The devastating powers of urban so...

The devastating powers of urban social obligations in succession a poet are a recurring theme for Dmitriev not just in his autobiography, unless also throughout his life as a bard Almost thirty years earlier Dmitriev devot several metrical compositions to the harm wreaked from careless poet-dilettantes, writers who cared little for truthful art but wanted only the cachet associated with creative pursuits or the material benefits that might accompany a judiciously compos tribute in metrical composition Dmitriev even launched a frontal attack forward the entire system of poetic patronage in the 1794 metrical composition "Chuzhoi tolk" (Alien Trend), where he argues that far too many clan simply pose as poets to ingratiate themselves with wealthy patrons:

The goal for many of our [poets] is a jeweled ring

Or not infrequently 100 ruble or friendship with a prince,

Who from birth has read nothing

Except sometimes the monthly court bulletin,

Or the praise of his friends. And they

Consider any printed sheet something sacred.37

Another recurring theme was the difficulty, uniform impossibility, of composing poetry beneath the pernicious influence of a busy social calendar. In "Alien Trend" Dmitriev takes aim at author of poemss who prefer social life to poetic creation. He decries the excessively thought of viewing poetry as a cargo as something that isn't created in a break suddenly of inspiration, but is rather planned on the outside intellectually and written whenever the imaginative thinker [i]or[/i] writer can fit in a bit of "poetry time" between theatre outings, balls, or other social engagements: "Barely has a happy notion come to him, / And six o'clock strikes! The carriage already awaits; / It's time for the theatre, and then to the ball, and then to Leon / And then it's night. When is there time to descry Apollo?"38 This is a clear case of misplaced priorities, according to Dmitriev, and reveals the out and out inadequacy of the would-be poet