SOURCE: "The Neoparnassians," in The Poets of Russia: 1890-1930, Harvard University Press, 1960, pp. 212-37.

Poggioli was an Italian-born American critic and translator. Much of his critical writing is concerned with Russian literature, including The Poets of Russia: 1890-1930 (1960), which is one of the most important examinations of this literary era. In the following excerpt, he discusses Gumilev's treatment of such themes as war, danger, and adventure with what he terms "vigorous and virile Romanticism."

The emergence of Gumilev was for Russian poetry an event not too different in kind (although far less in degree) from the earlier appearance in England of Kipling, and in Italy of the martial and patriotic D'Annunzio. Gumilev's sudden rise on the horizon of Russian poetry was viewed at first as a novel miracle, as a wonder of youth. Gumilev came to the fore in the shape of a new David, a gay rogue...