The Echoes of Music in the Stories of Felisberto Hernández and Alejo Carpentier

Literature and music are two different branches of art but they interact. Thanks to this interaction, the boundaries between these two arts disappear; thus, literature and music meet on a common ground. The concept of "intermediality" defines the relation and interaction between every imaginable branch of art and media. In this concept, the arts are also considered as media. Irina O. Rajewsky's literary conception of intermediality and Steven Paul Scher's typology of musico-literary relations have formed the basis of the method used in the thesis. The intermediality relation between literature and music is examined through the stories "La casa de Irene" , "Mi primer concierto" and "El cocodrilo" by the Uruguayan writer Felisberto Hernández and the stories "Oficio de tinieblas", "Viaje a la semilla" by the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier. Literature and music are intertwined in the stories of Hernández and Carpentier, who are interested in music as well as literature. They use music structurally in their works or include it in content; the literature is the media that makes contact and the music is the contacted media. In this way, literature and music create a total work of art / synthesis of arts in the stories of Hernández and Carpentier. This aspect of the two authors that unites literature and music correspond to German composer Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk concept. With the analyzed stories, it is aimed to show how to musicalize literature. Keywords: intermediality, Gesamtkunstwerk, music, literature, Felisberto Hernández, Alejo Carpentier