8 - The Spirit World of Art and Robert Schumann's Gothic Novel Project: The Impact of Gothic Literature on Schumann's Writings

Summary

Little is known about the literary ambitions harbored by the young Robert Schumann (1810–56) prior to his becoming an influential music critic and the pioneer of a distinctly romantic direction in European music. Although most of his early literary works have not survived, Schumann bequeathed a multifaceted, mostly fragmentary oeuvre. For a long time he strove to emulate his literary idol, Jean Paul, before abandoning these hopes of writing a novel in favor of musical composition — although, as we shall see, his musical criticism was distinctly literary, shaped by his youthful encounter with romantic writings. As a critic Schumann mainly worked for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), and he was its sole editor from 1834 to 1844. His copious writing on music refers to works by contemporary composers as well as to musical performances. Alongside critical reviews in the narrower sense, he experimented with several other kinds of texts on musical works, performances, and aesthetics, ranging from dialogues to aphorisms, fictional letters, narratives, and speeches. Occasionally ideas and motifs used by Schumann in his more obviously fictional writings recur in his music writings.

Schumann's use of the gothic can be located within the broader aesthetic discourses of romanticism. In deploying spectral figures and such motifs as secret societies, he developed complex questions of artistic autonomy and the desire for a clear and distinct language capable of describing aesthetic phenomena that otherwise deny clear, realistic explanation.