L.008.32315 Literature and Music

Lehrende: Dr. Jarmila Mildorf

Veranstaltungsart: Seminar

Orga-Einheit: Anglistik/Amerikanistik

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Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 32

Zielgruppe:
This is a course at the master's level.

Inhalt:
Music and literature are sister arts that have been strongly intertwined from the beginnings of literary production. Not only were literary performances often accompanied by music, but music and literature can be said to share many basic structural and aesthetic features (e.g., rhythmicality, tonality/prosody, repetitions, bounded patterns) and the potential to capture feelings and evoke an emotional response in audiences. Both were from early on used in the service of religious practices, and both were at some point believed to originate from the heavens.

In the course of literary history, this relationship has functioned at various levels: literary texts have been accompanied by or set to music in songs and operas, for example, or they have been entirely adapted to musical forms such as symphonies. Orchestral programme music has used literary pre-texts as narrative suggestions, and certain literary forms are modelled on musical schemes and patterns, e.g. poetry or the 'musical novel'. In this class, we explore literature in music and music in literature against the background of theories of transmediality and the ongoing debate concerning music and narrativity. Our examples will include Shakespeare's Macbeth and some of his sonnets, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, George Meredith's poem "The Lark Ascending" and some shorter pieces to be further specified.

The ability to read sheet music is of advantage but not a prerequisite.