Motivic Transformation in Classical Literature and Music

Author(s): David. H. Porter

Source: The Classical World, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Dec., 1976 - Jan., 1977), pp. 257-266
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Classical Association of
the Atlantic States
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DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977 THE CLASSICAL WORLD 257

Motivic Transformation in Classical Literature and Music*

In a previous article, "Ring-Composition in Classical Literature and Con-

temporary Music" (CW 65 [1971] 1-8), I proposed that contemporary com-
posers' use of ring-composition offered some striking analogues to the
presence of ring-composition in various classical authors. The present article
suggests that a technique used by composers of many periods, the technique
of motivic transformation, similarly has its counterpart in classical literature.
Although both articles are necessarily introductory in nature, my hope is that
they cast some different and perhaps significant perspectives on the classical
authors and their techniques of composition.

A frequent characteristic of classical literature is the violent juxtaposition

of materials of sharply contrasting mood, theme, and character. By way of
example one could cite from Homer's Iliad the frequent tension between
similes and their contexts,I or, on a larger scale, that between major scenes or
sections which are juxtaposed: e.g. between the human quarrel with which
Iliad 1 begins and the divine tiff with which it ends, between the Paris-Helen
and the Hector-Andromache episodes of Iliad 6, between the dios apate in
Iliad 14 and the scenes which enclose this episode. In drama one might point
to the abrupt juxtaposition of contrasting materials at many levels: between
sections of a single speech, episode, or choral ode (e.g. the sharp tonal con-
trasts in the messenger speech at Bacchae 677ff. or in the odes at Agamem-
non 40ff. and 355ff.); between choral ode and surrounding episodes (e.g. be-
tween the hopeful odes at Ajax 693ff., Trachiniae 633ff., and Antigone
1115ff. and the tragic scenes which follow these odes); or between major seg-
ments of a whole play (the most dramatic example is probably Euripides'
Heracles, where Heracles' killing of his family in the second part of the play
is set in stark contrast to his dramatic rescue of them in the first part). In
Latin poetry, one could point to the familiar contrasts in Vergil between the
ends of Georgics 1 and 3 and the beginnings of Georgics 2 and 4; or to the
network of thematic and tonal tensions in the first five poems of Horace,
Carmina IV, where the sense of personal loss in IV,1 contrasts with the sense
of achievement in IV,2, where the brevity of IV,3 is set against the Pindaric
grandeur of IV,2 and IV,4, and where the personal tone and the peaceful em-
phasis of IV,5 immediately follow the impersonal tone and military emphasis
of IV,4. Further, equally striking examples could be adduced from many
other classical authors and works.

Contrasts such as these not only lend textural variety to the works in which
they occur but also heighten the emotional intensity of the sections thus jux-

*N.B. The following publishers have generously permitted photocopying of the musical
examples in this article: G. Henle Verlag (for pages 220, 223-225 of Mozart, Klaviersonaten,
vol. 2, copyright 1955); C. F. Peters, Inc. (for page 370 of Beethoven, Sonatas for Piano, vol. 2,
Peters Edition no. 1802b); and Edwin F. Kalmus (for pages 81-82 of Beethoven, Sonatas for
Piano, vol. 2, Kalmus Edition).

I Cf. D. H. Porter, "Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the Iliad," CI 68 (1972) 11-21; M. S.
Silk, Interaction in Poetic Imagery (Cambridge, Eng. 1974) 5ff.

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258 THE CLASSICAL WORLD DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977

taposed. Just as the juxtaposition of the colors red and green renders each
color more intense, so in examples such as I have mentioned each juxtaposed
section takes on more vivid emotional hues by virtue of its juxtaposition with
contrasting materials. The comic elements of the divine quarrel in Iliad 1 un-
derscore by contrast the deathly seriousness of the human quarrel earlier in
the book, the pettiness which surfaces in the Paris-Helen episode of Book 6
emphasizes the pathos of the Hector-Andromache scene which follows. The
horror of Heracles' deeds in the second half of Euripides' Heracles, of the
bacchants' deeds in the second half of the Bacchae messenger speech, strike
us the more strongly after what has immediately preceded in each instance.
The sharp contrasts among the first five poems of Horace's Book IV un-
derscore the unique emotional and thematic character of each poem.

There is a potential problem, however, in any work which uses violent jux-
tapositions of this sort: the very violence of the conjunction can all too easily
serve not only to heighten the emotional impact but also to tear a work apart
at the seams, and indeed, some of the examples I have cited have been
criticized on these very grounds. Some scholars have found in the textural
diversity of Homer evidence not of artistic mastery but of multiple author-
ship; Euripides' Heracles has frequently been attacked for lack of internal
cohesion;2 to some, Horace's Fourth Book of Odes has seemed a none too
cohesive conglomeration of new imperial poems and miscellaneous lesser
pieces.3 The author's problem, then, if he introduces radical contrasts of this
sort, is to assure that he also provides strong and clear links between the
potentially disjunctive sections of his work. That is, the more violent the ten-
sions between the segments of a work, the greater the need for some mechan-
ism to hold those segments together.

In the remainder of this article I shall do three things. First, I shall show
that violent contrasts of the sort I have mentioned in classical literature are
characteristic also of many musical works. Second, I shall discuss briefly and
with reference to three musical examples a technique by which composers
frequently bind together the contrasting sections of their works. Third, I
shall suggest with reference to three of the classical examples I have men-
tioned above that this musical technique is closely parallel to the technique
used by many classical authors. I should add that I scarcely expect to break
new ground in my analysis of the individual musical and literary examples
discussed; where I hope this article may be of some interest and use is in its-
demonstration of a basic formal similarity between two arts and its sug-
gestion that a technique frequently employed in musical analysis may be
applicable also to literary analysis.

2See, e.g., G. Norwood, Essays on Euripidean Drama (Toronto 1954) 46ff.; A. W. Verrall,
Four Plays of Euripides (Cambridge, Eng. 1905) 136 (quoting Swinburne's description of the
play as "a grotesque abortion"). G. Murray's oft-cited description of the play as "broken-
backed" (Greek Studies [Oxford 1946] 112) should be balanced by his comments on the great-
ness of the Heracles inEuripides and his Age (Oxford 1965) 48ff.

3 See, e.g., C. M. Bowra, "Horace, Odes IV. 12," CR 42 (1928) 166-67.

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DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977 THE CLASSICAL WORLD 259

That composers frequently use striking contrasts to heighten the

emotional impact of their works will surely come as no surprise to readers of
this journal. Familiar to all will be the key role that contrast plays in the stan-
dard three- or four-movement format of so many baroque and classical
works. Nor are similar sharp contrasts within movements hard to find: e.g.
the frequent shift of character between first and second theme in a sonata-
allegro movement, the equally frequent contrasts in dance movements be-
tween the trio section and the remainder of the movement, the abrupt shifts
of mood in which the more rhapsodic works of so many composers abound
(see, e.g., the fantasies of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, the rhap-
sodies of Liszt and Brahms, the tone poems of Strauss, etc.).

From the literally thousands of possible examples of this sort of musical

contrast, let me mention three specific instances. At the heart of one of
Mozart's most dramatic compositions, the piano Fantasie in C minor, K.
475, we find a jarring contrast between the lyrical andantino section
(measures 91ff.) and the impassioned and agitated piu allegro (measures
130ff.) which follows. A similar tension exists between the driving opening
theme of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, Opus 53, with its repeated eighth-
note chords and its rapid sixteenth-note runs, and the slow-moving, gentle
second theme (measures 35ff.). Finally, the contrasts between the four
movements of Charles Ives' Second Piano Sonata, the so-called Concord
Sonata, could scarcely be more stark: the opening movement, "Emerson," is
vast, turgid, at times impenetrable; the second movement, "Hawthorne," is a
wild and flamboyant scherzo which itself sharply juxtaposes moments of
serenity with moments of turbulence, moments of abandoned humor with
moments of dark foreboding; the third movement, "The Alcotts," is, in
sharp contrast, gentle, straight-forward, old-fashioned almost throughout,
and the last movement, "Thoreau," is pervaded by a mood of transcendental
mystery.

With each of these three musical examples, the first of which contains
violently contrasting sections, the second, contrasting first and second
themes, the third, contrasting movements, we may ask the same question:
what are the links which provide the necessary cohesion between the con-
trasting sections? For, given the violence of the juxtapositions in question, if
such links are not present, we may feel that emotional impact and textural
variety have been attained only by the sacrifice of formal unity.

In each of these works, however, the composer does bind together his con-
trasting sections, and one mechanism by which this is done provides the sub-
ject for the remainder of this article. In these works, as in countless other
musical compositions, a principal means of pulling together the diverse sec-
tions of the composition is the technique of "motivic transformation," a
technique by which one or more germinal musical ideas or motifs, each
possessing a characteristic identity and yet capable of constant metamor-
phosis, run through the various sections of a work, lending continuity by their
recurrence, variety by their transformations. The three works to which we

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260 THE CLASSICAL WORLD DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977

referred earlier, Mozart's Fantasie, Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, Ives'

Concord Sonata, afford clear examples of this technique.4

In the Mozart Fantasie, for instance, the two contrasting sections to which
we referred earlier are bound together by their common use of a distinctive
four-note step-wise motif. This motif, in dotted rhythm, provides the melodic
basis of the entire andantino section:

Measures 91ff.:

Andantino

The same motif, played in different rhythm and inverted, provides the
thematic outlines of the left hand of the piu allegro section and appears also,
in hidden form, in the inner voice of the right hand of the section:

Measures 130ff.:

CD Piu Allegro

) .\~~~~~i- fo- it t ll*

1
t~~~~r I =- I i __1 . 1 v =" = l = L_==== 1 7-4 gS

Later in the piu allegro section this same motif becomes even more apparent
in the left hand:

Measures 136ff.:

I - O !1,P - 1, 1 1 __1 sm s
W1 , b .-1 1m l r-N r, Ive;-# bh''';j- ad - h-i

4For a good discussion of the nature and function of the musical motif, see W. Berry, Form in
Music (Englewood Cliffs 1966) 3ff.; and E. Toch, The Shaping Forces in Music (New York
1948) 200ff. On the musical motif, Toch writes (p. 201), "It lives on repetition and yet on con-
stant metamorphosis."

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DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977 THE CLASSICAL WORLD 261

A similar motivic link provides the cohesion between the apparently

unrelated first and second themes of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata. The
majestic first two measures of the second theme, with their five-note descend-
ing progression, are a clear reference to the similar, but much faster, five-
note progression in the right hand of measures four and eight:

Measures lff.:

Allegro con brio

doke e molto /, l ulul5' q1o

t -E v I f 7 _ 7 _ i i J J

Measures 35ff.:

Moreover, the extension of this same five-note motif into the right hand run
of measures 9ff. provides the basis for the falling, then rising movement of
the entire second theme:

Measures 9ff.:

y7VbPW fv oS==
#X _ *iw a , E l,; w ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 F-

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262 THE CLASSICAL WORLD DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977

Cf. measures 35ff.:

Finally, the radically differing movements of Charles Ives' Concord Sonata

are bound together not only by their common inspiration in Concord tran-
scendentalism but also by their use of several recurrent musical motifs.5 I
shall here discuss only one of these, the familiar four-note motif derived from
the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.6 This motif occurs with par-
ticular frequency in "Emerson," and the following are merely representative
examples from that movement (because of the difficulty of reproducing Ives'
complex musical score, I shall cite examples merely by location; reference is
to the Second Edition, published by Arrow Press, 1947):

page 1: second, third, fourth scores, left hand

page 3: fourth score, second and third staves
page 6: second and third scores, right hand
page 12: second score, first and second staves

This motif occurs also in varied forms in the other three movements as well,
and the following is again merely a representative sample:

Hawthorne:
page 31: second, third, and fourth scores, right hand (cf. the
transformation of this same motif into "Jesus Lover of My Soul,"
page 33, first score, right hand)
page 46: fourth score, left hand
page 50: first, second, and third scores, left hand

Alcotts:
page 53: first and third scores, right hand
pages 54-55, passim

5On Ives' use of motifs in general, see especially H. and S. Cowell, Charles Ives and his Music
(New York 1955) 162ff., 173ff.; and J. Bernlef and R. de Leeuw, Charles Ives (Amsterdam
1969) 164ff.
6On the recurrent motifs of the Concord Sonata, see Cowell (above, note 5) 191ff.; Bernlef-de
Leeuw (above, note 5) 173ff. On the Beethoven motif in the Concord Sonata see also D. Woold-
ridge, From the Steeples and Mountains (New York 1974) 112, 142, 278, 305. On the signifi-
cance of the Beethoven motif to Ives himself, see his frequent comments in Essays Before a
Sonata, ed. H. Boatwright (New York 1961), especially in the essays on Emerson and the
Alcotts (e.g. pp. 36, 47).

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DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977 THE CLASSICAL WORLD 263

Thoreau:
page 63: fourth score, left hand (including a retrograde version
of the motif)
pages 67 and 68, first scores, top staves

The constant repetition of this one musical idea, albeit in vastly varied
metamorphoses, in all the movements and most of the sections of the Con-
cord Sonata lends to this vast and potentially rambling work a needed con-
tinuity and coherence. Other motifs function in a similar fashion and
similarly contribute to the unity of the piece.'

If we return now to three of the previously mentioned examples from

classical literature, we can see similar motivic transformations serving to
unify the diverse sections of these works. In Iliad 6, for instance, several
motifs provide links between the highly contrasting Paris-Helen and Hector-
Andromache scenes. When Hector arrives at the home of Paris and Helen,
Helen is directing the work of her maids (323ff.). The same motif appears,
though with a poignant difference, when the Hector-Andromache scene is
followed immediately by Andromache's incitement of her maids to weep for
Hector (498ff.). Similar continuity and transformation exist in the case of
other motifs as well. While Paris in the first scene busies himself with his
shining armor (321ff., cf. 504ff.), in the second scene it is the sight of Hector's
armor which frightens Astyanax (469ff.). In the first scene both Hector and
Helen imply that if Paris had a proper sense of shame he would be out fight-
ing in this war for which he is responsible (326ff., 337ff., 350ff.); in the second
scene Andromache urges Hector to refrain from the fighting, but he indicates
that his sense of shame prevents him from acceding to her request (431ff.,
441ff.). Helen, in what always strikes me as a rhetorically elaborate but
insincere ploy to win Hector's pity, wishes that she had died rather than go
through all that she has had to suffer (345ff.). Her death-wish is echoed in the
tragic, sincere, and all too prophetic death-wishes of Hector and Andro-
mache in the next scene (410ff., 464ff.).8

In the Bacchae, motivic links similarly bind the peaceful and violent halves
of the first messenger speech (677ff.) into a unified whole. In the first half the
women' s thyrsoi magically produce wine, milk, and honey (704ff.), in the
second half the same thvrsoi become magically effective weapons (762ff.).
Similarly, the bare hands which in the first half scratch milk from the earth
(709ff.) in the second part tear animals limb from limb (736ff.); the pine trees

For other clear examples of motivic transformation, see Toch (above, note 4) 200ff.; and R. E.
Tyndall, Musical Form (Boston 1964) 34ff. Twelve-tone composition, where a chosen arrange-
ment of the twelve chromatic tones provides the basis for every aspect of a musical work,
affords a far-reaching extension of the technique of motivic transformation.
8 the motivic links in Iliad 6, see C. H. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cam-
bridge, Mass. 1958) 267ff. Iliad 6 also contrasts with, and is motivically linked to, Iliad 3,
as many have pointed out; see, e.g., E. T. Owen, The Story of the Iliad (Toronto 1964) 12ff.
On motivic links between the contrasting portions of Iliad 1, see C. R. Beye, The Iliad, the
Odyssey, and the Epic Tradition (Garden City 1966) 124ff.; Owen, 12ff.; and J. T. Sheppard,
The Pattern of the Iliad (London 1922) 22ff.

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 264 THE CLASSICAL WORLD DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977

which are part of the idyllic setting in the first half become spattered with
blood in the second (684, 741ff.); the snakes which peacefully lick the
women's cheeks in the first part lick the blood from their cheeks in the
second (698, 767ff.); and the women who in the first half suckle the young of
wild beasts in the second tear infants from their mothers' arms (699ff., 754). 9

Similar motivic transformations provide the necessary links between the

first five odes of Horace's Fourth Book. The motifs of water and rivers, of
birds and flying, for instance, figure prominently at the end of IV,1 in Hor-
ace s expression of his sense of loss and frustration (IV,1, 38-40). The same
motifs reappear in IV,2 and IV,3, but with significantly different associa-
tions. In the opening lines of IV,2 they express the danger of trying to exceed
one's natural abilities (IV,2, 2-4); later, in the river and swan images, they
evoke the power of Pindaric verse (IV,2, 5-12, 25-27); finally, these same
motifs are associated with the gentler, more controlled poetry of Horace him-
self (IV,2,27-32; IV,3,10-12, 20). The same motifs recur also in IV,4 and
IV,5, here largely in association with national themes (water and rivers:
IV,4,38,65; IV,5,9-14, 19, 40; birds and flying: IV,4,1-12,31-32; IV,5,19).'0

Similar examples could be cited from many other classical works,"' but I
trust that by now the basic technique and approach are clear and that the
examples we have analyzed are sufficient to suggest the importance of
motivic transformation in both literature and music.

Two final comments. First, while thus far we have been speaking of the
motivic links between juxtaposed contrasting sections, similar links can also
effectively provide continuity between contrasting sections placed at a dis-
tance. Thus, to mention briefly two musical and two literary examples, the
four-note motif which is so basic to the andantino and piu allegro sections
of Mozart's Fantasie is first heard toward the end of the opening section of
that work, thus providing early in the piece a clear motivic foreshadowing
of these later sections and a necessary link to them:

9A number of these motivic correspondences are discussed by R. P. Winnington-Ingram,

Euripides and Dionysus (Cambridge, Eng. 1948) 92ff. On the unifying effect of recurrent
themes and motifs in Euripides' Heracles, see W. Arrowsmith, Introduction to Heracles in
Euripides II, ed. R. Lattimore and D. Grene (Chicago 1956) 50ff.; H. H. 0. Chalk, "Arete
and bia in Euripides' Herakles," JHS 82 (1962) 7-18; J. C. Kamerbeek, "Unity and Meaning
of Euripides' Heracles," Mnemosyne 19 (1966) 1-16; J. T. Sheppard, "The Formal Beauty of
the Hercules Furens," CQ 10 (1916) 72-79.
'?For a more detailed analysis of these and other recurrent motifs in Book 4, see D. H. Porter,
"The Recurrent Motifs of Horace, Carmina IV," HSCP 79 (1975) 189-228.
"Motivic links between contrasting sections are especially prominent in the epyllion, and works
such as Catullus 64, the Aristaeus-Orpheus portions of Vergil, Georgics 4, and the numerous
epyllia embedded in Ovid's Metamorphoses are ideal testing grounds for the principles eluci-
dated in this article.

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DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977 THE CLASSICAL WORLD 265

Measure 22 Measure 91

WMX_77 ,> #EAndantino

~fp

fP

Similarly, the left hand motif which is sounded repeatedly in the poetry sec-
tion of "Emerson" recurs in the ostinato bass of "Thoreau," thus providing
a clear motivic connection between the contrasting first and last movements
of the vast Concord Sonata (cf. "Emerson," page 8, left hand, accented notes
passim, and "Thoreau," page 62, first, second and third scores, left hand).

In classical literature Whitman and others have shown how motivic ties
provide clear links between the contrasting first and last books of the Iliad.
Thus Priam's supplication for Hector's body in Book 24 recalls Chryses' sup-
plication for his child in Book 1, Thetis' trip to Olympus in Book 24 recalls
her trip to Olympus in Book 1, Achilles' reconciliation with Priam in 24
balances his quarrel with Agamemnon in Book 1. Similar motivic links exist
between Books 3 and 22. Helen's teichoskopia in Book 3 is picked up by the
scene of Andromache on the wall in Book 22, the duel of Paris and Menelaus
in Book 3 by the duel of Hector and Achilles in Book 22.12 Similarly, the last
poem of Horace's Fourth Book recalls numerous motifs which are sounded in
the contrasting first poem of the book. IV,1 begins with Horace's appeal to
Venus and ends with him declaring his inability to pursue Ligurinus through
the volubiles aquae. IV,15 reverses the order of these motifs, with Apollo at
the start warning Horace not to set sail on the dangerous waters of epic
poetry, and Horace at the end speaking of Venus. The description in IV,1 of
the abundance of wealth and pleasures which Paulus possesses corresponds
to the description in IV,15 of the manifold joys of the Augustan era, and the
long polysyndeton of IV,1,13ff. (et ... et . . . et ... et ... et ... et) followed
by the long chain of negatives (29-32: nec . .. nec . .. nec . . . nec . .. nec) is
closely mirrored in the similar progression in IV,15,4ff. (et. . . et . .. et . .. et
. et ... et) and 17ff. (non . .. non ... non ... non ... non ... non).13

Second, and in conclusion, we should mention that the techniques

discussed in this article largely with respect to classical music and Greek and
Latin literature are of course not limited to these spheres. Comparable
techniques are characteristic also of the visual arts, and the comment of Clive
Hart on Finnegans Wake, to mention but one instance, reminds us that such

"On correspondences between Iliad 1 and 24, 3 and 22, see Sheppard (above, note 8) 198;
Whitman (above, note 8) 259ff.
"On links between IV,1 and IV,15, see C. Becker, Das Spatwerk des Horaz (Gottingen 1963)
191; A. T. von S. Bradshaw, "Horace, Odes 4.1," CQ 20 (1970) 144ff.; L. A. Moritz, "Some
'Central' Thoughts on Horace's Odes," CQ 18 (1968) 130, note 2; K. J. Reckford, Horace
(New York 1969) 137ff.

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266 THE CLASSICAL WORLD DEC. 1976-JAN. 1977

techniques are found in non-classical literature as well:

It is worth noting, also, that, until Joyce had worked out the hori-
zontal structure of his episodes, the motifs appeared only very
thinly in the texts, and often not at all for long stretches. As soon
as the basic fabric was clear in Joyce's mind the motifs began to
develop abundantly, building up the harmonic structure and
tying the sprawling cycles together with taut bonds stretched from
point to point.14

Carleton College David. H. Porter

"C. Hart, Structure and Motif in Finnegans Wake (Evanston 1962) 171. Such use of motivic
links is basic also to Joyce's Ulysses, as scholars such as Stuart Gilbert and A. Walton Litz
have shown. On Shakespeare's use of similar techniques, see R. G. Moulton, Shakespeare as
a Dramatic Artist (Oxford 1906) 206ff. (on King Lear); also W. Empson, The English Pastoral
Poets (New York 1938) 27ff. (on Troilus and Cressida and other double-plot plays). On Mil-
ton's use of the technique in "L'Allegro-Il Penseroso," see C. Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn
(New York 1947) 53ff.

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