Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
0.7
0.3
Journals
Humanities
Special Issues
“Reading the beat”—Musical Aesthetics and Literature
share announcement

“Reading the beat”—Musical Aesthetics and Literature

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2015) | Viewed by 22956

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Jacob-Ivan Eidt

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Dallas, 1845 East Northgate Drive, Irving, TX 75062-4736, USA
Interests: the intersections of music and literature; romanticism; comparative literature; literature and the visual arts; poetry; opera; film

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This volume will include papers that deal with the intersection and interdisciplinary dialogue between music and literature. The focus will be on texts that utilize, highlight, appropriate or expound upon music aesthetics, in dialogue with literature. A major focus will be on articles that examine the nature of music (what it is), how it works, and how it is experienced; particular focus will be given to the textual representation of music. Conversely, articles that examine music with a literary dimension, or which try to express literary ideas musically, will also be included. Contributions dealing with music as text and texts as music, as well as the fundamental differences (and incompatibilities) between the two aesthetics are welcome. The purpose of the volume is to encourage a dialogue across disciplines and to provide insight into what has been historically a very fertile and fascinating area of scholarly and philosophical inquiry. It also seeks to complement existing scholarship by inviting cross-disciplinary approaches from scholars with philosophical, literary, musical, cultural, and film study orientations, thus expanding the disciplinary scope of the topic in the humanities.

Prof. Dr. Jacob-Ivan Eidt
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

References:

Because this Special Issue seeks to cross disciplines and bring together divergent approaches, the only “reference” paper should be the primary works of literature and music themselves, or reactions to seminal works, such as Hanslick’s On the Musically Beautiful or more modern theoretical frameworks, like those of Peter Kivy, Roger Scruton or Lawrence Kramer. Other topics might include authors who have a special relationship to music, such as Thomas Mann, Proust, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Eliot, etc.

Keywords

  • music
  • literature
  • comparative literature
  • philosophy
  • aesthetics
  • cultural studies
  • opera
  • lied
  • poetry
  • absolute music
  • musicology

Published Papers (4 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

3823 KiB  
Article
Music and Language in Ancient Verse: The Dynamics of an Antagonistic Concord
by Fionn Bennett
Humanities 2016, 5(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/h5010008 - 20 Jan 2016
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4775
Abstract
In antiquity, the relationship between “music”, “poetry”, and “language” was very different from the way they relate to each other today, for back then each of these mediums was endowed with a distinct, independent signifying code expressing a semiosis all its own. However, [...] Read more.
In antiquity, the relationship between “music”, “poetry”, and “language” was very different from the way they relate to each other today, for back then each of these mediums was endowed with a distinct, independent signifying code expressing a semiosis all its own. However, these separate “semiospheres” nonetheless never ceased growing towards and into one another. This is so because music and “melic” poetry were believed to have the capacity to denote something ordinary language could not denote but could not do without, namely “etymonic truth”. As a result, the users of ordinary language were obsessed with divining the “hyponoia” poets encoded in music and chant. Above all, they wanted this hyponoia to constitute the signifié of their language. For this reason, the meaning expressed in language was subject to a process in which it was constantly being “deported” from its ordinary acceptations and transported towards meanings encoded in music. However, this “deterritorialization” of ordinary meaning never resulted in a full “reterritorialization” upon the terrain of the truth encoded in music. Musicians and poets would not tolerate it. As far as they were concerned, music and poetry would cease being “truthful” if the semiosis they conveyed and the semiosis conveyed by language were interchangeable. For, again, as a signifying code, prosaic language was sui generis incapable of representing the truth. Hence, the relationship between these three codes consisted of a sort of intersemiotic dynamic equilibrium in which language was continuously evolving towards a non-linguistic expression of meaning which conferred truth upon it and what it means. And yet the music and poetry which were the source of that truth deliberately kept language from consummating the aspiration of accosting the truth they encoded. This paper explores the mechanics of this intersemiotic dynamic equilibrium. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue “Reading the beat”—Musical Aesthetics and Literature)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

1500 KiB  
Article
On Sound: Reconstructing a Zhuangzian Perspective of Music
by So Jeong Park
Humanities 2016, 5(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/h5010003 - 28 Dec 2015
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4787
Abstract
A devotion to music in Chinese classical texts is worth noticing. Early Chinese thinkers saw music as a significant part of human experience and a core practice for philosophy. While Confucian endorsement of ritual and music has been discussed in the field, Daoist [...] Read more.
A devotion to music in Chinese classical texts is worth noticing. Early Chinese thinkers saw music as a significant part of human experience and a core practice for philosophy. While Confucian endorsement of ritual and music has been discussed in the field, Daoist understanding of music was hardly explored. This paper will make a careful reading of the Xiánchí 咸池 music story in the Zhuangzi, one of the most interesting, but least noticed texts, and reconstruct a Zhuangzian perspective from it. While sounds had been regarded as mere building blocks of music and thus depreciated in the hierarchical understanding of music in the mainstream discourse of early China, sound is the alpha and omega of music in the Zhuangzian perspective. All kinds of sounds, both human and natural, are invited into musical discourse. Sound is regarded as the real source of our being moved by music, and therefore, musical consummation is depicted as embodiment through sound. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue “Reading the beat”—Musical Aesthetics and Literature)
250 KiB  
Article
The Poet Sings: “Resonance” in Paul Valéry’s Poietics
by Martin Parker Dixon
Humanities 2015, 4(4), 506-522; https://doi.org/10.3390/h4040506 - 29 Sep 2015
Viewed by 4177
Abstract
This paper analyses Paul Valéry’s theories relating to his stated goal of poetic production: the attainment of “resonance” and a “singing-state”. My intention is to defend Valéry’s theory as a valid and consistent model of the creative process in poetry. To that end, [...] Read more.
This paper analyses Paul Valéry’s theories relating to his stated goal of poetic production: the attainment of “resonance” and a “singing-state”. My intention is to defend Valéry’s theory as a valid and consistent model of the creative process in poetry. To that end, I will draw support from T. W. Adorno’s claim that Valéry’s manner of reflective journalising in his Notebooks can furnish us with what he calls “aesthetic insight”. The consistency of Valéry’s theory will be supported by comparisons with the inferentialist understanding of semantics. Valéry proves to be a reliable exemplar of what might be called a “practice-led” aesthetics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue “Reading the beat”—Musical Aesthetics and Literature)
3102 KiB  
Article
The Material and “Inner Life” in Music: Beethoven, Psychological Coherence, and Meaning
by Sara Eckerson
Humanities 2015, 4(3), 418-435; https://doi.org/10.3390/h4030418 - 11 Sep 2015
Viewed by 8575
Abstract
Current studies on Adolph Bernhard Marx generally focus on Marx’s seminal texts in music theory and pedagogy, such as Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch theoretisch (1837–1847) and Marx’s theory of sonata form, but they infrequently explore the philosophical and aesthetic dimensions [...] Read more.
Current studies on Adolph Bernhard Marx generally focus on Marx’s seminal texts in music theory and pedagogy, such as Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch theoretisch (1837–1847) and Marx’s theory of sonata form, but they infrequently explore the philosophical and aesthetic dimensions of Marx’s criticism. The present essay will analyze a series of statements Marx wrote that address the aesthetic principles one should employ in descriptions of musical meaning, including “spiritual guidelines” (die geistigen Lenkfäden) and psychological coherence (des psychologischen Zusammenhangs). We will investigate Hegel’s influence on Marx’s thought, in addition to other contemporary philosophical positions, in relation to the themes of musical content, form, and the creative process. The study will aim to reveal the function of “spiritual guidelines” and specifically psychological coherence in aesthetics as the basis of a fresh look into musical meaning and ideal content in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Op. 125. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue “Reading the beat”—Musical Aesthetics and Literature)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-4
Back to TopTop