Narrative, Metaphor, and Conceptual Blending in “The Hanging Tree
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7928819 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Sayrs (University of Saskatchewan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2003-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Music Theory Online (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-3040 • E-ISSN: 1067-3040 |
| Publisher | Society for Music Theory (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.30535/mto.9.1.1 |
| OpenAlex | W2537606113 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 1 |
Using traditional analytic techniques as well as methods drawn from narrative theory and cognitive linguistics, this paper explores the relationships between the song “The Hanging Tree” (performed by Marty Robbins), its original use in the 1959 Western of the same name (scored by Max Steiner), and the novella on which the movie is based (by Dorothy Johnson). Lakoff and Johnson’s “Location Event-Structure Metaphor” allows Zbikowski’s conceptual metaphor PITCH RELATIONSHIPS ARE RELATIONSHIPS IN VERTICAL SPACE to engage concepts of time, events, and narrative. This context reveals a contradiction in the cross-domain mapping between music and text in the song. The seventh scale degree is “left hanging” in the body of the song, pointing to the imminent event of hanging. Yet after the hanging is averted, the leading tone is prominently regained in the same register and resolved. Two possibilities are considered: 1) Conventional tonal metaphors rather than locally-defined metaphors have priority at various moments in a particular genre. 2) The metaphor is musically transformed through “frame-shifting” to create a new conceptual blend. Finally, the re-arrangement of the song in the movie causes this shift to occur differently, raising issues concerning the role of the singer as cinematic narrator
Aesthetics · Art · Cognition · Combinatorics · Conceptual Blending · Conceptual metaphor · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Narrative · Visual arts · Communication · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2018 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |