Literary notes about dissonance (AI summary)
Literature employs the term “dissonance” as a multifaceted device that conveys both a literal and metaphorical clash. It is used to describe the harsh, jarring quality of sounds that interrupt musical harmony, as seen when authors evoke the eerie cry of wolves or discordant church bells to create an atmosphere of unease ([1], [2]). At the same time, dissonance frequently serves as a metaphor for internal or societal conflict—illustrating the inherent strife of human nature or even the ideological divisions between regions ([3], [4]). Poets and essayists alike have harnessed the term to both stimulate the imagination with its unpredictable musical intervals and to articulate the emotional and moral disarray within life and art ([5], [6]). This dual application, whether in evoking the sonic tension of a disruptive chord or the profound separation within the soul, underscores dissonance as a powerful tool to enrich literary expression and highlight the complexity of experience ([7], [8]).
- The howlings of the wolves filled the frosty air with a fierce and dreary dissonance.
— from France and England in North America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West (1870) by Francis Parkman - Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick and mortar echoes hideous.
— from The Haunts of Old Cockaigne by Alexander M. (Alexander Mattock) Thompson - And how is the dissonance in man's nature to be overcome?
— from A History of French LiteratureShort Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Edward Dowden - There is no greater dissonance to that sentiment in the South than in the North.
— from Marse Henry (Volume 2)An Autobiography by Henry Watterson - A dissonance is a logical introduction of intervals or chords made up of jarring factors for their stimulating effect upon the imagination.
— from Music: An Art and a Language by Walter Raymond Spalding - This holding over of a note always produces a dissonance, and must be followed by a concord,—in other words, a solution .
— from The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning by Edward Berdoe - The joy that the tragic myth excites has the same origin as the joyful sensation of dissonance in music.
— from The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - [2] Thus powerfully was the dissonance first sounded which was afterwards repeated with so many variations by the authors of the "Satanic" school.
— from Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 1. The Emigrant Literature by Georg Brandes
