This groundbreaking work from Paul Friedrich surveys the Russian lyric scene from the eighteenth century through the modern period, in terms of the poets’ own ideas as well as the author’s creative interpretation. Such themes as poetic craft, musicality, creativity, sociopolitical context, and multilingualism as musical competence are discussed, interrelated through their variations in twenty-one of Russia’s finest lyric poets, and then synthesized in two recapitulations. Incorporating a broad theoretical perspective with numerous detailed readings of key poems, Friedrich synthesizes recent Russian research (in some cases new even to specialists) with Western criticism to advance a unique series of hypotheses and generalizations. Music in Russian Poetry will be an indispensable tool for students of Russian lyric poetry, and will also be of great interest to all those interested in comparative, structural, and (auto)biographical approaches to lyric poetry and poetic culture.