Abstract

Creative adoption of the antic heredity by the 18th century Russian poetry has been studied in the article. An episode of the hidden polemics between A.P. Sumarokov and M.V. Lomonosov about the moralizing value of the anacreontic ode genre is the main subject of the analysis. The system of Sumarokov’s methods for russification of the traditional story lines (or the motives) and for the parallel recording of the same story line into the anacreontic ode and into the anacreontic parable has been described. Sumarokov’s artistic experiments in the poems from his book «Pritchy» (1762) have proved high moral-didactic validity of the anacreontic poetry