Durham E-Theses Music and the word in the works of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce Hall, Julian How to cite: Hall, Julian (2004) Music and the word in the works of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3737/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk MUSIC AND THE WORD IN THE WORKS OF T.S. ELIOT AND JAMES JOYCE A copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. A thesis submitted in 2004 for the degree of PhD at the Department of English Studies, University of Durham. By J ulian Hall Abstract for Music and the word in the works of T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, a thesis submitted for the degree of PhD at the University of Durham, Department of English Studies, in 2004, by J ulian Hall. This thesis describes primarily the influence of music on the works ofT.S. Eliot and James Joyce. This is undertaken in four chapters, framed by an introduction and conclusion. The place that music had in the lives and artistic convictions of Eliot and Joyce is discussed initially, together with the aesthetic background to the period during which these authors worked, with reference to the ways it encouraged artists generally to think across disciplines. The changing beliefs and conventions of Modernism are particularly important in this respect. Selected works by Eliot and Joyce are then examined for the effect that musical sound and musical structures had on their composition. Following this, more specific analogies are drawn between particular composers and pieces of music, and significant texts by Eliot and Joyce. The extent to which analogy is possible, or even desirable, is also considered. Some assessment is made of the critical background to both the structural and analogical aspects of musical influence. Finally, a representative survey of some musical settings of work by Eliot and Joyce is offered in an attempt to show how the exchange ofideas between the two disciplines is bi-directional. An audio tape has been appended in order to further the reader's appreciation of particular examples under discussion. Contents Statement of Copyright 3 Acknowledgements 4 Notes on the text 5 Prelude 6 Aesthetic and Biographical backgrounds 10 Music in the lives of Eliot and Joyce 10 Eliot and musical aesthetics 15 The wider aesthetic background 26 Myth 41 Conclusion 43 Sounds and Structures 44 Sounds and effects: Joyce 44 Sounds and effects: Eliot 57 Musical structures: 63 Eliot 64 Joyce 78 The case for analogies 99 Eliot and Beethoven 99 Eliot and Bartok 115 Non-Western analogues 130 Joyce and musical analogues 140 Ives and Wagner 150 Joyce, Sterne and C.P.E. Bach 153 Settings ofEliot and Joyce 163 Eliot and Britten 163 Eliot and Stravinsky 172 Other settings of Four Quartets 178 Minor poems and The Rock 182 Settings of Joyce's Chamber Music 187 The Joyce Book 195 Settings of major Joyce texts 197 Joyce, Schoeck and Antheil 206 Conclusion 208 Cod a 211 Musical Examples 214 Bibliography 215 Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without their prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. © Julian Hall 2004 3 Acknowledgements Appreciative thanks are due to Professor David Fuller, who has been such a dependable guide and oracle throughout the progress of this thesis. Thanks must also go to Professor Pat Waugh for stepping in at a late stage as supervisor. I am eternally grateful to my parents, who have provided material and intellectual support at all times. My father deserves special mention for his thorough proof reading. I would also like to say thank you to Alastair Lovett for the many enlightening conversations, and to Ji hyun for waiting for this moment. January 2004. 4 Notes on the text Editions used for references to primary texts are given within each chapter. Works which are cited more than once, are given a key word for use after the first full reference. For convenience, if the same work is referred to in a subsequent chapter, the key word is re-introduced after the full reference. Details of the timings of the recorded musical examples are to be found on the page immediately before the bibliography, and details of the recordings used are placed in the bibliography itself. 5 PRELUDE Prior to the Age of Enlightenment, literature and music had, for centuries, enjoyed a close relationship and were in many ways inter-related. Following their division into separate arts, away from folk epic and minstrelsy which had melded them into a single entity, the two disciplines continued to influence each other, enjoying particularly fruitful periods, such as the Elizabethan age. Increasing specialisation in the arts has, however, brought about the growing isolation of music and literature, a condition which has never been felt as acutely as at the present time. With the arrival of the Modernist movement in the early years ofthe twentieth­ century, this separation was, in many respects, temporarily forgotten. Such was the dynamism of the age that all the arts were forced to reconsider their methodologies, opening the possibilities for collisions of thought and procedure between them. The years 1908 to 1922 were the epicentre of the seismic age of Modernism and a period of intense activity and change in both literature and music. In the history of European and American culture it is hard to find another time, of similarly short duration, when so much creative innovation occurred simultaneously in both of these arts. There is a lengthy list of well-known names- Eliot, Joyce, Pound, Woolf; Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Bartok - and besides these the period also gave birth to a considerable range of new techniques and movements - imagism, stream of consciousness, Dadaism, atonality, serialism and so on, some ofwhich continue to be relevant in the present day. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the influences of music on Eliot and Joyce, and in doing so to discover to what extent the new techniques of musical language being developed have a literary counterpart. It is hoped to expose some of the common ground that was occupied by music and verbal forms during the time that each was subjected to unprecedented experimentation. Besides charting the effects of music, both contemporary and past, on Eliot and Joyce, I shall also attempt to show the influence these writers had on composers closer to the present day. By examining some musical settings of each writer, it is possible to view the scope and progress of their respective outputs from a different angle, i.e. that of a musician's response to their words and structures. 6 The reasons for selecting Eliot and Joyce are as obvious as they are elusive. Both were radical Modernists and represent, at different stages in their lives, extremes of experimentation in poetry and prose respectively, during a period whose aesthetics lent themselves well to interdisciplinary thought and practice. Each developed their interest in the musical aspects of literary composition beyond the confines of the Modernist period, Eliot into the 1930's and 1940's with The Rock, Four Quartets and his plays, Joyce with Finnegans Wake. Both are often contradictory or evasive with regard to their own musical tastes, scattering behind them clues which are endlessly tantalising to the scholar concerning their listening habits and abilities. Besides their direct connections with music, Eliot and Joyce are both writers for whom the barriers of language invite transgression. Revolutionaries in their attitudes to language, they attempt to extend its aesthetic, semantic and even phonological boundaries, and in doing so build structures which demand analogy with another medium. One could say that, in the absence of any knowledge of their musical interests, both writers create works which are musical by default, as there is no other paradigm more suitable for companson. § With two such seminal and, in Eliot's case, prolific, authors some limits must be drawn as to the scope of the enquiry. Clearly, most of Eliot's poetic output is relevant in some way to music but discussion will be chiefly ofThe Waste Land and Four Quartets, with some mention of earlier poems for their direct allusions to music or their structure. Of Eliot's plays, Murder in the Cathedral and The Family Reunion are the best examples of drama made from words alone, which are comparable with the perfonnance of music. Eliot's prose will be invoked when required to substantiate ideas, opinions or speculation regarding his use of music, yet this aspect of his work yields no easy clues to the musical provenance ofhis poetic structures. In Joyce's case the focus is narrower.