"Art music is music composed by a particular person, like Beethoven. Folk music was not written by any particular person, it came from the people. That's why we don't know exactly when the various folk melodies date from. We distinguish in the same way between folktales and art tales."
"So art tales are ... ?"
"They are tales written by an author, like Hans Christian Andersen. The fairy tale genre was passionately cultivated by the Romantics. One of the German masters of the genre was E.T.A, Hoffmann."
"I've heard of The Tales of Hoffmann."
"The fairy tale was the absolute literary ideal of the Romantics--in the same way that the absolute art form of the Baroque period was the theater. It gave the poet full scope to explore his own creativity."
"He could play God to a fictional universe."
"Precisely. And this is a good moment to sum up."
"Go ahead."
"The philosophers of Romanticism viewed the 'world soul' as an 'ego' which in a more or less dreamlike state created everything in the world. The philosopher Fichte said that nature stems from a higher, unconscious imagination. Scheliing said explicitly that the world is 'in God.' God is aware of some of it, he believed, but there are other aspects of nature which represent the unknown in God. For God also has a dark side."
"The thought is fascinating and frightening. It reminds me of Berkeley."
"The relationship between the artist and his work was seen in exactly the same light. The fairy tale gave the writer free rein to exploit his 'universe-creating imagination.' And even the creative act was not always completely conscious. The writer could experience that his story was being written by some innate force. He could practically be in a hypnotic trance while he wrote."
"He could?"
"Yes, but then he would suddenly destroy the illusion. He would intervene in the story and address ironic comments to the reader, so that the reader, at least momentarily, would be reminded that it was, after all, only a story."
"I see."
"At the same time the writer could remind his reader that it was he who was manipulating the fictional universe. This form of disillusion is called 'romantic irony.' Henrik Ibsen, for example, lets one of the characters in Peer Gynt say: 'One cannot die in the middle of Act Five.' "
"That's a very funny line, actually. What he's really saying is that he's only a fictional character."
"The statement is so paradoxical that we can certainly emphasize it with a new section."
"What did you mean by that?"
"Oh, nothing, Sophie. But we did say that Novalis's fiancee was called Sophie, just like you, and that she died when she was only fifteen years and four days old ..."
"You're scaring me, don't you know that?"
Alberto sat staring, stony faced. Then he said: "But you needn't be worriedthat you will meet the same fate as Novalis's fiancee."
"Why not?"
"Because there are several more chapters."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that anyone reading the story of Sophie and Alberto will know intuitively that there are many pages of the story still to come. We have only gotten as far as Romanticism."
"You're making me dizzy."
"It's really the major trying to make Hilde dizzy. It's not very nice or him, is it? New section!"
* * *
Alberto had hardly finished speaking when a boy came running out of the woods. He had a turban on his head, and he was carrying an oil lamp.
Sophie grabbed Alberto's arm.
"Who's that?"