Fixing a fleeting world: A study of the auditory imagination in Valery and Stevens.
Item
-
Title
-
Fixing a fleeting world: A study of the auditory imagination in Valery and Stevens.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9130318
-
identifier
-
9130318
-
Creator
-
Goldfarb, Lisa Nan.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Mary Ann Caws
-
Date
-
1991
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, Comparative | Literature, Modern | Music
-
Abstract
-
Both Paul Valery and Wallace Stevens long to arrest the fleeting world. In order to write poetry that offers respite from the relentless movement and change of the world, Valery insists that the poet must create a language totally distinct from discursive language. To create such a poetic language, he sets out to musicalize poetry. Stevens embarks on no such self-conscious musical program; however, in this discussions of how the poet uses sound to create a sense of truth, he focuses on exactly those elements of poetry upon which Valery bases his musical endeavor: on the preeminence of sound over meaning in poetry and on the irrational component of poetic language and understanding. In Stevens' metaphoric suggestion that the poet transform verbal into non-verbal language--"into words of exquisite appositeness that take away all their verbality"--he verges on defining a "musicalization" of poetry and calls forth Valery's lifelong project.;For a grasp of Valery's theoretical understanding of music, in the first chapter I examine his prose. Chapter two is a close reading of the much-neglected poem "Profusion du soir." This poem, perhaps more than any other, illustrates how Valery transposes musical meaning to a poetic context. The reading elucidates the relationship between Valery's theory and practice, and shows how he depends on musical ideas and structures to trace the movement of the poetic speaker's mind. By way of essays in The Necessary Angel and Opus Posthumous, the third chapter highlights the similarities in Stevens' and Valery's philosophic views, and gives particular attention to how Stevens uses language reminiscent of Valery's. Chapter four examines Stevens' reflections about music and focuses on how his ideas recall Valery's analyses of the relationship between the two arts. The dissertation closes with a close reading of "Credences of Summer" that illustrates how Stevens' musical method urges our belief in a paradoxical truth: that there is a permanence to be found in our passing experience of the world.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
