CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE MONOGRAPH ISSUE DEDICATED TO LITERATURE AND MUSIC

2024-11-26

The Boletín de la Biblioteca de Menéndez Pelayo plans to dedicate a special issue to the relations between Literature and Music. The coordinator of the special issue is Javier San José Lera

 

The inter-artistic relations between these two disciplines must be explored to establish a form of comparatism that enriches the view of literary texts. Intermediality acts as an extreme form of intertextuality that conceives texts as semiotic complexes that overflow the boundaries of their own languages. It is therefore a form of provocation to question and surpass –and at the same time enrich– the closed spaces of our disciplines and reflect on the usual limits of our philological studies, which must necessarily be open to multiple considerations to access with a renewed view, the complex contextual framework that weaves the texts of the culture of an era and constructs its meanings. It is the concept of "dynamic hermeneutics" that George Steiner applied to his comparative study of the Antigones. To energize meanings and complete contexts seems sufficient justification to delve deeper into this world of musical-literary relationships.

 

While studies on Image and Literature have proliferated (from Horatian ut pictura poiesis, read and interpreted out of context), in a classical version in studies on Iconography and in a modern version in studies on Literature and Cinema, the study of the relationships between Music and Literature has not been favored in the same way. The desire to “remusicalize” cultural studies applied to literature motivates this extraordinary issue of the journal.

 

To this end, studies are proposed that explore the paths of relationship in different directions, both in relation to what Paul Scher called Music and Literature, that is, the investigation into literary texts in which both media enjoy balanced dimensions (in vocal music, opera, theatre), and in those that define –also in Paul Scher's terminology– Music in Literature, that is, those that make music the textual centre of reference for the poem, the narrative, the drama or the construction of a poetics.

 

From these general approaches, a call is made for the presentation of works that include (but without an exclusive sense) themes related to:

 

  • Literature in Music
    • Relationships between writers and musicians
    • Musical compositions on a literary basis
  • Music and Literature. Relationships between text and music
    • Vocal music: song, chanson, lied
    • Opera, musical theatre, ballet: relationships with literary texts
    • Music in theatre
  • Music in Literature
    • Poetry and music: sounds and structures
    • Narration and music: music as a model for narration
    • Music as an object of literary reflection
    • Music in literary history

 

Original works must conform to the length and style standards established by the BBMP and be sent through its platform, to be subjected to the peer review process.

 

Deadline for submission: from December 1, 2024 to May 30, 2025.