Musicalization in Qualified Media of Poetry and Painting

Abstract

In šāhnāmeh as an intermedial genre under discussion, there are several examples of strategies that offer a presentation and perception of features of sound and music. The question of musicalization in a historical context and with reference to oral features of Persian music reveals a strong connection between epic poetry and music in terms of rhythmic and metric patterns, melodic and tonal movements, improvisation, vocalization, a generic identity, pitch hierarchy, modal features, homophonic texture and symmetric balance. By employing structures and forms and certain aesthetic metaphors borrowed from music, the epic poetry and painting made through referential strategies evoke, adapt, thematize and imitate music, presenting an alternative and supplementary vision of it (Petermann 211). By bringing the notion of intermediality into the incredible and implausible visual culture, the study could also adeptly develop some insight into and discernment of the inherent qualities of visual media in the musicalization process. Interpretively speaking, regarding intermedial strategies, the analysis reveals the possibility of both mono- and pluri-mediality in the musicalization process.