Russian teacher 'kills friend in heated poetry versus prose argument'

Suspect stabbed his friend to death after victim insisted prose was superior as literary genre

The discussion on the merits of poetry over prose soon escalated into a lethal brawl

(GETTY IMAGES)

A Russian teacher allegedly killed a friend in a drunken argument over literary genres, investigators have said.

The pair engaged in an animated discussion on the merits of poetry over prose during a drinking session, which soon escalated into a lethal brawl, after the suspect stabbed his friend insisting that poetry was superior.

In a statement, federal police in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk said: "The host insisted that real literature is prose, while his guest, a former teacher, argued for poetry.

"The literary dispute soon grew into a banal conflict, on the basis of which the 53-year-old admirer of poetry killed his opponent with the help of a knife."

The suspect fled his home in the town of Irbit in the Ural mountains, where the 67-year old victim was killed on 20 January, before he was found in a nearby village and arrested by Russian police on charges of murder.

The incident comes four months after a similar argument over the theories of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that reason is the source of morality, resulted in a man being shot in a grocery store in southern Russia.