Resonances of Henri Bergson's "music' in the interwar aesthetic discourse of the journal Mεσ εσ: the idea of the nouveau romantisme

This essay examines the metaphorical use of musical terms in Greek aesthetic discourse during the interwar period by illuminating a crucial yet neglected moment in the reception of anti-rationalistic philosophical and aesthetic tendencies that had greatly influenced European modernist literature since the late nineteenth century. In particular, it points out the ways the reception of Bergsonian theories in Greece co-determined the formation of a new concept of Modern Greek narrative fiction, clearing the ground for the first modernist attempts to musicalize' fiction. The essay thus proposes a broader perception of the term musicalization' than the mere imitation of musical techniques in narrative texts, since the aesthetic discourse features not only actual music but also music' as an aesthetic category synonymous with transcendence, ambiguity and fluidity.