Fofanov, Konstantin Mikhailovich

Born May 18 (30), 1862, in St. Petersburg; died there May 17 (30), 1911. Russian poet.

Fofanov was educated at private boarding schools; he began publishing in 1881. His first collection was Poems (1887). Fofanov’s originality was most fully revealed in his third collection, Shadows and Secrets (1892). His poetry is romantic in its outlook and contrasts the ideal to the actual world, which is viewed as lacking in higher values and is sometimes depicted with realistic touches. Fofanov’s rejection of the tragic aspects of real life resulted primarily from social rather than aesthetic factors.

Fofanov’s poetry combines solemnity, clichés, and a deliberate but unskillful inexactitude in the use of words with sincerity, vividness of expression, and keen psychological insight. The impressionist urban scenes in his poetry and its attention to morbid psychological states characterize his work as a transition from traditional poetic forms to modernism.