Keeping in Time

Music is structured from notes that fall in time to a rhythmic beat, and its parts can be dissected into chords and stylized notes that follow repetitive patterns. At the same time, however, when the parts are assembled as a whole entity, music can be so much more than a strand of notes. By listening to how the music uses space and time to convey an abstract illustration of emotion and creativity, listeners can transcend the boundaries of rigid music theory into the realm of intense emotional connections with the acoustical message of the artist.

Wackenroder's "A Wondrous Oriental Tale of a Naked Saint" is a literary explanation of the listener's experiences with music. The tale starts off with a man that was one of "the wondrous recipients of a higher genius" who suffered from what doctors would diagnose as schizophrenia and epileptic seizures. This naked saint desperately tried to listen to delusions of the "wheel of time roaring and turning in his ear," and his fixation on this particular sound was both a source of fascination and paranoia for him. His systematic reasoning in trying to comprehend the uncomprehensible "sound" of time reflects a listener's struggle with trying to understand every single nuance that comprises a piece of music. I think Wackenroder depicts the naked saint as a man trying to grapple with the "natural order" of time and sound just as an Enlightenment thinker would try to approach a piece of music in order to explain/ critique a piece of music. However, because a systematic approach using music theory cannot explain the full emotional spectrum music can create, Wackenroder illustrates the maddness that this naked saint suffers from as a result of his the limitations of his understanding of the roaring sound of time. Wackenroder therefore tries to use a rational explanation of the man's sufferings by describing him by almost diagnosing him with epilepsy and schizoprenia.

It is when the naked saint yearns to stop pursuing the rationality of the sound of time and approach the unknown peace of nature outside the realm of time that he is freed from his clinical afflictions and assumes a fantastical form. By abandoning reason, the naked saint is capable of fully understanding sound and time as the artform of the two lover's music. This transformation of the saint as a rationalized thinker into a ideal Romantic genius that fully comprehends the essence of music as an expression of love and the human soul is reflected in the release of the supernatural spirit from the physical body of the saint. It is also reflected in the literary sense by switching from prose to poetry within the story. Poetry is typically associated more as a musical form of literature, and Wackenroder's employment of poetry within his prose reflects his abandonment from the strict division between poetry and prose. Wackenroder's use of poetry within prose shows that music can be a spiritual/philosophical experience within the confines of musicality and music theory. The physical structure of music is not exclusive of the spiritual essence of music, and Wackenroder wants to show that understanding the emotional aspects of music has to come from a wholistic approach in understanding the structure and meaning behind the notes that compose music. Therefore, he incorporates the more melodious nature of poetry into the descriptive nature of prose.

As a result of Wackenroder's inclusion of a fantastical transformation of the naked saint, this tale becomes a sort of literary fairy tale, or a Kundstmarchen. The fascination with the ethereal elements of sound, time, and the human soul is reflected in the author's use of the Orient as an exotic setting. More so, the transformation of the saint occurs at night, a time which is usually more associated with magic and the unknown. Although this tale does not have the typical obvious heroic and evil figures like in more traditional folk fairy tales, the struggle to overcome the "evilness" of rationalization and transform into the herioc (and supernatural) figure of the Romantic musical genius is a fairy tale.