SOURCE: "Some Structural Patterns in the Poetry of Nikolaj Gumilev," in Die Welt der Slaven, Vol. 19-20, 1974-75, pp. 337-48.

In the following essay, Thompson identifies a range of symbols and ideas that appear in opposite pairs throughout Gumilevs poetry.

Gumilëv is a notoriously unknown poet. He was the spiritus movens of the Poets' Guild, an amorphous literary group from which Acmeism originated: therefore, all text-books of Russian literature pay him lip service and a canon of his poems appears in the anthologies of Russian verse. So far, however, his poetry has not been assimilated by those interested in Russian literature either in the West or in his native country. Interpretations of Gumilëv's writings have been fragmentary. With one exception, I do not know of any study of this poet that would consider in a more than an introductory manner the totality of his poetic output...