ALEXANDER BLOK (1880-1921) is the greatest Russian poet after Pushkin and perhaps the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language. This volume consists of translations of three collections of Blok's verse: Ante Lucem (1898-1900), Verses about the Beautiful Lady (1901-1902), and Crossroads (1902-1904). These poems describe Blok's visions of Sophia, the Beautiful Lady, who appeared to him at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Sophia is the mysterious feminine principle behind all creation; Blok calls her the Mysterious Maiden, the Empress of the Universe, the Eternal Bride, and he sees her in the blue sky and the sky full of stars as well as in the dawns and sunsets of Russia. He identifies the Beautiful Lady with a real girl, Liubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, whom he courts ardently in the woods and meadows of the countryside outside of Moscow as well as in the misty maritime setting of Petersburg.

Alexander Blok (November 28, 1880 - August 7, 1921) was a major poet of the Russian Symbolism movement. His early poetry was dominated by the theme of searching for his ideal beauty. Sound, rhythm, color and repetition played a crucial part in setting the mood and conveying emotions in his writing. With subsequent collections, the focus shifted to depicting human psychology. His writing became more ironic and pessimistic, as he struggled to balance his quest for an ideal with his disenchantment in everyday life. In the later stages of his career, he wrote predominately about political themes and the changes that were happening in Russia. To this day, he is considered by many to be the most important Russian poet since Alexander Pushkin, and his work would have a lasting influence on the likes of Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva, among other prominent poets of the Silver Age. This dual-language collection of his poetry seeks to represent the continuum of Alexander Blok's growth as a poet, with particular attention paid to the rhythm and melody of his writing.