Brief Pause in the Organ Recital (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Tomas Tranströmer
- First Published: 1983
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Nature, Music or musicians, Dreams, Death or dying, Scandinavia or Scandinavians, Sweden or Swedish people, Church or churches, Cathedrals, Organs, organ music, or organists
The Poem
“Brief Pause in the Organ Recital” is a lyric poem that contains twelve carefully balanced, four-line stanzas of free verse. The immediacy of the experience recounted in the poem is emphasized by the fact that almost all the verbs in the poem are in the present tense.
The poet/speaker is attending an organ recital in a medieval cathedral. The sudden silence during a brief pause in the program breaks into his elevated mood and makes him aware of the traffic noises—“that greater organ”—outside the cathedral. He perceives that though it lacks the...
[The entire page is 2135 words long]
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