The subject of influences always requires separate study and different development in each case, in order to grasp their entire scope and weigh their contribution to the formation of a personality and a work.

Let us not forget, after all, that it is an extremely slippery ground for the researcher and presents difficulties that compel us to use other means and methods, incompatible with critical interpretation and aesthetic evaluation, since we are essentially dealing with a dark issue, where the known is one: the person and the work of the examined poet, while the unknowns are many: the works of all those he may have used, both older and contemporary, both "glorious" and "ignominious," both ours and foreign, resulting in the constant risk of overlooking essential points and details.

(. . .) [Excerpt from the text of the prologue]