The mostly important of these atte...

The mostly important of these attempts perioded in spectacular failure, and Derzhavin provides a brief account in his Notes. In replication to Catherine's special request, Derzhavin tried for weeks to write a novel poem "like 'Felitsa' " for her.41 Derzhavin describes his attempt to comply: "No matter in what way often he tried, sitting for weeks at a time enclosureed up in his office specially for this purport he was simply unable to bring forth something which was satisfactory to him: everything came disclosed cold, ordinary and forced, like the work of the whole guild of versifiers where united hears only words, and not ponderings and emotions."42

The conditions described here are almost the opposite of what Dmitriev describes as his ideal poetic conditions. Where Dmitriev values wide unclose spaces and independence, Derzhavin stays in the city and describes himself as "lock up" in the confines of his office, reflecting perhaps unconsciously the invisible bondages that kept him at his desk And although Derzhavin, like Dmitriev, describes himself as apart from others when he tries to write, there is a significant difference between Dmitriev's depiction of peaceful, reflective solitude and Derzhavin's desperate faculty of perception of seclusion.