What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch! What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch! "What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch!" (; sometimes separated by exclamation mark instead of comma) is a catchphrase and winged word from Alexander Pushkin's correspondence with one of his friends, poet Pyotr Vyazemsky. The phrase commonly expresses a joy after finishing one's work and appears particularly in several Russian literary works. In a letter dated circa November 7 or beginning of October, 1825 Pushkin, celebrating his finished drama "Boris Godunov" wrote to Vyazemsky: That was preceded by what Pushkin wrote to Vyazemsky on July 13 of the same
The Bard (poem) called "The Bard" and "The Progress of Poesy" the best odes in the language; David Garrick thought them the best in any language; Thomas James Mathias compared "The Bard" favourably to Pindar, Horace, Dante and Petrarch; and by 1807 even Percival Stockdale had changed his mind, and could write of its "poetical excellence". One exception to this trend was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who in 1799 wrote that ""The Bard" once intoxicated me, & now I read it without pleasure", and more than thirty years later could still remark that he found it "frigid and artificial". On the whole, however, as