The Russian poet Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (1891-1938) began as a member of the Acmeist movement and then evolved a style notable for its clarity, diction, concern for form, and classical allusions. His poetry is highly erudite and complex.

Osip Mandelstam was born on Jan. 15, 1891, in Warsaw, the son of a Jewish leather merchant. The family soon moved to St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Mandelstam finished secondary school at the age of 16 and immediately went to Paris. In 1910 he studied at Heidelberg and visited Switzerland. The next year he entered St. Petersburg University to study Old French.

Mandelstam's university years were also the years of his debut as a poet. The classical grace and erudition of his poetry made him an immediate success. His first book of poetry, Stone (1913), was well received. During the years prior to World War I, Mandelstam worked in the Guild of Poets, the Acmeist workshop that...