The increasing availability of Mandel'stam's work in the west has awakened widespread, serious interest in his poetry. Mandel'stam's importance as a major twentieth-century poet hardly needs to be argued at this time, yet for this very reason it is important to furnish a concrete, factual examination of the poems on which this reputation is based. By analyzing in careful detail a number of Mandel'stam's poems written between 1913 and 1923, a crucial period in Russian history and in the poet's career as well, Steven Broyde uncovers Mandel'stam's persistent themes and his characteristic poetic method.