Asst. Prof. F. Zeynep Bilge
Asst. Prof. F. Zeynep Bilge
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Dept. of English Language and Literature
0532 690 29 60
zeynep.bilge@msgsu.edu.tr
LITERATURE AND MUSIC
Aim: This course aims at displaying an interdisciplinary discussion on the relationship between
literature and music.
Course description: This interdisciplinary course focuses on the interaction between literature and
music. While analysing the musical material, the course inevitably depicts the conventions of certain
musical periods and genres as well. Underscoring concepts such as intertextuality, rewriting,
translation and adaptation, the musical hypertexts and the literary hypotexts are discussed
comparatively.
Course material:
The students are expected to read the relevant literary source text before each session.
Literature:
Shakespeare, Willliam. “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Raven”
Yeats, William Butler. “The Stolen Child”
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.
Music:
Ferry, Bryan. “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
The Alan Parsons Project. “The Raven”
McKennitt, Loreena. “The Stolen Child”
Whitacre, Eric. “The Stolen Child”
Verdi, Giusseppe. Macbeth
Britten, Benjamin. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Loewe, Frederick. My Fair Lady
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Asst. Prof. F. Zeynep Bilge
Secondary Texts:
Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. London: Routledge, 2006.
Said, Edward. Musical Elaborations. London: Chatto & Windus Ltd., 1992.
Dean, Winton. “Shakespeare and Opera.” Shakespeare in Music. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll. New
York: Macmillan, 1966. 89-175.
Grading:
Midterm – 30 %
Paper – 30 %
Final Exam – 40 %
Syllabus by weeks:
Week 1 – Introduction / What is adaptation?
Literature and music are art forms focusing on the human condition, and the interaction
between the two is investigated by numerous theorists and philosophers including Friedrich
Nietzsche and Edward Said. Literature and music communicate through intertextuality,
translation, rewriting and adaptation. This session introduces the relevant terms such as (re)interpretation, transmutation and transcoding with reference to Linda Hutcheon’s writings,
who, in A Theory of Adaptation, suggests that “an adaptation is a derivation that is not
derivative – a work that is second without being secondary.”
Week 2 – How to adapt?
This session explores two different approaches to adaptation:
“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” (performed by Bryan Ferry, 2006) is based upon
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (1609?); the song sets an example of how to adapt literature into
music without any changes in the source text. “The Raven” (performed by The Alan Parsons
Project, 1976) based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem (1845), however, sets an example of how to
adapt literature into music with certain changes.
Week 3 – Different perspectives
How a literary work is adapted totally depends on the composer’s perception of the text. In
order to display the significance of perception/perspective, two musical adaptations of
William Butler Yeats’ “The Stolen Child” (1889) are discussed. The first one is a song
composed and performed by Loreena McKennitt (1985), and the second one is a choral piece
composed by Eric Whitacre (2008).
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Asst. Prof. F. Zeynep Bilge
The composer’s perspective is reflected in his/her choice of music, which, in this case,
necessitates a discussion on musical textures such as monophony and polyphony.
Week 4 - What is Literaturoper?
Literaturoper is an opera based on a pre-existing literary text. A significant amount of the
most well-known operas, such as Carmen, La Traviata, Rigoletto, La Boheme and Tosca are
examples of literary adaptations.
Given the fact that to sing a word or a line takes much longer than to say it, the librettist is
expected to pare down the source text. This session explores the conventions of adapting a
literary text into opera with an emphasis on concepts such as synthesizing, elimination and
invention.
Weeks 5-6-7 – Verdi’s Macbeth
It is claimed that there are almost 200 operas based upon Shakespeare’s works. Not only their
plots but also the portrayal of the characters seems to be in harmony with the melodramatic
nature of opera.
Macbeth (1865) is Giuseppe Verdi’s first duet with Shakespeare. The opera is quite significant
since Verdi distorts the image of the primadonna with an angelic voice through his portrayal of
Lady Macbeth.
Weeks 8-9-10 – Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Benjamin Britten, the pioneer of modern British opera, translates A Midsummer Night’s
Dream into opera in 1960. The opera exemplifies the norms of modern opera and illustrates
how it parodies and/or modifies the conventions of nineteenth century opera.
Britten divides the world of the fairies and that of the human beings on a musical level. The
fairy world is marked with the bright and light sound of the harp and percussion, whereas the
warm strings and wind instruments belong to the realm of the mortal lovers.
Weeks 11-12-13 - My Fair Lady
This work presents a multi-layered adaptation process. First of all, George Bernard Shaw
rewrites the Greek myth in his Pygmalion (1912). Then, Frederick Loewe (composer) and
Alan Jay Lerner (librettist) turns Shaw’s play into a Broadway musical in 1956. George Cukor
directs the movie version (1964) of this Broadway musical that is going to be discussed in this
course.
An analysis of these different – yet similar – works of art, displays different points of view
depending on the changes in the genre as well as time.
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