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The (Proto-)Modernist Subject in Time: Fugue and the Fourth

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The (Proto-)Modernist Subject in Time: Fugue and the Fourth The (Proto-)Modernist Subject in Time: Fugue and the Fourth Dimension by Antonio Gordon Viselli A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto © Copyright by Antonio Gordon Viselli 2014 The (Proto-)Modernist Subject in Time: Fugue and the Fourth Dimension Antonio Gordon Viselli Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto 2014 Abstract In such curiously compelling historical proximity, French symbolist poets and European modernist writers experimented with a particular musical form in literature: fugue, a musical style that reaches its height in the Baroque period, with the composition of Bach’s unfinished work, Die Kunst der Fuge. This dissertation analyzes the peculiar melopoetics of fugal writing in fin-de-siècle poets as well as in their modernist counterparts, who write in French, English and Italian. On a formal level, this project demonstrates how – within an intermedial methodological framework – fugue functions as a hybrid, experimental narrative, in its representation of polyphony and counterpoint, as well as both a horizontal and – a nearly impossible feat within linear narrative – vertical simultaneity in literature. Above and beyond the manner in which a fugal poetics manifests itself in the works of Verlaine, Mallarmé, Joyce, Pound, Gide and Vittorini, the fugue – defined, in part, as the variations of a single subject in time and space – becomes a vessel for authors to represent a fragmented modern subjectivity, and a crisis of language and communication, at a specific historical juncture, and within diverse aesthetic and political contexts. The enigmatic and resistant fugal form not only subverts language in these authors’ works – by colliding two distinct semiotic media, in which only one is mimetic –, thus creating a reading experience of “hostipitality” (Derrida), but it also performs the desire for wholeness, by deconstructing the ‘subject’ – with all of its polysemic ambiguity – in relation to the self, to objects, and to alterity. Finally, fugue’s interdisciplinarity goes beyond breaching the gap between music and literature, and comes into dialogue with the distinct notions of four- dimensionality, from relativity theory to non-Euclidean geometry. ii Acknowledgements The fugue always exceeds itself in some way, shape or form; it wanders, diverts and fragments itself. In a project that seeks to contain the uncontained, I have had tremendous support from numerous individuals, whose guidance has facilitated the interweaving of a fugal poetics’ many braids, in an attempt to reach coherence and harmony. I would like to sincerely thank the Centre for Comparative Literature for its support, and most importantly, my supervisors and committee: Professors Roland Le Huenen, Ming Xie, and Luca Somigli, for their encouragement, pertinent observations and intriguing questions, as well as their availability at some of the busiest times in the academic year. This dissertation would not have come to term in a timely manner without their dedication and disposal. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Professors Frédérique Arroyas, Eva-Lynn Jagoe, and Julie LeBlanc for their excellent comments, questions and suggestions during the doctoral defense. Among the many friends, colleagues and professors who have helped shape this project in some shape or form, I would like to recognize the late Professor Françoise Haffner for the enthusiastic dedication to French poetry that she inspired within me. My gratitude extends to Dr. Brendon Wocke as well, not only for the proofreading and comments he provided, but also for the fruitful discussions we shared: productive exchanges and collaborations that, I have come to believe, are the basis of our teaching and research in the Humanities. I am extremely grateful to my family for their unwavering support and inspiration: to my parents, Sante and Patricia Viselli, for having instilled within me a passion for languages, literature, art, and travelling; to my grandmother, Jean Hally, for her constant encouragement; to my wife, Maria, my metronome, mantra, and muse; and to my daughter, Valentina, the counterpoint to a fleeting poetics, who inspired the completion of a project that resists finitude. iii Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii Prologue as Prelude: Fugue is in the Air ................................................................................. viii Chapter 1 The Melopoetics of Fugue .......................................................................................... 1 1 On Musico-Literary Poetics ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Fugue: History, Form and Variation ................................................................................... 6 2 Towards a Definition of Fugue in Literature ........................................................................... 12 2.1 Polyphony and Counterpoint ............................................................................................ 14 3 Why Orchestrate a Literary Fugue? ......................................................................................... 26 3.1 The Fleeting Subject ......................................................................................................... 27 3.2 The Subject in Time and Space ........................................................................................ 30 3.3 The Fourth Dimension ...................................................................................................... 34 4 Enigmatic Fugues and their Readership ................................................................................... 42 Chapter 2 Symbolism and the Fugal Poetics of Verlaine and Mallarmé ............................... 50 1 “Vêtir l’Idée d’une forme sensible”: Defining Suggestiveness and the Contours of the Symbol ................................................................................................................................... 50 1.1 The History of Symbolism and of the Symbol ................................................................. 56 1.2 A Symbolist Movement A Posteriori: from Music to Language ...................................... 60 1.3 Towards a Definition of the Symbol ................................................................................. 63 2 The Vacuity of Language, Subjectivity and the Problem of Communication ......................... 66 2.1 Symbolist Subjectivity ...................................................................................................... 68 2.2 Schopenhauer .................................................................................................................... 70 2.3 Bergson ............................................................................................................................. 72 2.4 Music and the Symbolist Movement ................................................................................ 75 3 Verlaine and the Fugal Poetics of Romances sans paroles ...................................................... 79 3.1 Language amidst Fugues and Arias .................................................................................. 83 3.2 The Linguistic Fugal Breakdown: “Ariette III” ................................................................ 88 3.3 Subjectivity and Alterity: the Question of the Receiver ................................................... 93 3.4 “Ariette III,” Fugue and the Destruction of Language ..................................................... 95 3.5 Four-dimensionality .......................................................................................................... 99 4 Mallarmé ................................................................................................................................ 101 iv 4.1 Mallarmé and le Néant .................................................................................................... 103 4.2 A Summary of “L’Après-midi d’un faune” .................................................................... 107 4.3 The Fugal Poetics of “L’Après-midi d’un faune” ........................................................... 109 4.4 Variations on the Subject of Absence ............................................................................. 112 5.0. From Symbolist to Modernist Fugal Poetics ....................................................................... 117 Chapter 3 The Anglo-Modernist Novel and Long Poem: Fugue in James Joyce's Ulysses and Ezra Pound's The Cantos ........................................................................................... 121 1 A Hermeneutics of Hospitality ............................................................................................... 121 1.1 Joyce and Music, Music and Ulysses .............................................................................. 125 1.2 (Un)Weaving Counterpoint: Penelope and (In)Fidelity ................................................. 128 1.3 Joyce’s Fuga per canonem vs. The Critics ..................................................................... 132 1.4 Re-re-opening the Mystery of Fugue in “Sirens”
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