Akhmatova is a traditional poet, in the highest sense of the word….

Traditional verse more vividly than free verse emphasizes the banal, or the basic, in what is said. The contrast of traditional form to so-called contemporary content gives the work greater scale and tension. The principle is extremely simple: here is a normal person, with arms and legs, properly dressed, a tie and stickpin, but just look at the way he talks! Remember how the author of The Waste Land dressed, or imagine an automobile rushing straight toward you in your lane, and you will discover the function of the traditional verse line in Russian nineteenth-century poetry.

But Akhmatova is traditional in yet another respect. If an explosion takes place as a result of the contrast of form and content on paper, then what happens to the reader before whose eyes the poet himself stifles this explosion...