A Study Guide for Tomas Transtromer's "Nocturne"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Tomas Transtromer's "Nocturne," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535829663

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13

Nocturne

Tomas Transtromer

1962

Introduction

Nocturne is a lyric poem written by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. The poem, which, like much of the author's poetry, bears some of the earmarks of surrealism, was first published in a 1962 collection whose title, Den halvfärdiga himlen, is translated as The Half-Made Heaven or The Half-Finished Heaven. Since the 1950s Tranströmer has enjoyed a reputation as Sweden's most influential poet, but despite claims to the contrary, his name was not widely recognized outside of Sweden until 2011, when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature—an award for which he had been a perennial favorite since the early 1990s.

The term nocturne is often reserved to refer to a short musical composition, one that is dreamy or reflective and suggestive of the nighttime. Often, but not always, such compositions are for the piano. Alternatively, nocturne is used to refer to a painting of a night scene, or perhaps a scene that is bathed in veiled, atmospheric light rather than direct, bright light. Many authors have appropriated the term, using it to suggest a setting, mood, or atmosphere. Tranströmer, an accomplished amateur musician who often sought to merge poetry with music, conveys images of night and its effect on him in Nocturne. The poem is available in Tranströmer's The Great Enigma: New and Collected Poems, translated by Robin Fulton and published in 2006.

Author Biography

Tranströmer is known principally as Sweden's preeminent contemporary poet, but for many years he combined poetry with a career as a clinical psychologist, which he later abandoned to write full time. Often referred to as a poet's poet, his work has been translated by various other poets, including J. Bernlef (Dutch), Caj Westerberg (Finnish), Bei Dao (Chinese), Joseph Brodsky (English), Czesław Miłosz (Polish), Robin Fulton (Scottish), and his friend Robert Bly