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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Musical Novel: Imitation of Musical Structure, Performance, and Reception in Contemporary Fiction

The Musical Novel: Imitation of Musical Structure, Performance, and Reception in Contemporary Fiction

Petermann, Emily

Paperback

Series: European Studies in North American Literature and Culture, Book 18

Literary CriticismClassical MusicJazz

ISBN10: 1640140271
ISBN13: 9781640140271
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc
Published: Mar 1 2018
Pages: 250
Weight: 0.82
Height: 0.57 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
WINNER: 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award

Analyzes two groups of musical novels -- novels that take music as a model for their construction -- including jazz novels by Toni Morrison and Michael Ondaatje, and novels based on Bach's Goldberg Variations.

What is a musical novel? This book defines the genre as musical not primarily in terms of its content, but in its form. The musical novel crosses medial boundaries, aspiring to techniques, structures, and impressions similar tothose of music. It takes music as a model for its own construction, borrowing techniques and forms that range from immediately perceptible, essential aspects of music (rhythm, timbre, the simultaneity of multiple voices) to microstructural (jazz riffs, call and response, leitmotifs) and macrostructural elements (themes and variations, symphonies, albums). The musical novel also evokes the performance context by imitating elements of spontaneity that characterize improvised jazz or audience interaction.

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