Andrey Bely was born in Moscow in 1880 and was the leading exponent of experimental "modernist" fiction in Russia before the 1917 Revolution. In the 1960s, Vladimir Nabokov acclaimed Bely"s Petersburg as one of the four greatest works of 20th century fiction. This is the first published translation of "The Dramatic Symphony" into any language.

Influenced by Schopenhauer"s The World as Will and Representation and Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Dramatic Symphony" is Bely"s attempt to appropriate musical form to literature.

By instilling his work with the "Spirit of Music" in the form of repeated images or "musical phrases", he hoped to dramatise the split between the world of matter and the world of spirit and to indicate ways in which it might be overcome.

Musatov, the hero, is presented as struggling hard against philosophical nihilism. For the most part this battle takes place below the level of consciousness in the form of hallucinatory fears that the world is at the mercy of evil forces from the spirit realm. The Symphony ends with an affirmation of faith in the ability of men to withstand and eventually defeat this attack from the world beyond.

Connected to "The Dramatic Symphony" is Bely"s essay written shortly after this "symphony", "The Forms of Art". This is an attempt to summarise his views on art synthesis, and it is important both for the light which it can cast on his early experimental fiction, and as an original contribution to literary theory. These works should appeal to everyone interested in European literature. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Dramatic Symphony: The Forms of Art (Андрей Белый)