The Musicality of The Merchant of Venice

摘要

This article focuses on The Merchant of Venice in relation to medieval traditions of musical thought. It argues that the play is not primarily concerned with the imitation of specific musical forms, but rather with the idea of music as non-referential discourse that addresses the limitations of representation and offers a vantage point from which to examine the play's discourse on materiality. It goes back to ideas of harmony and mathematical proportion in early medieval theories of music in order to analyse the tension between the corporeal and the immaterial as it emerges in the play. It discusses the musicality of language, the play's symmetrical as well as contrastive patterns of movement and sound as well as its musical semantics in which the process of evoking and discarding significance challenges any view of an immutable harmony.View full textDownload full textKeywordsmusic, medieval, immaterial, representationRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2012.731705