ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the work of the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, who is widely known around the world and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011. It argues for the need to re-examine canonical works of Nordic literature from the perspective of literary multilingualism, in order to achieve a better historical understanding and aesthetic appreciation of them. Markus Huss also addresses the concept of literary multilingualism itself, calling for an expanded notion that includes multimodal dimensions, such as visual and aural components. Following these two aims, Huss analyses Tranströmer’s long poem Östersjöar. En dikt (Baltics), demonstrating how its overarching theme of the border connects to a focus on the acoustic and visual dimensions of language. He underscores the importance of the acoustic sphere of literary multilingualism, which he claims to be a fundamental component of a multidimensional understanding of literary multilingualism.
