Literary celebrity and late style : Anna Akhmatova's unfinished cinema scenario about pilots and 'Poem without a hero'.

This article brings theoretical discussions of literary celebrity and the concept of ‘late style’ into dialogue with one another, arguing that celebrity and a concern with reputation can be significant factors in the development of late style. It explores this possibility through an examination of Akhmatova's unfinished cinema scenario about pilots which situates it in relation to her other late texts (especially Poem Without a Hero and the memoir of Modigliani). It demonstrates that the scenario can be understood as an expression of Akhmatova's anxieties, as she approached the end of her life, about the cost of celebrity and her reputation in posterity