Improvisation and Hybrid Genres
ReadingChilde Harold's Pilgrimage
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3970846 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bernard Beatty (University of Liverpool and University of St Andrews, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 264-282 |
| Publication date | 2019-05-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The European Legacy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10848770.2019.1572348 |
| OpenAlex | W2912854123 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 11 |
In the first section I ask two questions: what sort of a poem is Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and what is the immediate experience of reading it in sequence? These two questions are the practical equivalents of the main terms of my title. I try to answer them by reconstructing a first reading of the poem in the light of my own experience and the imagined one of the first readers of the poem. I suggest that two terms—accretion and elimination—are helpful here and that, in some ways, the structure and sequential experiencing of the poem resemble the structures of extended nineteenth-century musical forms. In the second section, I reverse perspective and take a position at the end of the poem. From such a point, it is easier to find what the poem has included and eliminated and this, in turn, suggests the kind of poem that it is. In the third section I tackle the terms “improvisation” and “hybrid genres” directly, link them with my earlier arguments, and engage with some theorists, especially Bakhtin. In particular, I argue against the view that Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage dissolves genre but argue that genres are nevertheless “open categories.” My conclusion is less definite. I confess to difficulties that still bother me
Art · Improvisation · Linguistics · Literature · Pilgrimage · Poetry · Theology · Visual arts · Computer Science · Historical Studies of British Isles · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |