Musical Process and Trauma in the Discourses of Wagner’s Ring

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2-14-2021

Publication Title

Music Sound Trauma Conference 2021

Publisher

Music, Sound, and Trauma: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Publisher Location

On-line

Abstract

The diagnostic category of trauma, explored by Freud in Studies in Hysteria through Beyond the Pleasure Principle, has in recent decades attracted the attention of humanities scholars such as Caruth (1996) and Schönfelder (2013), who have theorized and demonstrated its operations in prose, drama, and poetry. Trauma in musical works has been examined too, as in Wintle’s touchstone analysis of scenes from Wagner (1992). The present paper builds on the insights of this literature to analyze specific metaphors of trauma in semantic, gestic, and musical strata of Wagner’s Ring.

Controlled Subject

Music; Semantics

Disciplines

Music | Poetry


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