Borrowed Forms: The Music and Ethics of Transnational FictionBorrowed Forms examines the use of music by contemporary novelists and critics from across the Francophone, Anglophone, and Hispanophone worlds. Through readings of Nancy Huston, Maryse Condé, J. M. Coetzee, Assia Djebar, Julio Cortázar, and other late twentieth-century novelists, the book shows how writers deploy musical strategies to expand the possibilities of the novel in response to the demands of transnational citizenship. The book transcends disciplinary boundaries, to reveal the entanglement of musical and narrative forms in ethical, historical, and political questions. Critics from Mikhail Bakhtin to Edward Said established musical forms as an indispensable framework for understanding the novel. This study argues that the turn to music in late twentieth century fiction is linked to new questions of authority and representation, as writers seek to democratize the novel, to bring marginalized voices into fiction, to articulate increasingly hybrid subjectivities, and to negotiate the conflicting histories of the diverse groups that make up today's multicultural societies. The book traces the influence of four musical concepts on theory and the contemporary novel: polyphony, or the art of combining multiple, equal voices; counterpoint, the carefully regulated setting of one voice against another; variations, the virtuosic exploration of a given theme; and opera, the dramatic setting of a story to a musical score. Borrowed Forms is both a vital reference for all those seeking to understand the influence of music on 20th-century literary theory, and a rigorous and interdisciplinary framework for considering the transnational novel. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic African Algerian approach argues attention audience Bach’s Bakhtin Baroque becomes body brings calls Caribbean chapter characters claims classical Coetzee Coetzee’s comes complex concert Condé consider contemporary context contrapuntal contrast counterpoint critics cultural discussion Disgrace Djebar engagement English ethical experience expression fact fiction final forms French give Gould human Huston idea imagination important instance interest language later Les variations lines listener literary literature live Lurie mangrove means movement multiple musical forms narrative narrator notes notion novel nuits offers opening opera original particularly performance play political polyphony position possible postcolonial present produced provides question reader reading recalls recording refers reflects relation relationship remains represents response role sense silence social sound South space speak stage story Strasbourg structure suggests term thoughts throughout tradition transnational turn understanding University voice women writing