Contrapuntal text and rondo (in the poetry of Desmond Egan and Jaroslav Seifert)
Contrapuntal text and rondo (in the poetry of Desmond Egan and Jaroslav Seifert)

Summary/Abstract: This paper is concerned with the complicated relationships between poetry and music. It tries to show that one of the common denominators between both arts can be the musical form in poetry, strictly speaking a method of poetry creation based on a musical principle. For this paper, two illustrations of this process are chosen: an Irish poet Desmond Egan’s contrapuntal poems (chosen from all Egan’s poetry) and a Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert’s Mozart in Prague. The conclusions concern the impact on the reader’s reception of poetic texts, which in their graphic form or theme stimulate references to music. We conclude that knowing (active and passive) the musical principles of counterpoint and ronda can help readers to better understand the structure, theme and meaning of the texts.

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