The Rhythm of Thought: Art, Literature, and Music after Merleau-Ponty

By Jessica Wiskus

Between present and past, visible and invisible, and sensation and idea, there is resonance-so philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued and so Jessica Wiskus explores in The Rhythm of Thought. Holding the poetry of St phane Mallarm , the paintings of Paul C zanne, the prose of Marcel Proust, and the music of Claude Debussy under Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological light, she offers innovative interpretations of some of these artists' masterworks, in turn articulating a new perspective on Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. More than merely recovering Merleau-Ponty's thought, Wiskus thinks according to it. First examining these artists in relation to noncoincidence-as silence in poetry, depth in painting, memory in literature, and rhythm in music-she moves through an array of their artworks toward some of Merleau-Ponty's most exciting themes: our bodily relationship to the world and the dynamic process of expression. She closes with an examination of synesthesia as an intertwining of internal and external realms and a call, finally, for philosophical inquiry as a mode of artistic expression. Structured like a piece of music itself, The Rhythm of Thought offers new contexts in which to approach art, philosophy, and the resonance between them.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 022627425X
• ISBN13: 9780226274256
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"