The ekphrasis dates back to Antiquity and is firmly established as a concept in literary criticism. In 1994 W. J. T. Mitchell outlined the modern interpretation of ekphrasis as the ‘verbal representation of visual representation’. This article discusses a similar intermedial occurrence that is largely overlooked in literary theory: melophrasis, which could be defined as the ‘verbal representation of musical representation’. Using the main arguments of ekphrasis theory, the article engages in a critical dialogue with existing word and music research by Werner Wolf in particular. Instead of focusing on the mediality and formality of music in literature, this article is interested in the reading experience: the musicality evoked by melophrases. The purpose is to propose an analytical framework for literary scholars, and the article thus suggests two broad melophrastic categories inspired by film music theory and narratology: diegetic (the level of the plot/characters) and non‐diegetic (the level of the text/reader). This is demonstrated in two canonical works: a diegetic melophrasis that is the Vinteuil Sonata in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (1913–1927), and the non‐diegetic fugue chapter ‘Sirens’ in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). The article argues that melophrases create aesthetic intermedial reading experiences with a significant musical quality: a feeling of hearing.
Literary descriptions of music are – of course – pure fi ction. However, such narratives are also windows into the phenomenological and sociological workings of music in modern society. Many novels share detailed descriptions of music in their fi ctional worlds, and this article examines what two contemporary novels reveal about modern-day music listening as both a cultural and private practice. The article will analyse the nature of ‘listening spaces’ represented in A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010) and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2005). Both novels have been published within the fi rst decade of the 21st century and describe Western popular music. Music experienced by fi ctional characters can be valuable empirical data, because novels represent different listening situations varied by geography, epochs and genres, and they depict characters with different demographics, lives and musical/cultural backgrounds. This enables scholars to collect and compare multi-faceted datasets. The aim of this article is to use literary descriptions to ask qualifi ed questions about sociological and phenomenological aspects of contemporary music listening practices. The analysis will focus on the atmosphere of listening (Böhme, 2017) – and especially the fi ctional listeners’ bodily presence in musical spaces – in dialogue with sociological studies of music listening by especially Tia DeNora (2000), David Hesmondhalgh (2013) and Even Ruud (2013). The analysis indicates how fi ction articulates a connection between music, body (in space and place) and mind (emotions, temporality and memory).
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