Ricerc@Sapienza

Gavrila Derzhavin’s Praise to the Mosquito
One of the less known works in Derzhavin's literary heritage, the Praise to
the Mosquito, written in 1807 and published only after the death of its
author, deserves our attention as an example of a brilliant mock ode with
didactic intentions. Conceived while retired in his country estate at Zvanka,
during a particularly hot summer, the 21 stanza poem – here translated for the
first time into Italian – was thematically echoed in the work of Pushkin and