Scholarly record
MUSIC AS A LANGUAGE OF FEELINGS AND AS A SEMIOTIC SYSTEM
Abstract
This study aims to describe the main musical and aesthetic concepts that define music as a special kind of language. The Ancient Greek doctrine of ethos claims that music is associated with feelings, since it imitates the human voice and expresses oneВ’s state of mind or mood. In the doctrine of the affections music is compared to the art of rhetoric in its ability to affect emotions. So if rhetoric is an art of persuasion, then music is an art of suggestion. Romanticism in its turn declares music the language of feelings par excellence, that voices inexpressible and directly influences emotions. In Susanne LangerВ’s aesthetics we already find a transition from music merely expressing feelings to music symbolically reflecting them. The development of semiotics and its expansion beyond literary studies into other branches of science gave rise to a different discourse on music as a language. Here, music appears as a special type of semiotic system, for which it is necessary to find a place in the general classification of semiotic systems.
Publication Impact Profile
Publication details
ReferencesPending
Structured references will appear here after the reference import pass. The count is preserved now so the scholarly record is not incomplete.
View or Download full articleAccess options
SWS access login
Login as SWS Scientific CommitteeLogin as SWS Scientific PartnerLogin as SWS AuthorAuthors and approved SWS contributors will read and export their own linked papers after identity matching by SWS profile, email and SGEM GlobalID.
For librarian assistance: [email protected]
Purchase Instant Access
- Article can be downloaded after successful payment.
- Article may be used according to SWS library access terms.
- Article cannot be redistributed.