The image of the moon in romantic poetry: two trends within the same genre

The article deals with the evolution of the images of the moon in European poetry from antiquity up to the present; special attention is paid to the romantic period as the one when the exploitation of the moon imagery was at its peak. It is concerned with the peculiarities of treating the image of the moon as almost a constant poetic attribute in English, French and Italian poetic traditions. For the first time, two opposite trends within the genre have been determined: romantic and antiromantic are considered in their opposition and intertwinement. The poems of English, French and Italian poets are taken as examples, which have never been translated into Russian before.