SOURCE: "Postsymbolists" in Soviet Poets and Poetry, University of California Press, 1943, pp. 35-97.

In the following excerpt, Kaun discusses the sources, plot, and stylistic features of the Lay of Opanas, praising Bagritsky's work for its passionate optimism.

Eduard Bagritsky was a member of the Constructivist Literary Center for some five years, but he bore no consistent allegiance to any school. His output, considerable for the short span of his life, is somewhat eclectic, showing traces of Robert Burns (a few of whose poems he lovingly translated) and other Western Europeans, as well as of a multitude of Russians, from Pushkin through the acmeists and futurists. Such traces, however, may be found in any wellread author, and it is futile to use them as a basis for any specific label. Bagritsky's verses vary in form, from regular meter (with a partiality for the amphibrach) to blank metric and free...