Opera, oratorio, and iconic strategies
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Costantino Maeder
Abstract
Iconic structures pervade Opera and Oratorio. While recitative relies mainly on imagic iconic strategies (imitation of the prosody of common speech), arias seem to rely more on diagrammatic iconic strategies and symbolism. A recitative is straightforward, dynamic: music follows the spoken word whereas an aria ties the text to periodic-symmetric musical structures and to melodies that defy prosody. However, we will show that imagic iconicity determines arias as well as the oriented succession of recitative and aria, the basic unit of an opera. What characterizes arias is that they mostly mime behaviour of people who suffer from stress: repetition of syllables, words, syntagmata, and sentences; use of common places, altered pitch of the voice, incomprehensible syntax, etc.
Abstract
Iconic structures pervade Opera and Oratorio. While recitative relies mainly on imagic iconic strategies (imitation of the prosody of common speech), arias seem to rely more on diagrammatic iconic strategies and symbolism. A recitative is straightforward, dynamic: music follows the spoken word whereas an aria ties the text to periodic-symmetric musical structures and to melodies that defy prosody. However, we will show that imagic iconicity determines arias as well as the oriented succession of recitative and aria, the basic unit of an opera. What characterizes arias is that they mostly mime behaviour of people who suffer from stress: repetition of syllables, words, syntagmata, and sentences; use of common places, altered pitch of the voice, incomprehensible syntax, etc.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Iconicity and conceptualization
- Iconicity by blending 13
- The Bashō code 25
- Iconicity in gotoochi-kitii ‘localized Hello Kitty’ 43
- Grammar-internal mimicking and analogy 63
- To draw a bow 引 83
- Spatiotemporal aspects of iconicity 95
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Part II. Visual iconicity
- From diagrams to poetry 121
- The iconized letter 141
- The semantics of structure 159
- Visual iconicity in Latin poetry 173
- Shared and direct experiential iconicity in digital reading games 191
- Iconicity, intermediality, and interpersonal meanings in a Social Semiotic Space 211
- Model and icon 233
- Degrees of indetermination in intersemiotic translation 247
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Part III. Auditory iconicity
- Sound, image and fake realism 263
- Opera, oratorio, and iconic strategies 275
- On some iconic strategies in concept albums within the Italian singer-songwriter tradition 295
- Iconically expressible meanings in Proto-Indo-European roots and their reflexes in daughter branches 311
- The lexical iconicity hierarchy and its grammatical correlates 331
- Author index 351
- Subject index 355
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Iconicity and conceptualization
- Iconicity by blending 13
- The Bashō code 25
- Iconicity in gotoochi-kitii ‘localized Hello Kitty’ 43
- Grammar-internal mimicking and analogy 63
- To draw a bow 引 83
- Spatiotemporal aspects of iconicity 95
-
Part II. Visual iconicity
- From diagrams to poetry 121
- The iconized letter 141
- The semantics of structure 159
- Visual iconicity in Latin poetry 173
- Shared and direct experiential iconicity in digital reading games 191
- Iconicity, intermediality, and interpersonal meanings in a Social Semiotic Space 211
- Model and icon 233
- Degrees of indetermination in intersemiotic translation 247
-
Part III. Auditory iconicity
- Sound, image and fake realism 263
- Opera, oratorio, and iconic strategies 275
- On some iconic strategies in concept albums within the Italian singer-songwriter tradition 295
- Iconically expressible meanings in Proto-Indo-European roots and their reflexes in daughter branches 311
- The lexical iconicity hierarchy and its grammatical correlates 331
- Author index 351
- Subject index 355
