DEATH AND MUSIC

ANTIPODEAN MANIFESTATIONS OFSILENCE IN VLADIMIR JANKÉLÉVITCH

Abstract

Silence is, undoubtedly, one of the responses to the inexpressible. Nevertheless, if the latter may occur, according to Jankélévitch, in two antipode levels, the sterile inexpressibility (untellable) and the fecund inexpressibility (ineffable), the sorts of silence could be also distinguished according to their belonging to one of those levels. This article intends to examine the examples of silence that can be respectively associated with the prime manifestation of the untellable, death, and to a privileged manifestation of the ineffable, music. Therefore, it will be firstly examined, in the sphere of death, the mutism of the dead person, the emptiness of a philosophy of death, and the silence before the moribund or the corpse. Secondly, it will be analyzed, in the realm of music, silence as a reaction to musical ineffability, silence identified with music itself, and silences that may precede, integrate, and follow a musical composition. The proposed itinerary will enable a discussion on the problem of absolute silence, on the kinship between musical and mystical experiences, on the possible approach between the untellable and the ineffable silences, as well as the qualitative differences among some of the recognized examples of silence.