1。2。 Literature Review

1。2。1。 The Close Connection of Music and Novels in Its Early Stage

The genre of novel is gradually developed when short stories and poems cannot describe complicated plots as the society develops。 In its early stage, novel was some kind of the art of storytelling and was spread orally due to the undeveloped printing technology。 Therefore, music was closely connected to novels to make novels more attractive and more appreciated。

With the development of printing, novels become independent to music。 But novels’ independence to music does not separate these two, novelists still import a lot of music into their novels。 Examples can be found in such as A Dream of Red Mansions (Xueqin Cao, 2013) in China and Jean-Christophe (Romain Rolland, 2012) in Europe。 Songs and Chinese operas are two frequently used musical forms in A Dream of Red Mansions。 Xueqin Cao aims to use music as a way to suggest characters’ destinies。 In the fifth chapter of the novel, 14 songs are played by the goddess (警幻仙子) to advise Jia Baoyu in his dream。 And tragic fates of Jinling’s twelve beauties are also implied in these 14 songs to tell readers that all is destined from the very beginning of this story。 In Jean-Christophe, Romain Rolland writes the novel with plenty of classic musical pieces, hoping that rising-and-falling melodies help to reveal characters’ psychology smoothly。

1。2。2。 Music and the Contents of Novels

Music appears in the content of novels mainly in four places--title, character, plot and theme。

One common way of using music in the title of novels is using the musical term。 Take the word “trilogy” as an example。 Trilogy means large-scale musical works in music。 In novels, it means more than a series of three books, but suggests that the structure of novel is magnificent and plots are interacted with every single book independent and complete, as it’s in The Torrent Trilogy (Ba Jin, 2015)。 Other musical terms such as waltz, sonata and so on are also applied in titles, as it’s in Farewell Waltz (Milan Kundera, 1998)。 Another way of using music in titles of novels is using the name of songs。 Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami prefers doing so a lot in his novels with his preference to jazz music。 He either directly uses the name of a piece of jazz music or does a little revise to make it a title, in order to set the tone for the novel and deepen the theme。 His most famous novel, Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami, 2003) uses the song Norwegian Wood by The Beatles, a world-famous British rock band。 Dance Dance Dance comes from a piece of R&B by the band, The Dells: South of the Border, West of the Sun comes from a piece of Bop Jazz (Bop Jazz or bebop is a style of jazz which is characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions and improvisation。); 1963/1982 Girl from Ipanema comes from Garota De Ipanema by Brazilian composers, Antonio Carlos Jobimin and Vicius de Moraes; After Dark comes from Five Spot After Dark performed by an American jazz performer and On a Slow Boat to China comes from an old ballad On a Slow Boat to China by American composer Frank Losser。 论文网

There are lot of main characters in novels whose occupations are related to music。 And French novelists prefer doing so very much。 Romain Rolland (1915) won the Nobel Prize for his great novel Jean-Christophe。 The characters in the novel are born for music-- they learn music; they appreciate music and they create music。 Music is an independent part of their life。 And a lot of scholars hold the idea that Christophe is based on Beethoven。 French novelist Honoré de Balzac is renowned for his multi-faceted characters。 One character is Sylvain Pons in Le Cousin Pons (Honoré de Balzac, 2015), a musician who is passionate for only two things-- collecting works of art and eating good food。 The prototype of this musician and collector is the first violinist in an opera troupe。 Another French novelist, George Sand depicts a women singer Consuelo in one of her most important novels Consuelo。 The character of Consuelo was supposedly modeled after the soprano Pauline Viardot who is a good friend of the author。