Reinventing Romantic Poetry : Russian Women Poets of the Mid-nineteenth Century

Romantic conventions that offered them no useful models for repre-

senting themselves as poets—or in relation to their creativity, their au-

dience, or nature. Their refusal to be limited by androcentric images and

their varied responses to them is a tribute to their courage, imagination,

and originality. As we shall see, they were equally fearless and original

in their reworkings of Romantic genres, themes, and myths.

56 Literary Conventions