Music, Archetype, and the Writer: A Jungian View

The interaction between the writing process and musical motifs, systems of intensity, patterns of tonality, contrapuntal schemes, and multiple rhythms is obscure but fascinating. For some writers, Knapp tells us, sonorities flow archetypally from the unconscious, producing a nearly endless variety of resonant images and pulsations. Fresh feelings and innovative ideas are born. The creative writer uses to his advantage these paradoxically soundless and immobile rhythms, transliterating them into the written word.

This volume analyzes twelve authors Hoffmann, Balzac, Baudelaire, Tolstoy, Kandinsky, Joyce, Proust, Sartre, Yizhar, Bhasa, Hanqing, and Mishima whose works were influenced and determined by archetypal music. Knapp studies their reactions to personal and transpersonal voices emanating from their collective unconscious, and the manner in which choric and rhythmic sequences were used to heighten their art. The musical archetype governs the attitude and approach of the authors to their literary work and is the prime mover of its pace, pitch, and sequence.