Return to search

Performing the Novel: Vocal Poetics of Novelistic Discourse

This dissertation aims to study the effect that poetics of voiceas relative to vocal performance within the realm of operahave on the reception of novelistic discourse. Inspired by research done on plurivocality, plurilingualism, and musicality of novelistic discourse, I argue that the reception of novels is so greatly dependent on notions of voice and performance, that a comparative study of opera and the novel would reveal ways in which the reception of both genres could be theorized using similar critical tools. By conceptualizing the historicity of novelistic discourse, with performance and voice as its main markers, I discovered that, though seemingly disparate in their ilk and reception, the opera and the novelbecause of their inheritance from oral performance, and the continued inclusion of remnants of this oral past in their separate discoursesallow themselves to be treated along similar lines of critical enquiry. Furthermore, it was discovered that the disappearance of the orator at the site of the early novel coincided with the explosion of literary writing in the nineteenth century. From these discoveries, I concluded that the reader of novelistic discourse plays the defunct role of orator, and is to be considered a paradoxical reader, as s/he who performs the text is also s/he who experiences the plural effects of the texts reception.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-11062014-141907
Date04 December 2014
CreatorsLedford, Julian Ainsworth
ContributorsVirginia M. Scott, Lynn T. Ramey, Andrea Mirabile, Joy H. Calico, Robert F. Barsky
PublisherVANDERBILT
Source SetsVanderbilt University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-11062014-141907/
Rightsrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

Page generated in 0.0023 seconds