Format:
1 Online-Ressource (viii, 242 pages)
,
digital, PDF file(s)
ISBN:
9781571138910
Series Statement:
European studies in North American literature and culture
Content:
What is a "musical novel"? This book defines the genre as musical not primarily in terms of its content, but in its form. The musical novel crosses medial boundaries, aspiring to techniques, structures, and impressions similar tothose of music. It takes music as a model for its own construction, borrowing techniques and forms that range from immediately perceptible, essential aspects of music (rhythm, timbre, the simultaneity of multiple voices) to microstructural (jazz riffs, call and response, leitmotifs) and macrostructural elements (themes and variations, symphonies, albums). The musical novel also evokes the performance context by imitating elements of spontaneity that characterize improvised jazz or audience interaction. The Musical Novel builds upon theories of intermediality and semiotics to analyze the musical structures, forms, and techniques in two groups of musical novels, which serve as case studies. The first group imitates an entire musical genre and consists of jazz novels by Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Xam Wilson Cartiér, Stanley Crouch, Jack Fuller, Michael Ondaatje, and Christian Gailly. The second group of novels, by Richard Powers, Gabriel Josipovici, Rachel Cusk, Nancy Huston, and Thomas Bernhard, imitates a single piece of music, J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. Emily Petermann is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Konstanz
Content:
Theorizing the Musical Novel -- Elements of Sound in Jazz Novels -- Structural Patterns in Jazz Novels -- The Performance Situation in Jazz Novels -- Structural Patterns in Novels Based on the Goldberg Variations -- Composition, Performance, and Reception in Novels Based on the Goldberg Variations
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 12 Apr 2018)
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9781571135926
Additional Edition:
Print version ISBN 9781571135926
Language:
English
URL:
Volltext
(lizenzpflichtig)