The Rhythm of Thought: Art, Literature, and Music after Merleau-Ponty
Jessica Wiskus
Abstract
Between present and past, visible and invisible, and sensation and idea, there is resonance—so philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued and so this book explores. Holding the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, the paintings of Paul Cézanne, the prose of Marcel Proust, and the music of Claude Debussy under Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological light, it offers interpretations of some of these artists’ masterworks, in turn articulating a new perspective on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. More than merely recovering Merleau-Ponty’s thought, the text thinks according to it. First examining these artists in relat ... More
Between present and past, visible and invisible, and sensation and idea, there is resonance—so philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued and so this book explores. Holding the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, the paintings of Paul Cézanne, the prose of Marcel Proust, and the music of Claude Debussy under Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological light, it offers interpretations of some of these artists’ masterworks, in turn articulating a new perspective on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. More than merely recovering Merleau-Ponty’s thought, the text thinks according to it. First examining these artists in relation to noncoincidence—as silence in poetry, depth in painting, memory in literature, and rhythm in music—it moves through an array of their artworks toward some of Merleau-Ponty’s most exciting themes: our bodily relationship to the world and the dynamic process of expression. The book closes with an examination of synesthesia as an intertwining of internal and external realms and a call, finally, for philosophical inquiry as a mode of artistic expression. Structured like a piece of music itself, the book offers contexts in which to approach art, philosophy, and the resonance between them.
Keywords:
resonance,
maurice merleau-ponty,
Stéphane Mallarmé,
Paul Cézanne,
Marcel Proust,
Claude Debussy,
noncoincidence,
poetry,
painting,
memory
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226030920 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226031088.001.0001 |
