A.A. Grigoriev's interest in theater, which was sparked by his professional duties as a critic and reviewer for the journal “Repertoire and Pantheon” in his early career,
became a strong and lasting influence on his artistic pursuits. During his “Moskvityanin” period, his focus on theater and Russian stage art became a means of promoting realistic principles in literature and the arts. The author's poetic lens highlights two distinct groups of characters in the theater world: the actors and the audience. The poet's romantic, contradictory worldview tends to idealize the theatrical world, elevating its true servants (the actor P.S. Mochalov) to a high pedestal, and entrusting the secrets of performing art to his lyrical hero, who possesses a high level of sensitivity and impressionability. By becoming close to the editors of the magazine “Moskvityanin”, A.A. Grigoriev, the poet, expresses the ideas of truth in life on stage and performing arts with a high degree of authenticity (P.M. Sadovsky). The techniques of dramatizing poetry allow us to identify the visual and auditory dominants of the theatrical image, accompanied by specific character sketches. In the dramatic image of the mid-19th century, the poet A.A. Grigoriev emphasizes the organicity, epicness, and vital plasticity that are commensurate with Russian reality and the national character.
For citation: Pavlovskaya O.A. Theatrical images in the poetry of A.A. Grigoriev, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2025, iss. 4, pp. 5—11.