Waking the Face that No One is: A Study in the Musical Context of Symbolist PoeticsPoetry and music have seldom been more closely associated than at the end of the nineteenth century, and the texts in which Baudelaire and Wagner, Mallarmé and Scriabin, Maeterlinck and Debussy evoked the reader's and the listener's states of mind are unusually rich in suggestion. Can poetry combine, as music seems to do, the transcendent satisfaction of an all-inclusive viewpoint with the excitement and uncertainty of an unfolding narrative? Can it partake of music's power in order to give a face to the idea, and substitute, without disappointing, a definite variation for the ineffable theme? Symbolist writers intent on achieving musical effects in words looked for ways to overcome the hard division of subjects at the foundation of language, and the strategies they invented, while not always successful, show their supreme expectations concerning the receptive capability of their audience and an unqualified belief in the transforming power of their art. Students of aesthetics, of French and comparative literature should find something of interest in this provocative and original book. For ease of reference, a detailed abstract of the contents is provided, along with English translations of all quotations in other languages. |
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Page ix
... melody ........ .88 .91 4.3 . Absolute certainty and intolerance of deviation ......... .95 4.4 . Compromise in practice ... 97 4.5 . Emotion , mode , and temperament .. 100 4.6 . An absolute language ? .. 102 5. Two Versions of the ...
... melody ........ .88 .91 4.3 . Absolute certainty and intolerance of deviation ......... .95 4.4 . Compromise in practice ... 97 4.5 . Emotion , mode , and temperament .. 100 4.6 . An absolute language ? .. 102 5. Two Versions of the ...
Page xiii
... melodic line , he says , will suggest the right rhythm for every place in the score . While Wagner helps himself to the ... melody , knows that the rhythms of poetry are inevitably moderated by considerations of meaning that must be ...
... melodic line , he says , will suggest the right rhythm for every place in the score . While Wagner helps himself to the ... melody , knows that the rhythms of poetry are inevitably moderated by considerations of meaning that must be ...
Page xviii
... melody's power to give a face to the idea , to substitute a definite variation for the ineffable theme . 3.2 . ' Abstracting the physiognomy ' Passages in which Villiers and Maeterlinck both portray the work of art as a character with ...
... melody's power to give a face to the idea , to substitute a definite variation for the ineffable theme . 3.2 . ' Abstracting the physiognomy ' Passages in which Villiers and Maeterlinck both portray the work of art as a character with ...
Page xx
... melody , and without melody , Ghil's system lacks the musical means of making statements - a serious shortcoming , given the tremendous message which his poetry was supposed to convey . To supply this want , Ghil transfers to rhythm and ...
... melody , and without melody , Ghil's system lacks the musical means of making statements - a serious shortcoming , given the tremendous message which his poetry was supposed to convey . To supply this want , Ghil transfers to rhythm and ...
Page xxi
... melodic invention that untempered tuning implies , made the ' doctrine of the affections ' a welcome precedent for ... melody , so the imperfect coincidence of sound and sense in late nineteenth - century French marked a point of devel ...
... melodic invention that untempered tuning implies , made the ' doctrine of the affections ' a welcome precedent for ... melody , so the imperfect coincidence of sound and sense in late nineteenth - century French marked a point of devel ...
Contents
1 | |
The Integrity of the Symbol | 26 |
Subject and Setting in Two Symbolist Plays | 61 |
René Ghil and the Contradictions of Synesthesia | 88 |
Two Versions of the Symbolist Apocalypse | 105 |
Bibliography | 119 |
Index | 129 |
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Common terms and phrases
Absolute Pitch abstract achieve Alexander Scriabin apocalyptic aspect attempt audience Axel Baudelaire Baudelaire's Camille Mauclair Carl Dahlhaus characters Chord claim colors composer composition Dahlhaus Debussy Debussy's difference drama edition abbreviated elements emotional expression feeling Furtwängler Ghil's given after quotations idea implies instrument italics added Journal of Aesthetics Kelkel Kivy language listener Livre Lohengrin Mallarmé and Scriabin Maurice Maeterlinck means melody musical experience Musicians musique Mysterium nephew numbers object Oeuvres opera Paris passage passion Pelléas et Mélisande performance phrase play Poem of Ecstasy poet poetic poetry point of view Prefatory Action qu'il quoted reference René Ghil resemblance Revue rhythm Richard Wagner Schérer Schloezer score seems sense sonatas sound spirit Stéphane Mallarmé suggest Symbolism Symbolist symphony synesthesia synesthetic things timbre tion tout trans translation University Press Ursatz variations verse Villiers de l'Isle-Adam Villiers's voice voix vowels words
Popular passages
Page 52 - Je dis : une fleur ! et, hors de l'oubli où ma voix relègue aucun contour, en tant que quelque chose d'autre que les calices sus, musicalement se lève, idée même et suave, l'absente de tous bouquets.
Page 41 - ... successivement furieux , radouci , impérieux , ricaneur. Ici c'est une jeune fille qui pleure , et il en rend toute la minauderie ; là , il est prêtre , il est roi , il est tyran ; il menace , il commande , il s'emporte...
Page 38 - ... brillantes: les plus petites branches, celles qui ne sont pas plus grosses que la patte d'une mésange, sont garnies d'une infinité de diamants, mobiles et éblouissants; on ne peut plus reconnaître le rameau primitif. Ce que j'appelle cristallisation, c'est l'opération de l'esprit, qui tire de tout ce qui se présente la découverte que l'objet aimé a de nouvelles perfections.
Page vii - Lui, quelqu'un ! ni cette scène, quelque part (l'erreur connexe, décor stable et acteur 140 réel, du Théâtre manquant de la Musique) : est-ce qu'un fait spirituel, l'épanouissement de symboles ou leur préparation, nécessite endroit, pour s'y développer, autre que le fictif foyer de vision dardé par le regard d'une foule...
Page 54 - For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning, Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.
Page 31 - Music is as direct an objectification and copy of the whole will as the world itself, nay, even as the Ideas, whose multiplied manifestation constitutes the world of individual things. Music is thus by no means like the other arts, the copy of the Ideas, but the copy of the will itself, whose objectivity the Ideas are.
Page 89 - D'ailleurs, il ne serait pas ridicule ici de raisonner a priori, sans analyse et sans comparaisons; car ce qui serait vraiment surprenant, c'est que le son ne pût pas suggérer la couleur, que les couleurs ne pussent pas donner l'idée d'une mélodie, et que le son et la couleur fussent impropres à traduire des idées; les choses s'étant toujours exprimées par une analogie réciproque, depuis le jour où Dieu a proféré le monde comme une complexe et indivisible totalité.
Page 43 - S'il quittait la partie du chant, c'était pour prendre celle des instruments, qu'il laissait subitement pour revenir à la voix, entrelaçant l'une à l'autre de manière à conserver les liaisons et l'unité du tout, s'emparant de nos âmes et les tenant suspendues dans la situation la plus singulière que j'aie jamais éprouvée. Admirais-je ? oui, j'admirais. Etais-je touché de pitié? j'étais touché de pitié; mais une teinte de ridicule était fondue dans ces sentiments et les dénaturait.
Page 7 - Abolie, la prétention, esthétiquement une erreur, quoiqu'elle régit les chefs-d'œuvre, d'inclure au papier subtil du volume autre chose que par exemple l'horreur de la forêt, ou le tonnerre muet épars au feuillage: non le bois intrinsèque et dense des arbres.
Page 42 - ... qui murmurent dans un lieu solitaire et frais, ou qui descendent en torrent du haut des montagnes ; un orage, une tempête, la plainte de ceux qui vont périr, mêlée au sifflement des vents, au fracas du tonnerre.