Kulikova* Institute of Philology of SB RAS 8 Nikolaev Str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia Received 10.02.2015, received in revised form 17.03.2015, accepted 24.07.2015 The article considers the plot about “the severed head” used by N. Gumilev due to the infl uence of French authors – Ch. <...> The translations of “The Malay Pantums” by Leconte de Lisle and “The Martyr” by Baudelaire made by N. Gumilev demonstrate the attention of Gumilev to this theme, they infl uenced one of his last poems “The Strayed Tram” from the collection “The Pillar of Fire”. <...> Literary and art subtexts (Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, Moreau, Dorй, Redon, Beardsley etc.) enrich the plot stratum of “The Strayed Tram”, open its new meanings. <...> The methodological basis of the research is determined by the unity of historical and literary, phenomenological, comparative and structural approaches. <...> We are interested in the plot of the “severed head” that was used, as we believe, under the infl uence of the French authors – Ch. <...> Gumilev translated “The Malay Pantums” by Leconte de Lisle and “The Martyr” by Baudelaire, which had the specifi ed plot as the central one. <...> About a Mortal Plot in N. Gumilev’s Works: “The Severed Head” Methods The methodological basis of the research is determined by the unity of historical and literary, comparative and structural approaches. <...> The plot described by Leconte de Lisle is extremely common for the romance and postromance literature: a savage girl, who betrayed her beloved one and died from his hand (different versions of The poetry of the late 19th the heroine’s death are possible). – early 20th centuries partially returns to this theme. <...> In “The Pantums” the choice of – 19th is quite reasonable for the author of the late 19th early 20th “the narrator” as a deceived aboriginal although is not traditional for the European literature of the 18th centuries, but – centuries, who sought to comprehend the oriental mentality (a kind of “mystifi cation” at the level of the plot), and turn an exotic character into a lyrical hero. <...> The end of the text is predictable: the second part of “The Pantums” contains a detail that brings out that the hero is going to cut off the head of his beloved, the beautiful neck of the heroine: “Voici des perles de mascate / Pour ton <...>