Michael Wachtel is Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of Russian Symbolism and Literary Tradition: Goethe, Novalis, and the Poetics of Vyacheslav Ivanov (1994) and The Development of Russian Verse: Meter and its Meanings (Cambridge, 1998).

• Preface; Acknowledgments; Note on translations and transliterations; Introduction; Part I. Concepts: 1. Versification: how to do things with words; 2. Poetic language; 3. Tradition and the individual talent; Part II. Interpretation: 4. From the ode to the elegy (and beyond); 5. The ballad; 6. Love poetry; 7. Nature poetry; 8. Patriotic verse; Conclusion.

'This book will help students who are making the leap across the apparently daunting gap between coping with spoken Russian or Russian prose and tackling a poetic text … A helpful index of poetic terms and a reassuringly select list of further reading are provided to help those who are entirely new to the topic. The book is … a 'guide to reading, interpreting, and appreciating it' … This aim is most certainly achieved … This book offers a concise and concentrated account of the things that poets can do with words, and readers with texts.' MLR

Michael Wachtel is Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of Russian Symbolism and Literary Tradition: Goethe, Novalis, and the Poetics of Vyacheslav Ivanov (1994) and The Development of Russian Verse: Meter and its Meanings (Cambridge, 1998).

• Preface; Acknowledgments; Note on translations and transliterations; Introduction; Part I. Concepts: 1. Versification: how to do things with words; 2. Poetic language; 3. Tradition and the individual talent; Part II. Interpretation: 4. From the ode to the elegy (and beyond); 5. The ballad; 6. Love poetry; 7. Nature poetry; 8. Patriotic verse; Conclusion.

'This book will help students who are making the leap across the apparently daunting gap between coping with spoken Russian or Russian prose and tackling a poetic text … A helpful index of poetic terms and a reassuringly select list of further reading are provided to help those who are entirely new to the topic. The book is … a 'guide to reading, interpreting, and appreciating it' … This aim is most certainly achieved … This book offers a concise and concentrated account of the things that poets can do with words, and readers with texts.' MLR

Michael Wachtel is Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of Russian Symbolism and Literary Tradition: Goethe, Novalis, and the Poetics of Vyacheslav Ivanov (1994) and The Development of Russian Verse: Meter and its Meanings (Cambridge, 1998).

• Preface; Acknowledgments; Note on translations and transliterations; Introduction; Part I. Concepts: 1. Versification: how to do things with words; 2. Poetic language; 3. Tradition and the individual talent; Part II. Interpretation: 4. From the ode to the elegy (and beyond); 5. The ballad; 6. Love poetry; 7. Nature poetry; 8. Patriotic verse; Conclusion.

'This book will help students who are making the leap across the apparently daunting gap between coping with spoken Russian or Russian prose and tackling a poetic text … A helpful index of poetic terms and a reassuringly select list of further reading are provided to help those who are entirely new to the topic. The book is … a 'guide to reading, interpreting, and appreciating it' … This aim is most certainly achieved … This book offers a concise and concentrated account of the things that poets can do with words, and readers with texts.' MLR