Unorthodox Beauty

"One of the many things that this reader took away from Kelly’s wonderful, thought-provoking book was not just a renewed appreciation of how disruptive and imaginative Russian modernism could be in its quest for renewal and reconciliation, but also how meaningful, even fecund, Orthodox Christianity could be in poetic articulations of the modern... This book also demonstrates that sources deemed non-canonical or heterodox by the Russian Church, such as Greek mythology, Gnosticism, and, perhaps most crucially, the writings of Vladimir Solov’ev, played a key part in loosening the canonical bonds around Orthodox Christianity and, thus, in opening new ways for educated Russians to interpret and experience their faith... What Kelly reminds us in her study is that Orthodoxy is not a discoverable singularity, but a contested, open-ended multiplicity." —The Russian Review 

"This book is a valuable addition to the literature on Russian Modernism. Each chapter contains a wealth of detail and fresh insights into each poet’s life and work. Kelly introduces thought-provoking comparisons between the particular author who is the subject of each chapter and other poets treated in the book." —Slavic and East European Journal