This study explores the theme of the myth of Orpheus as master narrative for poetic inspiration and creative survival in the life and work of the great Russian poet. Olga Peters Hasty establishes the basic themes of the Orphic Complex - the poet's longing to mediate between the embodied physical world and an "elsewhere", his inability to do so, the primacy of the voice over the visual world, the insistence on concrete imagery, the costs of the poet's gift - and orders her argument in the tragic shape of the Orpheus myth as it worked itself out organically in Tsvetaeva's own life. Hasty's delineation of the connections between the Orpheus myth and other key mythological and literary figures - Blok, Akhmatova, Pushkin, Rilke - in the poet's life and work makes a critical contribution. This book is intended for students and researchers of twentieth-century Russian literature.