Music and Literature. Impressions and Notes of an Inveterate Music-Lover

The paper discusses the possible relations between music and literature and it explores the existence of musical language as such. Roman Jakobson asserts that music has its syntax and morphology, but it has lost its vocabulary, thus music turned into a universal language. Ferdinand de Saussure claims that musical language should have the same dichotomic structure as any language: the signifier always refers to the signified. But in music the signified is mainly emotional, and only to a lesser degree notional. Similarly, in literature the constitutive element is also dichotomy. These are the traces in which the author entwines his impressions and notes.

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