Runeberg’s Golden Theme: “The Swan”

Professor Nummi’s lecture focuses on “The Swan,” a key poem in Johan Ludvig Runeberg’s (1804-1877) first collection of poetry, Dikter I (1830). The lecture situates the poem in its specific cultural context— the birth of the Finnish nation. Runeberg was Finland’s first promising poet and his “Dikter I” the first important collection of lyrical poetry after 1809. In that year, Finland passed from Sweden to the Russian Empire and the tsar declared the new autonomous grand duchy “a nation among nations.” The analysis of the poem focuses on themes of transition in literary ideas, and on the role of the poet in founding a poetic tradition.