing Griboyedov is supreme and unique.

The dialogue is in rhymed verse, in

La Fontaine's vers libre and that had reached a high degree of perfection in the hands of Ivan Krylov. Griboyedov's dialogue is a continuous tour de force. It always attempts and achieves the impossible: the squeezing of everyday conversation into a rebellious metrical form.[citation needed
]

Griboyedov seemed to multiply his difficulties on purpose. He was, for instance, alone of his time to use unexpected, sonorous, punning rhymes. There is just enough toughness and angularity in his verse to constantly remind the reader of the pains undergone and the difficulties triumphantly overcome by the poet. Despite the fetters of the metrical form, Griboyedov's dialogue has the natural rhythm of conversation and is more easily colloquial than any prose. It is full of wit, variety, and character, and is a veritable encyclopedia of the best spoken Russian of the period. Almost every other line of the comedy has become part of the language and proverbs from Griboyedov are as numerous as proverbs from Krylov. For epigram, repartee, terse and concise wit, Griboyedov has no rivals in Russian.[citation needed]

Characters

Kiev
production, 1881

Griboyedov's characters, while typical of the period, are moulded from the really common clay of humanity. They all, down to the most episodic characters, have the same perfection of finish and clearness of outline.

A number of the characters have names that go a long way toward describing their personality.

Mentions elsewhere

From Anton Chekhov's[5] A Dreary Story from the notebook of an old man

'If no progress can be seen in trifles, I should look for it in vain in what is more important. When an actor wrapped from head to foot in stage traditions and conventions tries to recite a simple ordinary speech, "To be or not to be," not simply, but invariably with the accompaniment of hissing and convulsive movements all over his body, or when he tries to convince me at all costs that Tchatsky, who talks so much with fools and is so fond of folly, is a very clever man, and that "Woe from Wit" is not a dull play, the stage gives me the same feeling of conventionality which bored me so much forty years ago when I was regaled with the classical howling and beating on the breast.'

From Mikhail Bulgakov's [6] The Master and Margarita Chapter 5.

See also

  • Maria Sergeyevna Durnovo (Griboyedova)

References

  1. ^ Theatre Record - Volume 13, Issues 1-9 - Page 298 1993 At least that obstacle has been swept away by its belated and well-titled arrival on the English stage - first as Wit's End (at New End last September), and now as Chatsky, or The Importance of ... .
  2. ^ Theatre Record - Volume 12, Issues 17-26 - Page 1122 1992 - His most famous play, Wit's End, is a satire of Moscow society which contains two of the great roles of the Russian repertory: Chatsky, the cynical outsider, and Famusov, the conservative patriarch who was one of Stanislavsky's successes. Given its enduring popularity in its homeland, I have always wondered why the play has not been snapped up by the British theatre. Here, in a resourceful production by Jake Lushington at Hampstead's New End Theatre, is the answer. .
  3. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Griboyedov, Alexander Sergueevich" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 593.
  4. ISBN 0-8101-1525-5
    ), p. 406.
  5. ^ "Index of /files/1883". www.gutenberg.org.
  6. ^ Bulgakov, Mikhail (1996) [1993, 1995, Ardis], The Master & Margarita, Burgin, Diana & O’Connor, Katherine Tiernan transl; Proffer, Ellendea & Arbor, Ann, annotations and afterword, New York: Vintage
  •  This article incorporates text from
    D.S. Mirsky's "A History of Russian Literature" (1926-27), a publication now in the public domain
    .

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