Spring 2008

Professor John Hamilton

G29.2600/G51.2600

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO LITERATURE

GERMAN MUSIC AND LETTERS

TUES. 3:30 – 6:10

19 University Place, Rm. 224

This seminar examines the history of music and music theory in specific relation to German literature, philosophy, and criticism. Particular focus is given to the employment of music as a privileged metaphor in literary projects as well as music’s distance from and appropriation of verbal and linguistic structures. Session topics include: theories of the harmony of the spheres; synaesthesia, Romanticism and Universalpoesie; Wagner, tragedy and the Gesamtkunstwerk; absolute music and the tone-poem; secularization and the rise of chromatization; the semiotics of music; and music and psychoanalysis. Historical and cultural contexts will be presented as a number of predominant theoretical questions are developed, including but not limited to the following: the presumed immediacy or singularity of musical expression versus the mediation or abstraction of verbal language; the relation of tonal language and text; the reciprocal, philosophical critique of music and poetry; the “literalization” of music; patriotism, nationalism, and racism. The course ends with a close reading of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, a novel that is profoundly critical of, while being thoroughly informed by, the tradition outlined here.

Required Books

· Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus, trans. J. Woods (Vintage, 1999)

· Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, ed. R. Geuss and R. Speirs (Cambridge, 1999)

· Carl Dahlhaus, The Idea of Absolute Music, trans. R. Lustig (Chicago, 1991)

· Theodor Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music, trans. A. Mitchell and W. Blomster (Continuum, 2003)

· Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia, trans. A. Nassar (Stanford, 2000)

All other readings will be available as a pdf. file posted on Blackboard (marked *B in the syllabus). Musical examples are from the Naxos online library (marked *N in the syllabus), available through home.nyu.edu

Tentative Reading Schedule

I. Novalis, “Monolog” (*B)

Hegel, Lectures on Aesthetics, excerpts (*B)

Ernst Bloch, “Dream,” from The Spirit of Utopia

II. Schoenberg, “The Relationship to the Text” (*B)

————. Forward to Pierrot Lunaire (*B)

————. Pierrot Lunaire, musical selections (*N)

Adorno, “Music, Language, and Composition” (*B)

Dahlhaus, “Absolute Music as an Esthetic Paradigm,” Idea of Absolute Music

Benjamin, “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” (*B)

III. Plato, Republic, 398c – 400c; 613e – 621d (*B)

Kircher, Musurgia Universalis, excerpts (*B)

Fludd, Historia utriusque cosmi, selected engravings (*B)

Schütz, Cantiones Sacrae, musical selections (*N)

Bach, Mass in B minor, musical selections (*N)

Wackenroder-Tieck, “The Marvels of Musical Art,” Phantasien über die Kunst (*B)

IV. Schubart, “Concerning Musical Genius” (*B)

Sulzer, “Expression in Music,” (*B)

Kant, Critique of Judgment, §§51-53 (*B)

Hegel, Aesthetics, excerpt (*B)

Dahlhaus, Idea of Absolute Music, pp. 18 – 57

V. Wackenroder-Tieck, The Berglinger novella, Outpourings of an Art-Loving Friar, (*B)

Moritz, Andreas Hartknopf, excerpt (*B)

Jean Paul, Vorschule der Ästhetik, excerpt (*B)

Herder, “Music, an Art of Humanity” (*B)

Dahlhaus, Idea of Absolute Music, pp. 58 – 87

VI. Hoffmann, “Der Ritter Gluck” (*B)

————. “Rat Krespel” (*B)

————. “The Fermata: On the Significance of an Interrupted Cadence” (*B)

————. “Beethoven’s Instrumental Music” (*B)

VII. Kleist, “St. Cecilia, or The Power of Music” (*B)

————. Correspondence, selections (*B)

Herder, “Caecilia” (*B)

Schumann, “A Monument to Beethoven” (*B)

Goethe-Lieder, selections from Schubert and Schumann (*N)

VIII. Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, § 52 (*B)

Hanslick, On the Musically Beautiful, excerpt (*B)

Wagner, “Beethoven” (*B)

Dahlhaus, Idea of Absolute Music, pp. 88 – 156

T. Mann, Buddenbrooks, excerpt (*B)

IX. Wagner, “The Greek Ideal” (*B)

————. “The Artwork of the Future” (*B)

Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, chap. 1 - 15

X. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, chap. 16 – 25

————. The Case of Wagner, excerpts (*B)

T. Mann, “Tristan” (*B)

XI. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Letter to Richard Strauss (*B)

Bloch, “An Old Pitcher,” “The Production of the Ornament,” Spirit of Utopia

————. “The Philosophy of Music,” Spirit of Utopia

XII. T. Mann, Doktor Faustus, chap. 1 -13

Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music, pp. 3 - 28

Beethoven, Opus 111, musical selection (*N)

XIII. Doktor Faustus, chap. 14 - 24

Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music, pp. 29 – 133

Schoenberg, “Twelve-Tone Composition” (*B)

XIV. Doktor Faustus, chap. 15 – Epilogue

R. Strauss, “Ah! Du wolltest mich nicht deinen Mund küssen lassen, Jokanaan!” Salome, musical selection (*N)