Collection of Poems. 1889–1903
[1] Instrumental in the publication was the Scorpion's representative, poet Valery Bryusov with whom Gippius corresponded regularly since 1902, while compiling the collection, adding new poems and continuously changing their order.
"Gippius the poet holds her special place in the Russian literature; her poems are deeply intellectual, immaculate in form and genuinely exciting," the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary wrote in the early 1910s.
The latter, who were in the majority (and for a rare occasion united critics from all sides of the political specter, including the left radicals and the right-wing conservatives), attacked both Gippius and the 'new Art' in general.
"[7] The conservative author Mikhail Menshikov, writing for Severny Vestnik, admitted there were 'some lovely lines' in Gippius' poetry, but disliked the way they were buried under the barrage of dissonant, 'ugly and deranged, rudely deformed' stanzas.
[12] Poet and dramatist Nikolai Ventsel, while dismissing some pieces as 'consciously obscure' praised others ("Electricity", "Griselda") for highlighting the author's ability "to express in lucid imagery a concept, no matter how abstract."
Comparing the book with to the works contemporary impressionists poetry, Smirnov remarked: "Z. Gippius, unlike them, lets her imagery develop fully and only then gives it beautiful, exquisite shape.
Their mannerisms and pretentiousness would rather appeal to a pure esthete, than a true Christian believer... Old pieces are better, they were really sincere prayers and in them Gippius's soul resonates richly, full of tiny nuances.
"Z.Gippius's works present a bizarre amalgam of the [spiritual] quest's sincerity, disarming powerlessness, pretentiousness, icy cold haughtiness and universal disdain, spiced with motives of humility and very peculiar sentimentalism," he wrote.
[19] Also in 1909, Innokenty Annensky lauded the author’s special way of half-spokenness, 'hint and pause' metaphor technique, and the art of "extracting sonorous chords out of silent pianos", calling the book the peak of Russia's 15 years of modernism and arguing that "not a single man would ever be able to dress abstractions into clothes of such charm [as this woman].
