Music in Literature ― Perspectives of Interdisciplinary Comparative Literature

Citing the issue of music in literature as “enormously complicated in the field of cultural-interpretive discourse, in the field of meta-theory, and in meta-interpretation”, Hejmej describes four types of research: biographical, traditional musical-literary, analogous, and architectonic. He states the first step in critical research is overcoming the stereotype of musicality in literature. There are eight chapters, including introduction. Seven chapters are divided into three parts: towards modern comparative literature; text—sound text—verbal score; the limits of interpretation: implied score. Chapters include: stereotype(s) of music in literature; literary score; interdisciplinarity and comparative studies; scores of sound poetry; Miron Bialoszewski’s (sound) text; around Schaeffer’s scores; the effect (defect) of translation of Chopin (Kornel Ujejski’s Zakochana); the peripheral significance of music (Stanislaw Bara<’n>czak’s Aria: Awaria); Michel Butor’s text-score (Dialogue avec 33 variations de Ludwig van Beethoven sur une valse de Diabelli). There is a bibliography, bibliographic notes, and a summary. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Andrzej Hejmej is Professor at the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Poland). His recent publications include a volume on comparative literature and cultural studies as well as numerous papers on comparative literature, literary theory and modern Polish literature.