• Chopin’s Thirst: Literary Reception and Bodily Expressiveness

    Author(s):
    Lawrence Kramer (see profile)
    Date:
    2021
    Subject(s):
    Music, Human body--Political aspects, Orality
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Raindrop Prelude, Weldon Kees, Gottfried Benn, Amy Lowell, Chopin, Reception, Body politics
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/0s9e-bt30
    Abstract:
    The literary representation of Chopin in the period leading to and through early 20th-century modernism shows a contradiction between two expressive identities: a compound of refinement, delicacy, and sensitivity, the expression of a beautiful soul too good for this world, and a ravenous, violent force of desire that sooner or later takes the form of oral greed, that is, of thirst, sometimes direct, sometimes displaced. The thirst is also expressed as a figurative preoccupation with fluids, especially rhythmic fluids—blood and ocean waves. The outward surge of the fluids forms a mirror image of the wish to gulp or swallow; a small symbolic system emerges that balances immersion with absorption.
    Notes:
    The English language version of this article is unpublished as of May 22, 2021; all rights were reserved by the author (Lawrence Kramer).
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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