During his first period he gave himself up to classical, bloodless poems, of which one of the most noted is "Two Worlds," which depicts the clash of heathendom and Christianity at the epoch of the fall of Rome.

This poem he continued to write all his life; the prologue, "Three Deaths," begun in 1841, was not finished until 1872.

To this period, also, belong "Two Judgments," "Sketches of Rome," "Anacreon," "Alcibiades," and so forth.

His second and best period began in 1855, when he abandoned his cold classicism and wrote his best works: "Clermont Cathedral," "Savonarola," "Foolish Dunya," "The Last Heathens," "Polya," "The Little Picture," and a number of beautiful translations from Heine.
Still another poet was Afanasy Afanasievitch Shenshin, who wrote under the name of Fet.

Born in 1820, he began to write at the age of nineteen.
About that time, on entering the Moscow University, he experienced some difficulty in furnishing the requisite documents, whereupon he assumed the name of his mother during her first marriage--Fet.