| Summary: | My PhD theses explore how the role of music in novels can move beyond simple inspiration to active, working component, through use of musical reference, form, and structure. My two doctoral dissertations seek to explore how this breed of intermediality, when successfully rendered, can yield new insights and revelations to the prose itself, specifically in terms of characterization. My primary thesis (creative thesis) is a new novel, '14 Variations From White', with characterization based on structures and instrumentation found in Elgar's 'Variations on a Theme' ('The Enigma Variations'). Principally, it addresses the issue of characterization in light of this intermediality from the creative side of things: what specific instrumental association can bring to the process of writing novelistic characters. The critical component of my project explores how, in existing literature, the linking of novelistic characters with particular pieces of music can affect their process of characterization, with a specific focus on 'The Song Beneath the Ice' by Joe Fiorito, 'The Time of Our Singing' by Richard Powers, and 'An Equal Music' by Vikram Seth.
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