"gryzt' stakany"

[Glushchenko, Alexei A.]

I'm afraid that "gryzt' stakany" is, strictly speaking, not an idiom -- that is, not a set expression that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements. That's the reason why it is not in the dictionaries.

Also, it looks to me that in the two examples you provided, the phrase is used with different purposes.

In Vysotsky's song, the narrator uses it to emphasize the contrast between his two different personae -- the intellectual who reads Schiller in the original and the macho who can chew on glass in a bar, hammer in nails with his fists and pull them with his teeth etc. -- all to demonstrate raw, brutal strength.

Erdman uses it to describe someone who is so filled with passion that she simply cannot control herself -- y'know, involuntary muscle contractions and all...

Alexei Glushchenko
-----------------------------
> David Powelstock

> <...> The context in Erdman: "Ona dazhe stakany ot strasti gryzet." (contemptuously)
> 
> The idiom also figures prominently in a Vysotsky song, which begins:
> 
> И вкусы и запросы мои странны,
> Я экзотичен, мягко говоря...
> Могу одновременно грызть стаканы
> И Шиллера читать без словаря.

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