The Concept "Transmediality", and an Example
Repetition across Arts/Media
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-2096.2022.35451Keywords:
Transmediality, Intermediality, Narratology, Repetition, Literature, MusicAbstract
Transmediality refers to the potential of concepts to "travel" across arts or media and is thus related to intermediality, although not all scholars consider it a variant of intermediality. This contributionargues that it makes sense to do so. Some of the benefits of this classification will be illustrated with respect to repetition in literature and music. Transmedial comparisons often show that some media or media-specific genres can realize a transmedial phenomenon better than others. This is also the case with repetition. It will be pointed out that, owing to the incompatibility between narrativity and large-scale, merely form-motivated repetition, the latter is more frequent in tendentially non-narrative media or genres and that the tendency towards, or avoidance of, such repetition can indicate the narrative potential of a given medium or genre. Besides being a contribution to inter- or transmediality studies, the essay is thus relevant to narratology.
References
BECKETT, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. In: BECKETT, Samuel. Dramatische Dichtungen in drei Sprachen. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1953/56. p. 365-452.
BERNHART, Walter; WOLF, Werner (eds.). Self-reference in Literature and Music. Amsterdam/New York: NY: Rodopi, 2010. (Word and Music Studies, 11).
BLAKE, William. The Tyger. In: BUTTER, P. H. London et al. (eds.). William Blake, Selected Poems. London: Dent, 1794/1982. p. 33.
DRAGAN, Cristian Eduard. The same thing over and over again: single-shot repetition as cinematic metareference in Spaceballs (Mel Brooks, 1987). Studies in Visual Arts and Communication v. 7, n. 2, p. 23-29, 2020.
ENGLUND, Axel. Intermedial Topography and Metaphorical Interaction. In: ELLESTRÖM, Lars (ed.). Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality. Houndmills, Basingstoke/New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 69-80.
FREEMAN, Matthey; GAMBARATO, Renira Rampazzo. Transmedia studies – Where Now? In: FREEMAN Matthew; GAMBARATO, Renira Rampazzo (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. p. 1-12.
HÜHN, Peter. Narratological Analyses of Lyric Poetry: Studies in English Poetry from the 16th to the 20th century. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005. (Narratologia: Contributions to Narrative Theory, 7).
JENKINS, Henry. Convergence Culture – Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY/London: New York University Press, 2006/2008.
MEYER, Urs; SIMANOWSKI, Roberto; ZELLER, Christoph (eds.). Transmedialität. Zur Ästhetik paraliterarischer Verfahren. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2006, p. 7-17.
QUENEAU, Raymond. Exercices de Style. Online: https:desmotsetidees.fr/medias/exercices-de-style.pdf 1958/online (accessed Feb. 4, 2021).
RAJEWSKY, Irina O. Intermedialität. Tübingen: Franke, 2002. (UTB, 2261).
RAJEWSKY, Irina O. Potential Potentials of Transmediality: The Media Blindness of (Classical) Narratolgy and Its Implications for Transmedial Approaches. In: DE TORO, Alfonso (ed.). Translatio: Transmédialité en littérature, peinture, photographie et au cinéma. Paris: L‘Harmattan, 2013, p. 17-36.
RAJEWSKY, Irina O. Intermedialität, remediation, Multimedia. In: SCHRÖTER, Jens (ed.). Handbuch Medienwissenschaften. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2014, p. 197-206.
RYAN, Marie-Laure. Media and Narrative. In: HERMAN, David; JAHN, Manfred; RYAN, Marie-Laure (eds.). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. London: Routledge, 2005, p. 288-292.
THON, Jan-Noël (ed.). Transmedial Narratology and Contemporary Media Culture. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska, 2016.
TODOROV, Tzvetan. La grammaire du récit. Langages v. 12, p. 94-102, 1968.
TOOLAN, Michael J. Narrative. A Critical Linguistic Introduction. London/New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1988.
WALZEL, Oscar. Wechselseitige Erhellung der Künste. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1917.
WOLF, Werner. Intermedialität. In: NÜNNING, Ansgar (ed.). Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie: Ansätze – Personen – Grundbegriffe. Stuttgart: Metzlersche Verlagsbuch¬handlung, 1998; fifth ed. 2013, p. 344-346.
WOLF, Werner. Towards a Functional Analysis of Intermediality: The Case of Twentieth-Century Musicalized Fiction. In: HEDLING, Erik; LAGERROTH, Ulla-Britta (eds.). Cultural Functions of Intermedial Explorations. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002, p.15-34. Revised reprint: WOLF, 2018, p. 38-62.
WOLF, Werner. Metafiction and Metamusic: Exploring the Limits of Metareference. In: NÖTH, Winfried; BISHARA, Nina (eds). Self-Reference in the Media. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007, p. 303-324. (Approaches to Applied Semiotics, 6). Revised reprint: WOLF, 2018, p. 295-316.
WOLF, Werner. Narrativity in Instrumental Music? A Prototypical Narratological Approach to a Vexed Question. In: BERNHART, Walter (ed.). Selected Essays on Intermediality by Werner Wolf (1992-2014): Theory and Typology, Literature-Music Relations, Transmedial Narratology, Miscellaneous Transmedial Phenomena. Leiden/Boston: Rodopi, 2018, p. 480-500.
WOLF, Werner. The Relevance of ‘Mediality’ and ‘Intermediality’ to Academic Studies of English Literature. In: HEUSSER, Martin; FISCHER, Andreas; JUCKER, Andreas H. (eds.). Mediality/Intermediality. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2008, p. 15-43. (SPELL, 21). Revised reprint: WOLF, 2018, p.127-152.
WOLF, Werner. Metamusic? Potentials and Limits of ‘Metareference’ in Instrumental Music – Theoretical Reflections and a Case Study (Mozart, ‘Ein musikalischer Spaß’). In: BERNHART, Walter; WOLF, Werner (eds.). Self-reference in Literature and Music. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2010, p. 1-32. Revised reprint: WOLF, 2018, p. 317-346. (Word and Music Studies, 1).
WOLF, Werner. Wiederholung/Ähnlichkeit in der (Sprach)kunst als sinnstiftende formale Selbstreferenz. In: EKE, Norbert Otto; FOIT, Lioba; KAERLEIN, Timo; KÜNSEMÖLLER, Jörn (eds.). Logiken strukturbildender Prozesse: Automatismen. Munich: Fink, 2014, p. 227-251. (Schriftenreihe des Graduiertenkollegs ‘Automatismen’). Revised reprint. WOLF, 2018, p. 631-659.
WOLF, Werner. Selected Essays on Intermediality by Werner Wolf (1992-2014): Theory and Typology, Literature-Music Relations, Transmedial Narratology, Miscellaneous Transmedial Phenomena. BERNHART, Walter (ed.). Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill-Rodopi, 2018. (Studies in Intermediality, 10).
WOLF, Werner. Lyric Poetry and Narrativity: A Critical Revaluation, and the Need for ‘Lyrology’. Narrative. v. 28, n. 2, p.143-173, 2020.
WOLF, Werner (ed.). Metareference across Media: Theory and Case Studies – Dedicated to Walter Bernhart on the Occasion of His Retirement. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2009. (Studies in Intermediality, 4).
WOLF, Werner (ed.). The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, Attempts at Explanation. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2011. (Studies in Intermediality, 5).
WOLF, Werner; BERNHART, Walter (eds.). Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. (Studies in Intermediality, 1).
WOLF, Werner; BERNHART, Walter (eds.). Description in Literature and Other Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. (Studies in Intermediality, 2).
WOLF, Werner; BERNHART, Walter; MAHLER, Andreas (eds.). Immersion and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and Other Media. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi. 2013. (Studies in Intermediality, 6).
WOLF, Werner; BERNHART, Walter (eds.). Silence and Absence in Literature and Music. Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill-Rodopi, 2016. (Word and Music Studies, 15).
WOLF, Werner; BALESTRINI, Nassim; BERNHART, Walter (eds.). Meaningful Absence across Arts and Media: The Significance of Missing Signifiers. Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill-Rodopi, 2019. (Studies in Intermediality, 11).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Werner Wolf (Autor)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).