person
Denis Fonvizin
Fonvizin
18th-century Russian playwright (1745-1792) whose satirical comedy The Minor (Nedorosl) created the stock gentry types Starodum, Skotinin, Prostakov, and Milon, invoked here as touchstones for the present day's diminished descendants of those types.
Reading notes
- Ionych §24 Die, Denis, you will never write better
Ivan Petrovich borrows -- and comically over-applies to a piano recital -- the line said to have been addressed to the playwright Denis Fonvizin after the triumphant premiere of his comedy The Minor.