Music as a Shelter and as a Violent Force in Pascal Quignard's Novel “Villa Amalia”
https://doi.org/10.26907/2658-3321.2025.8.1.57-67
Abstract
The theme of music and the image of a musician permeate most of the novels of Pascal Quignard, a modern French writer. The purpose of this article is to analyze in detail the imagery associated with music and the image of a musician in Pascal Quignard's novel «Villa Amalia». Musical ekphrasis – that is, the description of music by means of literature – is analyzed through the prism of the philosophical and aesthetic views of the writer himself. In the course of the work, specific images were identified that explicate the theme of music in the novel. The imagery appears ambivalent: on the one hand, music in the novel is associated with shelter, on the other hand, it is associated with a destructive and devastating force. The imagery associated with music can be divided into two groups: the first group includes the image of childhood, laurel, embryo, villa on an island – that is, everything that explicates the theme of shelter, refuge, consolation. The second group of images includes a thunderstorm, lightning – they reveal Quignard's ideas about music as a destructive and devastating force. In addition, the work reveals the primary source of the image of the shelter associated with the theme of music: psychoanalytic ideas about the trauma of birth. The main character constantly feels the desire to return to the mother's womb, and even the heroine's swimming in the sea is associated with being in amniotic fluid. The theme of music is directly related to the motif of consolation.
About the Authors
A. S. Kondakova
Saint Petersburg state university
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Kondakova Arina Sergeevna – PhD student
Saint Petersburg
V. D. Altashina
Saint Petersburg state university
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Altashina Veronika Dmitrievna – Professor of the Department of History of Foreign Literatures
Saint Petersburg
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Review
For citations:
Kondakova A.S., Altashina V.D. Music as a Shelter and as a Violent Force in Pascal Quignard's Novel “Villa Amalia”. Kazan linguistic journal. 2025;8(1):57-67. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.26907/2658-3321.2025.8.1.57-67
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