Writing the body

Abstract

This chapter distinguishes between recent disciplinary swings to foreground the body, in a phenomenology of experience, and the more specific focus on how musical works write the body. Just as Mallarmé sees the dancer as an écriture corporelle, so music ‘after Debussy’ can be understood in a similar way. Debussy’s piano Préludes (Book 1) are examined in detail for their re-writing of the body. The work of Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Luc Nancy, Michel Serres, and Jean-Luc Marion are explored in terms of a phenomenology that places the perceiving body centre stage but read as a development in philosophical thought that was already being explored through art and music.