Jean Delville, Orphée mort (1893)
The thematic line Music and Literature (LML) promotes advanced studies in four areas: Music and Literature, Literature in Music, Music in Literature and Musicality in Literature. Its main focus is on the literary and musical analysis of classical song and instrumental music associated with literary and mythical themes, discerning the specificity of the relationship between words and music in the work in question, as well as its philosophical, theoretical, aesthetic and symbolic presuppositions. LML also investigates phenomena of intermediality (Music and Literature in Cinema) and intertextuality (Music, Literature/Mythology and Painting). Its thematic field covers issues in the fields of philosophy, theory and performance (aesthetics, hermeneutics, rhetoric, poetics, analytical methodologies). The aim of contributing to the recovery of the linguistic richness of the Humanities encourages the study of works conceived in different languages (Latin, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, among others). This thematic line covers topics which are common in Literature and Music from European cultures, while also welcoming intercultural approaches that are relevant to the case in question.
The LML is an informal network of researchers from CESEM (FCSH-NOVA), IELT (FCSH-NOVA) and CEC (FLUL), as well as other external collaborators, converging on specific projects.
Objectives:
- To provide advanced studies in musicology and literature, stimulating meetings between academics interested in phenomena of intertextuality and intermediality in these areas.
- To discern the functions and extent of concepts shared by Literature and Music throughout history, highlighting the specificity of the thinking that underpins them in a geo-cultural movement.
- To promote advanced studies on vocal music performance (song, Lied, mélodie, etc.), which takes into account the aesthetic, theoretical and symbolic levels of the work in question, as well as the temporal and expressive implications of language pronunciation itself in vocal music.
The field of interaction between music and words will take into account the following aspects:
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thinking about music and literature;
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levels of interaction and of tension between words and music in vocal pieces;
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musicality in poetry, poetic prose and narrative devices;
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levels and modes of appropriation, adoption, adaptation or distortion of literary references in musical works and vice versa;
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intertextual relationships and constructions of aesthetic meaning in poetic-musical works;
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understanding the dynamics that shape the cultural and institutional spaces where the arts involved are received.
This thematic line has a partnership with the Center for Comparative Studies – Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon (CEC/FLUL).