Balakirev’s Dream (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Tomas Tranströmer
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Work: Narrative/lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Twentieth century, Music or musicians, Revolutions, Dreams, Russia or Russian people, Russian Revolution, Mutiny, Conducting or conductors
The Poem
Written almost entirely in the third person, “Balakirev’s Dream (1905)” is really a lyric poem masquerading as a narrative. The poem consists of nineteen unrhymed couplets, all but three of which are self-contained syntactical units. As the title indicates, the poem purports to recount the dream of Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), a famous Russian conductor and composer. Both the date in the title and the reference to the warship Sevastopol carefully situate the poem in time: during or just after the Sevastopol mutiny, which broke out spontaneously on...
[The entire page is 1874 words long]
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