I found this fascinating Paul, I'm a fan of opera but I have come to suspect
that the idea of the form as a synthesis is somehow inadequate, Wagner
certainly subordinated literature and mythology to his musical ideas, though
I'm tormented by the relationship between the music of ideas and certainly
the relationship of musical cognition and its relation to the music of
verse. The sound of poetry is almost certainly a large part of the enjoyment
of poetry and may in fact be more important than what is actually said.
Film is fascinating as it has been largely influenced in the West with ideas
of narrative, and most certainly has developed a form of notation, cuts,
multiple contexts, echoes, leitmotifs even, certainly forms of pace and
repetition. All of which could be characterised as a form of syntax, but a
syntax that is largely determined by a kind of late 19thC story-telling.
Early Soviet cinema concentrated on montage, perhaps, and early German
cinema almost certainly on symbolism and late-Romantic painting, and then
quite spectacularly on Expressionism. Whether one could characterise this as
a grammar seems doubtful, it might be said that the most enchanting parts of
modern cinema is a kind of parataxis. Imagism in literature seems rather fey
in this context, but the power of an image continues to entrap people and I
greatly enjoy an process of "ideas" conveyed through imagery. A sonic image
is a powerful contrivance, and the music of imagery is a useful device for
the poet to call upon in driving or engineering an experience for the reader
to finish off. But the grammar of that experience is a user-defined outcome,
not a writer-defined outcome. A skilfully deployed image, or a skilfully
deployed sound continue to be at the heart of good poems. No matter how
vital the politics or message of the poem, so often it fails if the reader
is not corrupted by such devices -- I use that term carefully, as at heart
music and imagery are (or possibly should be) corrupting forces. Earnestness
is so often the death of art.
> Hi, interested to see that this talk of film has
> stimulated something. The grand synthesis of art in
> the 19th Century was Wagnerian opera, I think for
> obvious reasons, the Singspiele of Mozart lacked the
> over-arching seriousness of The Ring, with all the
> faults and limitations that seriousness carried with
> it. Any thoughts on synthesis out there? I think
> although the technological basis of film and poetry
> are obviously entirely different, they share a
> similarity in the ^syntax^ and ^grammar^ of the image,
> any thoughts? I know from a film studies point of
> view this subject has been explored, but, only, I
> think in cursory ways.
> ciao-ciao,
> Paul Murphy
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