On the Way towards Modernity: an Estonian Poet’s Relationship with the City
On the Way towards Modernity: an Estonian Poet’s Relationship with the City

Summary/Abstract: „In 1912, a young Estonian critic decided he was living and, more importantly, reading in an entirely new age, and set about defining the ways this new age had for influencing poetry. The critic’s name was Johannes Semper (1892–1970) and he published his thoughts in an essay titled Lüürik ja meie aeg (The Lyrical Poet and Our Times, Semper 1912). One of Semper’s principal convictions, repeatedly expressed in this essay, is that urban environment and lifestyle constitute an essential factor that shapes modern poetry. The process of shaping is dual in its nature: Semper aims to distinguish between the time-dependent and timeless components of lyricism (Semper 1912: 148) and reaches a paradoxical conclusion through the example of Émile Verhaeren. Obviously thinking about Verhaeren’s book Les Villes tentaculaires (1895), he concludes that”[…]

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