Russian Symbolism, a movement at once literary and philosophical, flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unlike other contemporaneous movements that renounced the influence and traditions of the past, the Symbolists sought to integrate themselves with their predecessors, and achieve in both life and art a fundamental unity. By linking poetry, religious thought, music, and the visual arts, and by discovering, reading, and disseminating the work of numerous foreign and indigenous writers, the Symbolists initiated a cultural renaissance in Russia wherein reception became the movement's guiding principle. Michael Wachtel explores here the art and development of Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949), a poet and theorist who articulated a highly influential concept of Symbolism. The German writers Goethe and Novalis played a central part in Ivanov's vision and were, in his mind, powerful precursors in a proto-Symbolist pantheon. Their work not only influenced his own writing but also, in maintaining the Symbolist creed of unity in art and life, altered his world perspective. Wachtel, in exploring Ivanov's relationship to Goethe and Novalis, illuminates the issues that lie at the core of Symbolism: the theory of the symbol, poetics, poetry as theurgy, the relationship between literary creation and "real life,"and the theory and practice of translation. Ivanov's reception of the Germans, Wachtel asserts, is indicative of the fundamental Symbolist striving for spiritual and artist community, for establishing a seamless tradition. This strain of early twentieth-century thought, whose adherents include Mikhail Bakhtin, Martin Buber, and Ernst Robert Curtis, retains a pervasive potency in scholarly studies today. To understand Ivanov's integrating ideals, then, is to become conversant with a movement that continues to influence our understanding of culture.

The Development of Russian Verse explores the Russian verse tradition from Pushkin to Brodsky, showing how certain formal features are associated with certain genres and, at times, specific themes. Michael Wachtel's basic thesis is that form is never neutral: poets can react positively in terms of stylization and development, or negatively in terms of parody or revision, to the work of their predecessors, but they cannot ignore it. Keeping technical terms to a minimum and providing English translations of quotations, Wachtel offers close readings of individual poems of more than fifty poets. He aims to help English-speaking readers reconstruct the strong sense of continuity that Russian poets have always felt, transcending any individual age or ideology. Ultimately, his 1999 book is an inquiry into the nature of literary tradition itself, and how it coalesces in a country that has always taken so much of its identity from its written legacy.

The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry presents the major themes, forms, genres and styles of Russian poetry. Using examples from Russia's greatest poets, Michael Wachtel draws on three centuries of verse, from the beginnings of secular literature in the eighteenth century up to the present day. The first half of the book is devoted to concepts such as versification, poetic language and tradition; the second half is organised along genre lines and examines the ode, the elegy, ballads, love poetry, nature poetry and patriotic verse. All poetry appears in the original followed by literal translations. This book is designed to give readers with even a minimal knowledge of the Russian language an appreciation of the brilliance of Russian poetry.

The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry presents the major themes, forms, genres and styles of Russian poetry. Using examples from Russia's greatest poets, Michael Wachtel draws on three centuries of verse, from the beginnings of secular literature in the eighteenth century up to the present day. The first half of the book is devoted to concepts such as versification, poetic language and tradition; the second half is organised along genre lines and examines the ode, the elegy, ballads, love poetry, nature poetry and patriotic verse. All poetry appears in the original followed by literal translations. This book is designed to give readers with even a minimal knowledge of the Russian language an appreciation of the brilliance of Russian poetry.

The Development of Russian Verse explores the Russian verse tradition from Pushkin to Brodsky, showing how certain formal features are associated with certain genres and, at times, specific themes. Michael Wachtel's basic thesis is that form is never neutral: poets can react positively in terms of stylization and development, or negatively in terms of parody or revision, to the work of their predecessors, but they cannot ignore it. Keeping technical terms to a minimum and providing English translations of quotations, Wachtel offers close readings of individual poems of more than fifty poets. He aims to help English-speaking readers reconstruct the strong sense of continuity that Russian poets have always felt, transcending any individual age or ideology. Ultimately, his 1999 book is an inquiry into the nature of literary tradition itself, and how it coalesces in a country that has always taken so much of its identity from its written legacy.

This volume is dedicated to Fedor B. Poljakov, Professor of the University of Vienna, a distinguished specialist in the history of Russian culture and Germano-Slavic cultural relations. It brings together scholars from leading universities in the United States, Europe and the Russian Federation. Thirty-seven essays discuss a broad array of themes ranging from early-modern Muscovy and Slavia Orthodoxa to Russia's contacts with the West from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries to modernist literature to early Soviet poetry and post-revolutionary emigration. The articles present unknown archival documents and offer new perspectives on the study of Russian literature in a comparative context.