[1] Several of Grigoryev's poems were published in Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1845,[1] followed by a number of short verses, critical articles, theatrical reviews and translations in Repertuar and Pantheon.

In 1846, Grigoryev published a poorly received book of poetry; He subsequently wrote little original poetry, focusing instead on translating works by Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet), Byron ("To parizinu" [a poem by this exact name does not exist, most likely meant Parisina (Russian: Паризину)] and fragments from Childe Harold), Molière and Delavigne.

Despite its "old editorial staff" (Mikhail Pogodin, Stepan Shevyrev and Alexander Veltman), Grigoryev gathered a "young, daring, drunk, but honest and shining by gifts" circle: Alexander Ostrovsky, Aleksey Pisemsky, Boris Almazov, Alexei Potekhin, Andrey Pechersky, Yevgeny Edelson, Lev Mey, Nikolai Berg and Ivan Gorbunov.

He referred to his style of criticism as "organic", in contrast to "theorists" (Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Dobrolyubov and Dmitri Pisarev), "aesthetics" and "historians" (Vissarion Belinsky).

Although Grigoryev admired Belinsky, calling him an "immortal champion of ideas ... with [a] great and powerful spirit", he considered the latter's criticism too direct and logical.