Balzac’s Views on Meaning of Music and in Music

This paper aims to demonstrate how music and its signification have been interpreted in literary works. Two texts by Balzac will be used as examples. They interpret meaning in music and present the mechanisms by which individual significance becomes attached to musical works. In the novel La Duchesse de Langeais, the author carefully reconstructs the process of connections arising between music, emotions, and memories, which turns a musical work into a memory sign in the minds and lives of individuals. In the short story Massimilla Doni Balzac analyses the score of Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto (1818)—elements such as instrument and musical key symbolism as well as the music’s impact on listeners. Both literary works present music as an aspect of human communication, consisting of signs, symbols, and codes that support verbal senses or operate beyond the limits of what words can convey.