Caryl Phillips; Postcolonial; Musicality; Literature; Music; Bert Williams
Abstract :
[en] This paper deals with Dancing in the Dark (London: Vintage, 2005), a novel by Caryl Phillips, a contemporary British author of Caribbean descent. This narrative is devoted to the Caribbean American entertainer Bert Williams (1874–1922), who is currently part of a MoMA’s exhibition since some unedited footage has been recently discovered.
Like most of Phillips’s literary production, Dancing in the Dark is shaped by music, both thematically and formally: countless references to music can be found in the narrative, in scenes involving musical performances but also in structural analogies with musical forms, for instance through the recurrent and creative use of repetitions and meaningful variations in rhythm. This pervasive musicality even goes on when the main character, Bert Williams, is shooting a silent movie, which may seem paradoxical. My contention however is that such musicality is not a mere background to the moving image, but partakes, as in the rest of the novel, of the emotional impact of Phillips’s lyrical prose.
Research Center/Unit :
CEREP - Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche en Études Postcoloniales - ULiège
Disciplines :
Literature
Author, co-author :
Mascoli, Giulia ; Université de Liège > Département de langues et littératures modernes > Langue et linguistique anglaises modernes
Language :
English
Title :
Music, Musicality, Narrative and the Moving Image in Caryl Phillips’s Dancing in the Dark
Publication date :
14 August 2015
Event name :
Word and Music Association Conference: Music, Narrative, and the Moving Image
This website uses cookies to improve user experience. Read more
Save & Close
Accept all
Decline all
Show detailsHide details
Cookie declaration
About cookies
Strictly necessary
Performance
Strictly necessary cookies allow core website functionality such as user login and account management. The website cannot be used properly without strictly necessary cookies.
This cookie is used by Cookie-Script.com service to remember visitor cookie consent preferences. It is necessary for Cookie-Script.com cookie banner to work properly.
Performance cookies are used to see how visitors use the website, eg. analytics cookies. Those cookies cannot be used to directly identify a certain visitor.
Used to store the attribution information, the referrer initially used to visit the website
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. Websites use cookies to help users navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. Cookies that are required for the website to operate properly are allowed to be set without your permission. All other cookies need to be approved before they can be set in the browser.
You can change your consent to cookie usage at any time on our Privacy Policy page.