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L07-421-15-10-21-15
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Today: polyphony and Unbearable Lightness.
The relation between musical / auditory polyphony and the construction of a
narrative. BYRD: Laetentur Coeli, in Finale. Listen to it, follow it.
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The main point: the ensemble—the composition—has to be assembled. In
music, it is hearing the sound of discrete voices / parts/ instruments as
integrated into a complete whole.
In writing, this is done by you, as a function of aesthetic / reflective
judgment. As you read, the novel includes, just as every citation, episode,
part includes a set of connections, both to other elements in the novel, and
to contexual elements in what the novel treats.
Nietzsche: one cannot just extract the passage to which Kundera alludes.
Instead, you need to review it, to put it in context, so as to see how it
functions.
In reading, this can generally be followed in a dynamic structure: the
introduction of a theme, and then variations on it, including elaborations and
extensions.
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Metaphor
• Kundera notes that metaphors are dangerous,
and cannot be treated lightly. They are a logical
structure where elements are connected not by
treating the word, for instance, as a single thing,
but the convergence of attributes which can be
isolated and singled out:
• Eg: the hero is a lion. It depends on recognizing
the features of each, and then noting which fit,
which are apposite. Without this instrumentality,
we could not acquire language, think, do math,
or understand music.
A project
• I would like you to devote some time in your
writing logs to following out polyphony in an
extensible example.
• That is, locate an instance where Kundera
introduces a theme, and then see how, as you
read, he picks it up, modifies it, and thinks
through it.
• That is, the intellectual activity is not to reduce it
to something like a little jewel, but to expand it,
see how a matrix develops, in which the theme
is increasingly connected to make it possible to
understand these characters these events.
Multiplicity of uses
The idea of the eternal return: it is a mad idea if
you don’t take into account that the axis on
which X occurs is not itself stable.
When Kundera notes that if everything recurs
eternally, your judgment is paralyzed, the use he
makes of Nietzsche is in many respects more
interesting than Nietzsche.
Thinking, in this respect, also has to be an
ensemble, an assemblage: not some block like
fixed “thought” that is in you: instead, you are in
thought.
The polyphony project. . .
Is to be the tracing of a theme polyphonically, at
your choice, but looking meticulously how
Kundera introduces a theme, and then plays
with it as the novel unfolds.
Follow the effects: what does this actually do to
your own understanding?
In this respect, reading the novel is a philosophical
enterprise—as is listening to a piece of music.