Crossroad of Arts, Crossroad of Cultures: Ecphrasis in Russian and French Poetry

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Crossroad of Arts, Crossroad of Cultures is the first book-length study of the aesthetic similarities between the French Parnassians, a 19th-century group of poets led by Theophile Gautier, and the Russian Acmeist poets, including Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova, who were active in the second decade of the 20th century. The Acmeists shared with the Parnassians a classical sensibility, an aspiration to state-of-the-art verbal craftsmanship, and a keen interest in the three-dimensional, physical world. Their love of plastic beauty as embodied in painting, sculpture, and architecture found natural release in verse about works of art. The book shows how Acmeist texts document aspects of Russian Modernist culture while continuing the Parnassian tradition of poetry inspired by visual art.