The Rhythm of Thought

Art, Literature, and Music after Merleau-Ponty

Jessica Wiskus

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780226031088
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Between present and past, visible and invisible, and sensation and idea, there is resonance—so philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued and so Jessica Wiskus explores in The Rhythm of Thought. Holding the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé, the paintings of Paul Cézanne, the prose of Marcel Proust, and the music of Claude Debussy under Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological light, she offers innovative interpretations of some of these artists' masterworks, in turn articulating a new perspective on Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. More than merely recovering Merleau-Ponty's thought, Wiskus thinks according to it. First examining these artists in relation to noncoincidence—as silence in poetry, depth in painting, memory in literature, and rhythm in music—she moves through an array of their artworks toward some of Merleau-Ponty's most exciting themes: our bodily relationship to the world and the dynamic process of expression. She closes with an examination of synesthesia as an intertwining of internal and external realms and a call, finally, for philosophical inquiry as a mode of artistic expression. Structured like a piece of music itself, The Rhythm of Thought offers new contexts in which to approach art, philosophy, and the resonance between them.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Mallarmé and a Proffer of Silence
• 2. Cézanne: Depth in the World
• 3. Proust through the Fold of Memory
• 4. Debussy: Silence and Resonance
• 5. Cézanne and the Institution of Style
• 6. Proust: In Search of the True Albertine
• 7. Harmony and the Movement of Style in Debussy
• 8. On the Musical Idea of Proust
• 9. Debussy: The Form That Has Arrived at Itself
• 10. Synesthesia, Recollection, Resurrection
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index