Intermediality Of Literature And Music Of E.T.A. Hoffmann And A.S. Grin

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of musical novels, which arose during the period of Romanism and was most clearly reflected in the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.S. Grin. The appeal to the heritage of E.T.A. Hoffman and A.S. Grin is explained by the typological similarity of the creative method of the authors under consideration and common methods of musical expression. The relationship of literature and music can be traced at all levels of the organization of the text; the verbal incarnation of the musical expands the space; the interpretation of the work by means of adjacent sign systems contributes to the multi-layered and multi-level reading of the text. Common feature of musical novels is a thematic attribute, structural attribute and associative attribute. The verbal reading of music by different authors is achieved differently. The general musical content of the researched novels is the saturation of the artistic text with musical terms, plays, names of composers, diversity and detailed narration of the performance technique, but the synesthesia of arts as an artistic method is solved by each author in different ways. The main difference between the musical novels of the authors under consideration is established, which consists in the different perception of music as the main aesthetic category. For A.S. Grin, music is transmitted through the psychological upheaval of it by a character; music is not heard acoustically, but imagined, transmitted by means of other semiotic systems (verbal and cinematographic).

Keywords: Novelmusicsynthesis of artsintermedialitymotivefunction

Introduction

Currently, there is a great interest in the intermediality of literary works which is a special organization of texts through the interaction of various types of arts.

Synesthesia of music and literature found its embodiment in the era of romanticism; new literary genres were created, one of which was a musical novel. The musical content permeates all works of the late romanticist E.T.A. Hoffmann at all levels of embodiment, from plot to style. Musicalilty of literature, interest in the audial expansion of the semantic space, the search for new forms of art finds its continuation in the short prose of A.S. Grin. Despite the difference between the epochs and the countries of the individual author's way of self-expression, the presence of the musical principle in the short prose of these authors allows us to speak about typological connections and convergences, possible contact-typological continuity of their creative method.

Problem Statement

The problem of interpretation of musical texts lies in the fact that there is no universal model for the intermedial analysis of a literary work. We suggest using the thematic classification of Sher (1984) and to augment it with the functional purpose of music in a literary work, i.e. consider musical novels verbally, structurally and functionally. This motivates our appeal to this problem from the standpoint of the analysis of a literary text.

Research Questions

The relevance and scientific novelty of the work lies in establishing and describing the main features of a musical novel, disclosing its specificities in the author's texts of E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.S. Grin, an intermedial analysis of the artistic space of musical novels, revealing the functional purpose of the musical content in a literary text.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the work is to identify the constitutive features of a musical novel in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.S. Grin, juxtaposition of individual author's ways of expressing music in an artistic text through the interaction of various types of art.

Research Methods

The main rationale for the research of intermedial texts is the principle of consistency, lying in a holistic review of all the characteristics of a musical novel. At the stages of analysis and interpretation of a literary text, approaches of analytical-descriptive and comparative-comparative methods were used. At the stage of evaluation of the material from the point of view of the specifics of the musical novel, an integrated approach is used, based on the comparison of scientific data on this issue (Kurdina, 2010). The text material was taken from artistic works by E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.S. Grin which were discovered to contain musical component.

Findings

In the works of romantics, the novel as a genre has acquired special significance. The idea of synthesis of arts and universality of genres put forward by romantics contributed to the mechanism of synesthesia in literature, which favored the emergence and development of such a new genre of literature as a musical novel. The novel is called a musical not only because it is saturated with music from the beginning to the end. It is mainly conditioned by the subjects, objects in the work, story lines and compositional and speech parts that closely interact with musical works (Mukarzhovsky, 1994).

A special feature of the poetics of E.T.A. Hoffman is a synthesis of artistic impressions that unites several types of art (Belza, 1982).

We highlight the following attributes of a musical novel of E.T.A. Hoffmann: a novel about music, in which the subject of the image is a piece of music or a person of art (musician, composer, creator or performer), a thematic attribute; the relationship of literature and music can be traced at all levels of the organization of the text (plot, compositional organization, character system), a structural feature; the verbal incarnation of the musical expands the space, the interpretation of the work by means of adjacent sign systems contributes to the multi-layer and multi-level reading, an associative feature.

Musical novels by E.T.A. Hoffmann date back to the novel by Wakenroder (1979) "Remarkable musical life of the composer Josef Berglinger" (1796), which became the first work with a designation of "a novel about an artist.” They vividly reflect the agonizing state of the protagonist, who is in a "painful contradiction" between reality and the world of dreams (Wakenroder, 1979).

Hoffmann’s music is like a state of a romantic mind. The musical novels of E.T.A. Hoffmann deny the burgher idea, that envisages the purpose of art to be joy and fun (Berkwski, 2001).

The musical works by E.T.A. Hoffmann may also include such novels as "Ritter Gluck", "Don Juan" and "Kreisleriana". These works are not only a synthesis of the arts, a complex and multifaceted structure of construction, but also a common central conflict, the clash of art and mundanity, the confrontation of a true artist and a philistine.

The peculiarity of musical novels by E.T.A. Hoffmann lies in the fact that the subjects, objects, storylines and compositional and speech parties work closely with musical works (“Ritter Gluck”, “Don Juan”, “Kreisleriana”); the musical novel is multifaceted, the synthesis of the arts is achieved through the interaction of literature, music and painting; music according to E.T.A. Hoffmann is the highest level in the hierarchy of the arts, therefore the theme of art and the artist is realized through music (“Kreisleriana”, “RItter Gluck”); in the system of characters, the main character is a man of art, “musician”, “artist”, “performer”, since such a hero has an inner vision that allows one to feel a deep discord between dream and reality (“The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr”); the composition of prose texts resembles a sonata-symphonic form (Kurdina, 2010); music is a means of knowing the secrets of nature, penetrating into its mystery, the harmony of being, therefore singing sound images, you can highlight the music of nature, garden, flowers, music of the soul (“The Golden Pot”); the musical novels of E.T.A. Hoffmann show the author's attitude to music through the system of characters.

The epoch of A.S. Grin (late XIX-early XX century) is the time when all kinds of arts were rapidly developing and synthesizing. For instance, the relationship of music and literature, when compared with the past centuries, has reached a qualitatively different level. This is the time of birth of new art forms, original technique of performance, a specific intonation system.

In the tales, novels and short stories by A.S. Grin, one can feel a special musical atmosphere that prevailed in literary and artistic circles in the beginning of XX century. It was the epoch of symbolism, in which the main place was music. It should be noted that in understanding the role of music in world life, the writer is close to the position of the Symbolists, in particular, Beliy (1994) who wrote, “The meaning of art is to get ideas. Music perfectly expresses a symbol. The symbol is therefore always musical. From the symbol, music erupts. It passes consciousness. The symbol induces the music of the soul ... The music has magic” (p. 72).

Music in the novels by A.S. Grin acts as one of the main criteria in the evaluation of a character. Mikhailov (1980) wrote about the purpose of music in the works of A.S. Grin, "This is the miracle of the discovery of the world and oneself in the world" (p. 87).

Rhythm also participates in the organization of musical novels of A.S. Grin. Rhythm acts through the external (certain sounds that subordinate and organize life, the actions of the characters) and internal manifestation (rhythm of the heart, life, epoch) (Maximova, 2004).

Music in the novels by A.S. Grin is associated with color and acts as an ambivalent image: divine, inspiring, giving strength and hope music of the day, sun and light; and frightening, destroying, obliterating music of darkness and night.

Thus, the music in the novels by A.S. Grin appears as an important philosophical category, a conductor between life and death, the embodiment of beauty, the kind of art that is the closest to the world of feelings and emotions of the characters. A.S. Grin interprets this abstract category as a world full of bliss and harmony, truth rising against evil, elevating the human soul, protecting it from vulgarity.

On the other hand, music in the works of A.S. Grin has a number of functions: acts as an expression of the total symbolic beginning of the work; serves to disclose the leading themes of the work, i.e. existential themes such as love, death, loneliness (“The Power of the Unknowable”, “The Black Diamond”, “The Mysterious Disk”) are introduced through musical images; conveys the emotional mood of the characters; makes you think about your existence, search for the meaning of life ("Black Diamond", "Scarlet Sails", "Gray Car"); becomes a criterion for evaluating a character, depending on their ability to comprehend beauty or pass by the beauty, and as a result, becomes an expression of his life position; serves as a means of expressing the artistic world of A.S. Grin.

Let us consider the synesthesia of literature and music on the example of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s "Ritter Gluck" and A.S. Grin’s "The Power of the Unknowable.”

The most structured classification of the interaction of music and literature is presented in the works of Sher (1984). The interaction of literature and music is achieved verbally through imitation by words; at the speech level through the phonics, rhythm, intonation, timbre; and structurally.

The difficulty of interpretation of musical texts lies in the fact that there is no universal model for the intermedial analysis of a literary work. We suggest using the thematic classification of Sher (1984) and to augment it with the functional purpose of music in a literary work, i.e. consider musical novels verbally, structurally and functionally.

The verbal approach will allow us to analyze what literary techniques the author gives the listener a sense of the musicality of the work. The structural approach allows describing the formal organization of the text, considering the role of music participation in the compositional construction of the work. The functional approach allows answering the question what function has the musical content of a literary work.

The creative individuality of Hoffmann in many characteristic features is already defined in his first book “Fantasy Pieces in Callot's Manner”, which includes works written from 1808 to 1814. The novel “Ritter Gluck" (1808), the first of the published works of E.T.A. Hoffmann, also outlines the most significant aspects of his world view and creative manner.

The musical theme is already presented in the title of the work: Gluck Christoph Willibald (1714-1787), an Austrian composer, holder of the Order of the Golden Spur, reformer of operatic art. The novella develops one of the main, if not the main, idea of the writer's creativity: the insoluble conflict between an artist and society.

The potential of the novel is extremely high. Being by its nature a fragment, this novel is a detailed idea, a dialogue about the essence of art and the fate of an artist-enthusiast, the idea of ​​the future creativity of E.T.A. Hoffmann, who will find embodiment in different artistic forms, but will retain his main idea: the collision of the spirit of creativity with the spiritual emptiness of civilization.

The peculiarity of the verbal incarnation of the musical in the novel we study is the appraisal of musical terminology: “detuned harp”, “hectic flute”, “asthmatic bassoon”, “shrill voices of violins”, “wild music”, “exasperating octaves” (Hoffmann, 1994), a common appraisal dominant, something of poor quality, cutting the hearing.

Structurally, the musical motive is dissolved in the routine of being, the merging of poor-quality performance with the music of the big city, bustle, disputes about war, politics, the sounds of a lively café. Such mechanical music is contrasted with the emotional experience of the music by the creator and introduces the main theme of the novel: the opposition of art and real life.

E.T.A. Hoffman seeks to express the tragedy of an unappreciated artist. “I revealed the sacred to the uninitiated ...” says Cavalier Gluck (as cited in Hoffmann, 1994). His appearance on Unter den Linden, where ordinary people drink carrot coffee and talk about shoes, is loudly absurd, and therefore phantasmagoric. Gluck in the context of the novel becomes the highest type of artist who after death continues to create and improve his works. In his image, embodied the idea of the immortality of art. Thus, the mechanical, dead, routine world, in which art is also perceived mechanically, is replaced by the theme of higher art lived by the creator as “a touch with the Eternal” (Hoffmann, 1994).

The novel presents a double chronotop: on the one hand, there is a real chronotop (1809, Berlin), and on the other hand, another chronotope is superimposed on this one, fantastic, which expands—thanks to the composer and music—breaks all the spatial and temporal restrictions.

The idea of a romantic synthesis of different artistic styles is present in the mutual transitions of musical images into literary ones and those literary into musical ones. The whole story is filled with musical images and fragments from the overtures to “Iphigenia in Aulis”, “Iphigenia in Tauris”, opera “Armida”, “Orpheus” by Gluck, “Don-Juan” by Mozart. Thus, “Ritter Gluck” is a musical novel, an artistic essay about Gluck's music and about the composer himself.

The music in the novel has a number of functions: it is a pass to the world of dreams, fantasy, imagination, and belonging to this world is the highest mark of the character; it transmits the author's attitude to music through the system of characters; it illustrates the uniqueness of a hero who is able to subtly perceive art.

The evolution of the character of the novel is obvious: the narrator, deaf to the sounding music and hearing only falsehood in it at the beginning of the novel, after meeting a strange interlocutor and under his influence, turns out to be an initiate who opens up knowledge and understanding of the world that participates in music.

The expression of music in A.S. Grin’s "The Power of the Unknowable” is multifaceted.

In the poetics of the title, the theme of music is veiled. The focus of the author focuses on the incredible, impossible, mysterious, not amenable to verbal unambiguous definition.

The epigraph complements the author's intention: “While some dreamed of the fabulous riches of the East that night, others dreamed that the devils carried them to the unknown of the ocean, where they had to wander until the life ends” (Grin, 1980, p. 32). This emphasizes the ambivalent state lived in a dream: from captivating illusions to the painful search for the unknown.

Verbally, the music is transmitted through the psychological upheaval of its characters. The dominant characteristic of a melody that is heard by a violinist in dreams is ambivalence, a combination of divine and demonic in a musical text, as well as mystery and exclusivity. The power of magic is achieved by A.S. Grin by an interesting intermediary way: the author builds a skeleton of music from abstract nouns describing an incredible phenomenon: perfection, charm, treasure, etc., and the reader sates these artistic images with his own meaning, thus expanding the text space and individual interpretation of the musical work. Thus, music is not heard acoustically, but imagined, transmitted by means of other semiotic systems (verbal and cinematographic).

Structurally, music organizes the living space of the violinist Duplet as a) an internal sense of music, which A.S. Grin defines for his character as the "tone of life”; b) perception of the external world through the prism of musicality; and c) dream music of incredible power.

The reader perceives music through the prism of three characters: the violinist Duplet, the hypnotist Rumiera, to whom the musician turns for help in deciphering the divine sounds that come to him in dreams and a casual passer-by officer who heard amazing sounds from the street.

The musician cannot restore the melody of dreams, however his spiritual organization is able to grasp the ambivalent power of sounds (from delight to horror). The perception of Rumier and the casual passer-by is subjective, in the same melody the hypnotist hears the destructive power of art, and the officer hears the reviving power of sounds.

Thus, the music in the novel of A.S. Grin "The Power of the Unknowable" becomes a kind of catalyst, a criterion for evaluating a hero depending on his ability to comprehend beauty or pass by the beautiful and, as a result, an expression of his life position.

Conclusion

The study of musical novels of E.T.A. Hoffmann and A.S. Grin allows talking about the typological similarity of the creative method of these authors. The main genre canons, declared in the musical tradition of E.T.A. Hoffmann, are preserved in the small prose of A.S. Grin, enriched by new solutions of the embodiment of musicality in the artistic space.

Constitutive attributes of a musical novel of E.T.A. Hoffmann is complemented by an individual-author's solution implying of the embodiment of musicality on the verbal, plot, and functional levels. A common feature of musical novels is a thematic attribute (a novel about a music or a musician), structural attribute (music organizes the compositional space of the text) and associative attribute (the expansion of space is achieved by a synthesis of related arts).

The verbal reading of music by different authors is achieved differently. The general musical content of the researched novels is the saturation of the artistic text with musical terms, plays, names of composers, diversity and detailed narration of the performance technique, but the synesthesia of arts as an artistic method is solved by each author in different ways.

E.T.A. Hoffmann actively uses the assessment of musical terminology, the dominant of which is something of poor quality, the failure of others to perceive and convey the harmonious beginning of the music. This conditions the ideological content of all the musical novels of the German romance: the clash of art and everyday life, the opposition of an artist and a philistine. Music is perceived as an absolute aesthetic category which can only be comprehended by a true artist.

A.S. Grin’s music is transmitted through the psychological upheaval of it by a character; music is not heard acoustically, but imagined, transmitted by means of other semiotic systems (verbal and cinematographic). The general perception of the musical world in the prose of A.S. Grin is an amazing world full of bliss and harmony, truth rising against evil, art leading to the transformation of inner human qualities.

Thus, the main difference of the musical novels of the authors under consideration is in the perception of music as the main aesthetic category.

For E.T.A. Hoffmann, music is the embodiment of the apollonistic beginning, the triumph of absolute harmony, beauty and perfection. The conflict is external: music and ordinariness. The creative beginning of music is manifested in the possibility of being happy, touching and feeling the beauty.

Music in A.S. Grin’s works carries a destructive start for the characters, being a catalyst for insight. We observe the internal conflict of the characters, their spiritual tragedy.

Thus, the evolution of musical motifs makes it possible to understand that the world attitude of the nineteenth-century romantics was brighter than the worldview of twentieth-century writers.

References

1. Beliy, A. (1994). Symbolism as a world outlook. Мoscow: Respublika.
2. Belza, I. F. (1982). The art world of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Мoscow: Nauka.
3. Berkwski, N. Ya. (2001). Romanticism in Germany. St. Petersburg: Azbuka-classika.
4. Grin, A. S. (1980). Coll. works: in 6 volumes, vol. 6. Мoscow: Pravda.
5. Hoffmann, E. T. A. (1994). Selected Works. in 3 volumes, vol. 1. Мoscow: Council of veterans of book publishing.
6. Kurdina, J. V. (2010). The history of foreign literature of the XIX century. Romanticism: study book. Мoscow: Flinta.
7. Maximova, O. L. (2004). A. Grin's prose: Music in the writer's artistic consciousness (Doctoral Dissertation). Vologda.
8. Mikhailov, L. A. (1980). Grin. Life. Person. Creations. Мoscow: Fine writing.
9. Mukarzhovsky, Ya. (1994). Studies on aesthetics and theory of art. Мoscow: Iskusstvo.
10. Sher, P. S. (1984). Einleitung: Literatur und Musik-Entwicklung und Stand der Forschung. In Literaturund Musik: Ein Handbuchzur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes. Berlin: E. Schmidt.
11. Wakenroder, V. G. (1979). Interesting musical life of the composer Joseph Berglinger". Selected prose of German romantics, in 2 volumes, vol. 1. Moscow: Pravda.