Music and the Origins of Language
Theories from the French Enlightenment

This study analyses reflections on music and considers ways in which it facilitates links between language and meaning.

Downing A. Thomas (Author)

9780521473071, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 June 1995

208 pages
23.6 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.471 kg

'… it provides an invaluable chronicle of some fascinating developments in the idea of a musical language within neo-classical theories of representation.' British Journal of Aesthetics

The search for the origins of language was one of the most pressing philosophical issues of the eighteenth century. What has often escaped notice, however, is the fact that music figures prominently in this search. This study analyses instances of thinking or reasoning about music and music theory as they appear within the logical and narrative structure of contemporary texts, including writings by Rousseau, Diderot, Rameau and Condillac. These can only be properly understood as part of an interdisciplinary project, as situated within a field of larger cultural issues and concerns. The author is interested in the ways in which music functions within this discursive framework to facilitate links between language and meaning, and between conceptions of an original society and an ideal social order.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Music and language
2. Origins
3. Music theory and the genealogy of knowledge in Condillac's Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines
4. Music and original loss in Rousseau's Essai sur l'origine des langues
5. Sensible sounds: music and theories of the passions
Conclusion
Biography
Index.

Subject Areas: Western "classical" music [AVGC]