Question

Summary of The soldier's dream

Answer 1

In Joseph Mallord William Turner’s engraving Soldier’s Dream, the soldier is shown leaning on his musket among his slumbering comrades, beneath a crescent moon. As he sleeps, his mind travels far from the battlefield with cannons and burning fires, shown to his left and right. He dreams of his peaceful homeland, his wife and children, and his homecoming, all shown below.

This is one of twenty engravings produced by Turner as illustrations for ‘The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell’, a book published in 1837. McMaster Museum of Art has the complete set of twenty and, by happy coincidence, McMaster University also has a copy of the 1837 book in the Research Collections of Mills Memorial Library.

The poem that inspired Turner was also set to music by Beethoven [WoO 152, no 9] (25 Irish songs).