The University of Chicago Notes Taking Sides: Social
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO NOTES TAKING SIDES: SOCIAL AND AESTHETIC MEANINGS OF MUSIC IN THE NOVEL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES BY VEERLE DIERICKX CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2020 COPYRIGHT 2020 VEERLE DIERICKX For August TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. vi ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 . MUSIC AND LITERATURE ........................................................................................................ I . WAGNERISM ........................................................................................................................... J . MUSIC AND THE NOVEL ......................................................................................................... L . APPROACH ............................................................................................................................ HJ . CHAPTER OUTLINE ................................................................................................................ HN CHAPTER II: THE FIGURE OF THE COMPOSER .................................................................. 27 . FROM PAINTER TO COMPOSER: THE ARTIST NOVEL ............................................................. KH . THE ROMAN FLEUVE .............................................................................................................. JH . THE METAPHOR OF THE RIVER ............................................................................................. JM . MUSICAL BORDERS .............................................................................................................. JP GERMAN MUSIC ..................................................................................................... 48 FRENCH MUSIC ...................................................................................................... 57 . JEAN-CHRISTOPHE’S MUSIC: A UNIFYING FORCE ................................................................ VL . DESCRIBING MUSIC ............................................................................................................... LK CHAPTER III: LISTENING AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE ........................................................... 82 . A VERSATILE AUTHOR ......................................................................................................... PJ . MUSIC-POETRY VS. MUSIC-NOVEL ...................................................................................... PV . MUSIC AND LE MONDE RÉEL ................................................................................................. NI . “LA MUSIQUE, C’EST L’ART IDEAL” ...................................................................................... NM . PRIVATE DISTRACTION VS. SOCIAL AFFINITY ...................................................................... HHI . VEHICLES OF ARAGON’S MESSAGE ..................................................................................... HIV CHAPTER IV: MUSIC AS A FORMAL MODEL ................................................................... 130 . INSIDE “L’ECOLE DU REFUS:” “L’ECOLE DU REGARD” VS. “L’ECOLE DE L’ECOUTE” ........... HKI . “MUSIC IS NECESSARY” ....................................................................................................... HKN . TUNE IN TO A SONATINA ..................................................................................................... HJV . THE OPEN WORK ................................................................................................................ HMN . “L’ÉCOLE DE L’INTERPRÈTE” .............................................................................................. HVL . CINEMATIC INTERPRETATION OF THE SCORE ........................................................................ HLH . THE AESTHETICS OF INTERMEDIALITY ................................................................................ HLN EPILOGUE ................................................................................................................................. 182 APPENDIX A: COMMENTS ON MUSICAL SCORES IN JEAN-CHRISTOPHE ................. 190 APPENDIX B: DIABELLI SCORES IN THE MODERATO CANTABILE NOVEL ............... 198 iv APPENDIX C: DIABELLI SCORES IN THE MODERATO CANTABILE FILM ................... 202 APPENDIX D: MUSICAL WORKS CITED ............................................................................. 208 . MUSICAL WORKS MENTIONED IN LITERARY WORKS ........................................................ I[P . OTHER MUSICAL WORKS CITED ........................................................................................ I[P BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 210 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and above all I would like to thank Alison James, not only for her dedicated teaching which led me to the inspiration behind this dissertation, but also for her invaluable input and constant guidance as my dissertation chair and throughout my academic career. She taught me that the pleasure of writing resides in nuances and subtleties expressed by an open mind; and that working across the arts requires this form of openness. I am also indebted to the support of my other esteemed committee members, Berthold Hoeckner, Robert Morrissey and Alexander Roose, for their insightful readings and observations of my work as well as their probing questions. Berthold Hoeckner’s musicological insights, in particular, were indispensable for the interdisciplinary nature of this project, for which I am very grateful. I would also like to thank professors outside my committee who shared their knowledge and experience: Daisy Delogu, Philippe Desan, Larry Norman, Thomas Pavel and Justin Steinberg from the University of Chicago, Françoise Gaillard and Sylvain Menant from the University of Paris and Sorbonne University, and Pierre Schoentjes from Ghent University. I also greatly appreciate the friendship and advice I have received from many of my wonderful colleagues, particularly Chiara, Elizabeth, Fay, Linsey, Mar, Monica and Rebecca. A very special thanks goes to Martina Munsters, former Dean of Students, whose careful attention to the students’ wellbeing helped me balance scholarly performance and motherhood. Finally, my love and gratitude go to my family: my son, August, for his patience and curiosity; my parents, Griet and Erwin, for their unwavering support which made the completion of this project possible; and all my friends near and far, whose encouragement and cheer often kept me going. I also thank my grandmother, Cécile, whose wisdom is always an inspiration. vi ABSTRACT This dissertation studies the role of music in the twentieth-century French novel. It identifies a tension between Western classical music as a model of (social or aesthetic) harmony and the idea of notes taking sides. Novels take sides in debates about music and aesthetics, or explore the contested meanings of music in social/political contexts. I argue that music, as a social phenomenon, allows Romain Rolland (in Jean-Christophe [1904-1912]), Louis Aragon (in Les voyageurs de l’impériale [1942]) and Marguerite Duras (in Moderato cantabile [1958]) to deal with a whole host of social, cultural and political issues, as well as to seek new approaches to the novel at different moments in history. Each writer adopts a particular perspective on music as a site of both harmony and conflict: through the figure of the composer (Rolland), the character of the listener (Aragon), and through music as a formal model (Duras). Via a fictional composer, Rolland theorizes a music that can cross national boundaries, within a novel that—inspired by Wagner’s music—challenges the representational conventions of 19th-century naturalism. Aragon combines a realist representation of the social meanings of music and musical taste, with a social(ist) denunciation of bourgeois decadence and capitalism. While also depicting music’s entanglements with social class, Duras’ Moderato cantabile draws on two overlapping models of music that reflect the writer’s distinctive position within 1950s experimental literature. My study reveals a progressive shift away from the political potential of music toward an individual quest for transcendence—a tendency that will be continued in contemporary musical novels. vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION In Louis Aragon’s Les voyageurs de l’impériale (1942), the protagonist, named Pierre Mercadier, affirms that music is the ideal art form, harmonious and impartial: “La musique, c’est l’art idéal, on met dedans ce qu’on veut. Les notes ne prennent pas parti, tout s’y résout dans l’harmonie.” While Aragon’s character is expressing a widespread idea, I argue that the musical experience is not per se disinterested or unbiased. As I will show, there is a tension in the twentieth-century French novel between music as a model of (social or aesthetic) harmony and the idea of notes taking sides. For instance, novels take sides in debates about music, or use music to take sides in broader aesthetic debates, or show how musical notes take on