The fugue-novel – models and realizations

Abstract

One art can become the productive model of another. Two contemporary novels, referred to as “fugue-novels” by their authors, are at the source of this study. The history of music shows specificity of this art in relation to literature. The evolution of literary ideas, related to music and fugue, especially the reflections of some twentieth-century writers – forerunners of the literary research in the field of polyphony – allow us to grasp its pro-gression in the novel. Polyphonic music is above all a device that allows some authors to give a narrative voice to each of their main characters. The fugue-novel takes up this idea by introducing, in the construction of the text, the cantus firmus and imitation principles of a musical/textual voice by another. This article focuses specifically on the fugue-novels of the Romanian author, Ana Blandiana, and the Bulgaria author, Emilia Dvorianova.