Nadia Konstantini
University of Jendouba, Tunisia
Abstract
This article pays tribute to Ferdinand de
Saussure’s contribution to the study of literature. De Saussure’s idea that the
linguistic sign is a combination between sound images and concepts, and that
their relationship is arbitrary (De Saussure, 1916) is my starting point to
explore Katherine Mansfield’s particular way to combine both music and meaning
in order to reveal different, and often opposed, levels of consciousness in the
characters of her short story “The Singing Lesson”. The study is based on a structuralist
analysis (Genette, 1972, 1983) of sound and meaning in Mansfield’s short story
as it highlights transgressive narrative structures leading to blurring
polyphonic voices and discloses the provoking and dual relationship between
music and meaning in “The singing
Lesson”.
Keywords: Contrapuntal music, Narrative mood,
Polyphony, Structuralism
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