garded as his masterpiece, and among his comedies "Tressotinius"
attracted the most attention. All these, however, were merely weak
imitations of the narrow form in which all French and pseudo-classical
dramas were molded, the unities of time, place, and action exerting an
embarrassing restriction on the action; and the heroes, although they
professed to be Russians, with obscure historical names (like Sinav and
Truvor), or semi-mythical (like Khoreff), or genuinely historical (like
Dmitry the Pretender), were the stereotyped declaimers of the bombastic,
pseudo-classical drama.

Sumarokoff's dramatic work formed but a small part of his writings,
which included a great mass of odes, eclogues, elegies, ballads, and so
forth; and although he ranks as a dramatist, he is most important in his
series of fables, epigrams, and epitaphs, which are permeated with
biting satire on his own period, though the subjects are rather
monotonous--the bad arrangement of the courts of justice, which
permitted bribery and other abuses among lawyers, the injurious and
oppressive state monopolies, attempts at senseless imitations of
foreigners in language and customs, and ignorance concealed by external
polish and culture. Coarse and imperfect as are these satires, they
vividly reproduce the impressions of a contemporary gifted with keen
observation and the ability to deal dispassionately with current events.
As we shall see later on, this protest against the existing order of
things continued, and blossomed forth in the succeeding--the
sixth--period of literature in productions, which not only form the
flower of the century, but also really belong to modern literature, and
hold the public attention at the present day. This Sumarokoff's dramatic
and other works do not do, and their place is rather in the archives of
the preparatory school.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. What was the general character of the reign of Peter the
Great?

2. How important did the printing press become in his time?

3. Why did Peter the Great deprive the monks of pens, ink, and
paper?

4. What interesting works were written by Pososhkoff?

5. Who was Feofan Prokopovitch?

6. Give an account of the life and writings of Kantemir.

7. What literary influence had Tatishtcheff and Trediakovsky?

8. Describe the early life of Lomonosoff.

9. Give an account of his many activities.

10. How did he rega