Musical Ekprasis: Content and Form

Abstract

The aim of the monograph is to redefine the notion of ekphrasis (including musical ekphrasis) to meet the literature challenges of the late 20th – early 21st centuries. The author argues that the true nature of ekphrasis is not limited to a mere desrcription and develops a non-mimetic concept of it. Applying the theory of intersemiotic translation, introduced by Y. Lotman and developed by C. Barbetti and S. Bruhn, the author receives an opportunity to outline the main difference between ekphrasis and several similar notions (musical themes, eidolon, hypotyposis, mimesis and diegesis). The difference lies in the presence of a special message that becomes explicit when it passes from the sensual plane to verbal. Description, allusion, or metaphor found in a text do not exclude the presence of an ekphrasis there but may form a part its structure. The author cites C. Baretti (“ekphrasis is a verb, not a noun”) and insists on the accurate translation of the word ἐκφράζω (ekpraso – express) and its derivate ἔκφρασις (ekphrasis – expressive), that allows to consider the music pieces as objects of ekphrasis. The monograph defines the functions of musical ekphrasis in literary texts and distinguishes between the ekphrasis-in-a-text, that serves as a technique that enriches the text semantically, and a text-ekphrasis that is a genre variety. The detailed comparative analysis of both types of musical exphrasis reveals their basic functional similarity and allows to outline the main trait of the novel-exphrasis, the polyphony, which demonstrates the similarity of prose and complex music. The author argues that the musical exphrasis in fiction is not obligatory mimetic, but in several cases, it represents easily recognized musical pieces or may refer to explicitly presented compositions. For example, J. S. Bach’s had a special impact on the on writers of the late 20th – early 21st centuries. Bach’s music helps the authors of this period to find a proper intonation and serves as an important means of temporalization in their texts, defining the intervals of action and bringing in the feeling of a real time. The analysis of the changes that took place in the composers’ esthetic paragons in the 20th and the 21st centuries reveals that those undulatory changes reflected in literature only when they became fully completed and the public was ready to accept new musical ideas as a norm and was looking forward to see the transformation of their initial programs. The comparison of the musical novel with the novel-exphrasis realized in the monograph allows to put a question of the identification of exphrasis not only in a text but as a text within a text, taking as a basis the connotations that form an artistic image. The ekphrasis in the research is described as a means to immerse a recipient into the author’s reality and as a reliable medium able to convey even the most abstract senses enclosed in the musical pieces.