The book contains articles on the poetry of Virgil, Ephraim the Syrian, Grigor Narekatsi, Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Mandelstam, Brentano, Chesterton, Hesse. “Experiences on old and new poets that make up this book were written at different times and in terms of genre they are not completely homogeneous. If I considered it possible to combine them together, then I was prompted to do so by the common feature inherent in them - the orientation towards portraiture. Sometimes this is portraiture in the literal sense. In other cases, portraiture is hidden a little deeper<…>. Each “picture” that I lay out from words, like a mosaic, is only an approach to the subject, only a guess that is in question; and I try never to forget that any attempt to use metaphors, comparisons and epithets in the function of demonstrative arguments sins against elementary mental honesty<…>. My goal was to introduce my subjectivity into the process of cognition, but so that it would “die” in this process. It is not for me to judge when I was at least partially successful in this, and when I was completely unsuccessful. One thing is sure: the poets I wrote about were not an excuse for me to say something “about.” For me they were themselves, that is, something incomparably more interesting than everything I have to say about them.” (From the introduction).