Music and Poetry

There is no doubt that music and poetry are derived from cultural sources such as prayers and labor chants in primitive societies. Although literature and music later parted ways and developed into two different forms of human culture, the development processes of the two still communicated and influenced each other in many ways. It has often been observed that there is no conceptual difference between narrative or lyric poetry in primitive oral literature and the tunes or accompaniments to which they were sung. In the concept of classical aesthetics, several literary and artistic forms that we distinguish today as music, poetry, and dance are even collectively called "music". Throughout the classical era, instrumental music without lyrics continued to develop and form its own canon. However, only musical works with lyrics are suitable for meaning analysis. Rhythm is the most unique feature of ancient lyrics and music. Therefore, in ancient artistic practice, rhythm has become a powerful link between lyrics and music. Modern readers can clearly see this from ancient notation: the music notation at that time only marked the high and low notes. As for the length and intensity of the sounds, they generally followed the poetic rules of lyric writing without making other marks. As long as the melody of poetry maintains the meaning of modern music, the concept of "music" can still be used to include poetry, music, and dance. However, when poetry adopts its own independent literary format and replaces the meaning of music, the concept of "music" cannot include poetry. The principles governing the structure of poetry, which should strictly speaking be called "meter", are no longer entirely subordinate to the realm of acoustics. Later, poets transplanted the long-sounding syllables in Greek poetry into Latin poetry, resulting in the gradual weakening of the strong-sounding syllables based on the stress of the word. In this way, the "melody" format of poetry becomes more and more a purely written arrangement and combination.

Of course, the above situation does not mean that with the decline of classical society, poetry and music will be completely separated into two independent art forms. In fact, the development of instrumental music is a long and gradual process. It was not until the late 16th century that instrumental and vocal music gained a certain degree of independence in practice. It was only when music creation transcended its past status of merely accompaniment to singing and dancing that purely instrumental music was regarded as abstract music in the modern sense. On the other hand, after the Renaissance, the development of lyric poetry completely broke away from the track of singing only. Only then did the concept of "poetic music" become possible. The so-called "poetry music" describes the sound structures in poetry that belong solely to language, and the connection between these sound structures and the tones of modern abstract music. Modern abstract music and poetic music generally affect listeners in a sub-rational way. Just as in a sense, listeners "perceive" rather than "cognize" both kinds of music.

The relationship between music and poetry can generally be divided into several stages in the history of Western art development. The first stage includes the pre-Athenian period, the Germanic culture period before the 9th century, and the folk oral cultural tradition from ancient times to the present. During this period music and poetry were integrated. Poet and composer rolled into one. At this stage, only dance can be associated with music and not with poetry. However, in most social ceremonial activities, song and dance are always combined.

The second stage was during the ancient Athenian culture, when music and poetry began to flourish. On the one hand, science and philosophy focus on studying the characteristics of pure sound, on the other hand, literary criticism pays attention to exploring the style of poetry, so that music and poetry are gradually separated conceptually. It can be imagined that Plato (427 BC - 347 BC), Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) and others' criticism of music without lyrics must have been aimed at the instrumental music performance activities at that time. What is particularly important is that in the classical cultural period, with the separation of lyrics and music, purely literary poetry forms gradually emerged, and at the same time, the distinction between "readers" and "listeners" also emerged. But the development of music and poetry throughout the second period was uneven. It was mainly the flourishing of music that led to its separation from poetry.

However, in the following centuries, the development of Western music lagged behind the development of its sister art, poetry, and could only follow in its footsteps without achieving complete independence. development. With the decline of the Roman Empire, music and poetry were mainly used in church liturgies and early proverbial narrative works; while proverbial narrative poetry still showed the characteristics of the previous stage in which music and poetry were inseparable.

Anglo-Saxon folk artists, medieval bards, singers, etc. were both poets and musicians, and they were skilled in both playing musical instruments and reciting poems. However, in the subsequent development, both music and poetry obeyed the orders of the church, because the church at that time controlled the spread of ancient literature and art, and at the same time, only the church could establish and preserve linguistic and musical conventions and traditions. At the end of the 6th century, Pope Saint Gregory I formulated the musical program for church ceremonies, marking the third stage in the history of music and poetry. Music was finally able to compete with poetry and gain its own place. Especially between 900 and 1400 AD, music gradually became an artistic creation completely different from poetry through its own theoretical exploration and practice. Significantly, throughout the Middle Ages, composers were expected to conceive the words before writing the score. It can be seen that lyrics and music were still connected at that time. However, music and poetry have begun to diverge in terms of creative techniques.

The music creation activities of this period initially consisted of inserting some "novel" pieces of music into the original religious hymns with bland melodies. These pieces of music are always accompanied by some newly composed Latin lyrics, interspersed between the passages of the main text of the hymn. Interludes in such religious hymns were the music creation of the time. Around the 10th century, polyphonic music began to appear, leading to the development of typical, complex Western music (including religious music and non-religious music). Out of pure musical needs, composers began to ignore or even completely abandon the factor of libretto in the musical form structure. By the early 13th century, the polyphonic music used by the church had been perfected and had instrumental accompaniment. For the first time, the author of the music signed his own work. From 1100 to 1450 AD, the unity of early music and poetry can be found only in secular lyric poetry of a non-religious nature. At that time, names such as conductus in Latin countries, canzo and vers in southern France and northern Italy, chanson, rondeau, vire-lai in northern Europe, and bar and leich in Germany were all folk music-poetry genres, and the lyricist was also the composer. It is worth noting that these pieces are in most cases monophonic melodic pieces, sometimes preceded by an instrumental overture, played by the poet's entourage. During this period of unity of poetry and music, there were also some changes in style, and polyphonic hymns gradually became popular-each voice has its own lyrics. This polyphonic tradition eventually incorporated non-religious monophonic ballads. The last great poet-composer of this period was Guillaume de Marchaud. During this period, composers and music theorists made significant progress in musical expression techniques, which pushed music to further separate from poetry and move increasingly towards an independent development path.

During the Renaissance, a contradictory phenomenon emerged in history: on the one hand, there was a trend of thought that called for the reunification of music and poetry, and on the other hand, various ideas that helped separate music and poetry The composition has been further expanded and improved in the practice of music creation. By the 16th century, instrumental music had emerged as an independent branch of music, and performances by music masters had begun. At the same time, harmony in the modern sense has also been established. But at the same time, the newly emerged neoclassical aesthetic schools, such as the Camerata School in Florence, Italy, and the Seven Stars Poetry Society in France, openly declared that they would devote themselves to lyrics and poetry based on their understanding of ancient traditions. An ideal combination of tunes. At that time, many writers and critics worked hard to establish classic rhythm analysis norms for poetry writing based on the modern languages ??of their respective countries. Echoing this dynamic in the field of poetry, at the end of the 16th century, some musical figures worked to purify music, reaffirm the importance of lyrics, and restore the expressive function of vocal music that had been lost in the development of modern polyphonic music. .

In the early Baroque era, the relationship between music and poetry was considered to be a mutually complementary relationship: music is to poetry what emotion is to knowledge. In the words of Hobbes, the relationship between the two is "what fantasy is to judgment." This view remained popular throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries. During this period, music and poetry were still developing independently as two independent art types. Of course, the development of opera provides opportunities for the combination of the two.

However, the general trend in the development of Baroque music is to establish a certain standard of musical technique and emphasize the function of vocal music, while the achievements of poetry during this period still remained in the realm of knowledge.

Most eighteenth-century aesthetes intentionally distinguished poetry's inner meaning from its outer embellishment. The English poet Alexander Pope once wrote in his poem "On Criticism": "The sound of poetry should be the echo of its meaning." But just a few lines earlier in the same poem, he condemned some people "who go to church , not listening to holy edicts, but loving music." Generally speaking, neoclassical aesthetics advocates a clear distinction between "music" and "meaning", devaluing music and focusing on meaning. However, the subsequent Romantic aesthetics opposed the pretentious style that had prevailed in the past century and a half and praised music and emotion, belittling the distinction between language and thought. However, the result of their criticism objectively deepened the separation between the two.

Since the 18th century, opera and art songs have flourished. But in general, music and poetry as a branch of literature still retain to a large extent their former separation. During the Romantic period, music, even purely instrumental music, tended to become more overtly literary and develop title music. At the same time, poetry strives to develop its own "music" within its own structure. What literature seeks from music is always an irrational (i.e. emotional) power; what music seeks from literature is the basis of emotional content. French poet Paul Verlaine once strongly advocated from an aesthetic point of view that poetry creation should ensure that the beauty of sound takes precedence over ideological content, which requires poets to ignore knowledge in order to express their emotions. The special concept of "poetic music" has been used to this day, which shows that there is still an important relationship between modern music and literature, which is: as long as the role of music is more mysterious than the role of literature, then the power of music to influence the audience will be It will remain an important reference for the development of poetry.