Authors

Discussion

In her poem ‘The Muse’, Anna Akhmatova famously declares Dante’s Inferno had been dictated to him by the muse. She further references the archetypical poet-in-exile when she considers her own influence on female poets with an uncharacteristically tongue-in-cheek wish that they would stop imitating her. Ida Nappelbaum had a complex relationship with Akhmatova, compounded by her being a student of Nikolai Gumilev, but she consistently sought Akhmatova’s validation of her poetry. Whilst Nappelbaum was a self-confessed disciple of Gumilev, Akhmatova has a stronger presence in her earlier poetry, both thematically and stylistically. However, in her later poetry of reminiscence, written after Akhmatova’s death, Nappelbaum distances herself from Akhmatova’s influence. This paper will offer a reading of Nappelbaum’s ‘I have not read Dante’, the cycle ‘Triptych’ she dedicated to Akhmatova, and memoir accounts, to explore this intriguing mutual denial of influence.