Dissertation Index
Author: Vlagopoulos Panos Title: Le noble rhetorique: Mental Models in the Song Production of Guillaume de Machaut Institution: Ionion State University Begun: September 1995 Completed: June 1998 Abstract: The introduction contains a critique of current reductionist interpretation models and argues for the use of - a variant of - radical constructivism in the attempt to gain historic-musicological knowledge. Some of the key-notions put in use are mental models, metaphors, observer and reflexivity. On this basis the goal of the research is set as: to first distinguish fourteenth-century mental models in a number of different areas, from education to literature and everyday life, then find relevant - not merely similar - models of musical thinking in the song production of Guillaume de Machaut. Machaut's opus is considered as the result of a highly ecletic, complicated, past- as well as future-orientated artistic attitude, which I try to illuminate using the notion of reflexivity and self-reflexivity: this is brought about by an analytical examination of concrete compositional techniques and an investigation of an -implicit- Machaudian theory of genres, which is shown to be a prerequisite for self-reflexivity and, at the same time, to be regulated by it. Keywords: Guillaume de Machaut, Ars nova, formes fixes, radical constructivism, metaphor, mental model TOC: A. Fourteenth-Century Mental Models Introduction Sciences Aristotelian Metaphysics, Sign Theory of Occam and Oresmian Physics Time and Measurement Ars Nova Ideology Antiquus/modernus/novus Classification Models and Genres Time and Measurement B. Machaut's Musical Mind Compositional Techniques: Floskeln and Tenor Types Genre and the Fourteenth-Century Ordenance Concept Reflexivity and Self-Reflexivity As Keys to Machaut’s Concept of Composition Conclusions Contact: Panos Vlagopoulos Ag. Sofias street 24 17123 Nea Smyrni Athens/Greece OR Vas. Sofias & Kokkali 11521 Athens/Greece tel +301 7282772 / 9343959 fax +301 7259196 panovlag@otenet.gr |