Abstract

The clearest instances of Time experience in music can be observed when the melodic and harmonic structure of a work announces the approach to a climax, for example, the finale. A goal is established in the awareness of the listener and acts as an independent system toward which music is striving. Most other examples that come to mind are extra-musical, that is, they refer to music in relation to something outside of it. A listener who instead of moving with the flow of the musical happening remains outside of it and watches the arriving and passing of phrase after phrase as though he were watching a parade from a viewing stand places himself in a separate temporal system whose relation to that of the music itself is governed by Time. Compare also the radio performance scheduled to finish on the hour or the state of mind of a concertgoer anxious to make the 11:20 suburban train home. A literary narrative, like music, tends to be perceived as an ongoing flow. No reference to time is relevant for a description of the sequential action. The work sprouts and grows. But whenever the continuity is broken , the appearances may form separate systems. The only medium that can bridge the gap may be Time, in which both are embedded. This is generally considered a compositional flaw. A skillful narrator avoids such a break by providing a filament that connects past and present appearances "amodally," as psychologists call it, that is, the way a train's progress is seen as remaining uninterrupted even when it is hidden for a moment by a tunnel. But when Time is embodied as an authentic literary character, such as the "devouring Time" of Shakespeare's nineteenth sonnet, which blunts the lion's paws and plucks the tiger's teeth, it becomes an active system of its own and thus deserves the capitalization. Rudolf Arnheim is the author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, Toward a Psychology of Art, and The Dynamics of Architectural Form. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "On the Nature of Photography" and "A Plea for Visual Thinking"