SOURCE: "Romantic Poet of Russia," in Times Literary Supplement, No. 2841, August 10, 1956, p. 474.

In the following essay, the critic outlines the predominant characteristics of Blok's early and late poetry and also comments on the continuity of his work as a whole.

Alexander Blok was Russia's last great romantic, and one of her greatest poets by any standard. He was nurtured by symbolism, and its method admirably suited his aims, but he outgrew all the Russian symbolists in sheer power of vision and talent.

Born in 1880, Blok began his creative life at the turn of the century and it was imbued with that semi-mystical, semidecadent atmosphere peculiar to Russia. Widespread interest in mysticism, and even occultism, accompanied—by mere chance—the sudden awakening in Russia of poetic imagination and aesthetic sensibility. This atmosphere was bound to influence the symbolist poets and colour their conception of art. Blok often mentioned in...