Hans Christian Andersen and Music: The Nightingale Revealed by Anna Harwell CelenzaVoyages en Suisse 1833-1873 by Hans Christian Andersen, Régis Boyer

Abstract

292 Reviews verse, and strikesup his best relationships with those on a similar verbal level. Poetry may not empower thecharacters within thediegesis (the narrated events), but itgives themdomination of thenarrative, often speaking not somuch to fellow characters but 'over theirheads' to the audience of the saga. Although this isparticularly evident in outlaw stories, there are valuable insights here that aremore widely applicable. Just as (dust jacket apart) the volume has the traditional Oxford University Press look, theoverall approach isone of classic literarycriticism, fruitfullyaided by narra tological concepts; secondary literature is somewhat patchily cited (none onHrafnkels saga) and notwholly up todate. There is fineobservation and richly suggestive ideas, but, for instance, theperceptive close reading ofGisla saga becomes somewhat slow paced and relentless, as well as over-allusive (there isno warning that the first Gisli mentioned is not the eponymous hero, p. I44; cf. abrupt introductions elsewhere, e.g. of 'theBjarkamal', p. 69). A more streamlined analysis, and amore purposeful Chapter I,would have allowed space forfurther testing and development of leading ideas, such as the fertilenotion of verses as 'thediscourse of theheroic past' (p. 232). This clearlyworks for Gisla saga, but given thebaseline conservatism of skaldic style, and itspersistence into and beyond the thirteenth century, exactly how and forwhat (intradiegetic or extradiegetic) audience does the poetry have heroic associations? (And consideration of audience and its likely cultural and ethical values is sparse in thevolume overall.) There is a scatter ofminor slips, e.g. 'gunwhale' (p. 30), lind for lond (p. 50), ho mum forhonum (p. 56), 'tactiturn' (p. 97), sunni forsunnu (p. io8), and laitumfor letum (P. 158), and some (unintended?) duplication, e.g. of a comment on Oddmj6r (p. 3 ). The difficult verse textsmainly, and prudently, follow the Islensk fornrit editions, but in the translations kennings are handled somewhat inconsistently, and occasion ally implausibly, e.g. 'goddess of the hall-spear' for 'woman' (p. 177), and one could quibble over 'candle' rather than '(sun-)beam' forgeisli (p. 57), 'I have to' rather than 'had to' forvard ek (p. 205), and so on. To conclude, thisbook isnot the firstor lastword on the role of skaldic poetry in Icelandic prosimetrum (its communicative potential is, forone thing,underplayed), but it is a thoughtful, revealing study thatopens theway for further work. NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY DIANA WHALEY Hans Christian Andersen andMusic: The Nightingale Revealed. By ANNA HARWELL CELENZA. Aldershot: Ashgate. 2005. x+269 pp. 145. ISBN 978-o-7546 0140-I. Voyages en Suisse I833-I873., By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Trans. by REGIS BOYER. Yens surMorges: Editions Cabedita. 2005. 238 pp. SwF 39. ISBN 978 2-88295-43I-2. The Andersen bicentenary isproducing interesting evidence that scholars have been been preparing for itby turning theirattention toaspects of his personal and creative life which deserve closer scrutiny.From theUnited States comes a timely examina tion ofAndersen and music in thebroadest sense, both as a lifelong interest and as a leitmotif inhis work. Anna Harwell Celenza adopts an approach to thisdimension of Andersen's artistic and creative life which reveals thatmusic was a dominant element from the start. 'I long for music as aman sickwith fever longs for a drop ofwater', reads a diary entry forJanuary I834 which she uses as the epigraph forher book, but he had already identified himself as amusician in a poem written as a boy in I813. Music, itscreators, and itsperformers are integral elements ofhisWanderlust: indeed, Celenza soon states that few ifany nineteenth-century authors had such an intimate MLR, 102. I, 2007 293 and wide-ranging knowledge of thecontemporary musical world. He heardMalibran inBellini's Norma inNaples in I834 and by the end of thatyear was making artistic use of such musical experiences inhis firstand major novel, Improvisatoren (i835), a uniquely personal exploration ofmany of his generation's favourite themes, and one which owes more toGoethe thanCelenza realizes. By I844 Andersen had pub lishedKun enSpillemand ('Only a Fiddler'), a largelypersonal Bildungsroman with a poor but highly gifted young musician as itscentral figure;he had also attended the Copenhagen debut of JennyLind, discreetly immortalized inThe Nightingale (i 843), and found inGrand Duke Carl Alexander of Weimar a patron who brought him into contact with Liszt. This sequence of experiences is skilfullyhandled by Celenza...