On Music and Old Age: An Exercise
On Music and Old Age: An Exercise

Summary/Abstract: This essay represents an attempt at inducing a basic musical structure into a reading of John Barth’s short fiction “Peeping Tom.” The fundamental fixed form in the music of the Classical period is the sonata, which lends its composition to most of the musical productions of the period and long afterwards, whether they are symphonies, concertos or string quartets. The sonata’s chief configuration is in four parts, opening with an exposition, evolving into a development, returning to a recapitulation, and closing with a coda, but its essential feature is a paradoxical oscillation between fixity and freedom. Barth’s story may be read from this perspective, even more so because of the author’s formal musical training. The fictional text is considered in terms of each of the four sonata parts and of its themes and variations that are linked by modulating transitions. The outcome is a complex and contradictory reflection of old age and a peep into the story’s fictional back stage.

• Details
• Contents