---

This volume focusses on the rarely discussed reverse side of traditional, ´given´ objects of studies, namely absence rather than presence (of text) and silence rather than sound. It does so from an interdisciplinary perspective and covers systematic as well as historical perspectives from the baroque age to the present.

---

This volume focusses on the rarely discussed reverse side of traditional, ´given´ objects of studies, namely absence rather than presence (of text) and silence rather than sound. It does so from the bifocal and interdisciplinary perspective which is a hallmark of the book series Word and Music Studies.
The twelve contributors to the main subject of this volume approach it from various systematic and historical angles and cover, among others, questions such as to what extent absence can become significant in the first place or iconic (silent) functions of musical scores, as well as discussions of fields ranging from baroque opera to John Cage´s 4´33´´ . The volume is complemented by two contributions dedicated to further surveying the vast field of word and music studies.
The essays collected here were originally presented at the Ninth International Conference on Word and Music Studies held at London University in August 2013 and organised by the International Association for Word and Music Studies. They are of relevance to scholars and students of literature, music and intermediality studies as well as to readers generally interested in phenomena of absence and silence.

---

Preface

Silence and Absence in Literature and Music

Theoretical Aspects

Werner Wolf
How Does Absence Become Significant in Literature and Music?

Lawrence Kramer
Rosetta Tones: The Score as Hieroglyph

Historical Studies

Blake Stevens
The Spectacular Imagination and the Rhetoric of Absence in Armide

Naomi Matsumoto
´Ghost Writing´: An Exploration of Presence and Absence in Lucia di Lammermoor

Laura Wahlfors
How to Play the Music of Absence? The Romantic Aesthetics of Longing in Schumann´s Kreisleriana, Part 4

Beate Schirrmacher
Mute Performances: Ekphrasis of Music, and Performative Aesthetics in Eyvind Johnson´s Romantisk berättelse

Mary Breatnach
Silence and Music in Mallarmé´s Un coup de dés .

Axel Englund
Silence and the Sawmill: Rainer Maria Rilke on the Nuisance of Sounding Music .

Peter Dayan
The Inaudible Music of Dada

Karl Katschthaler
Absence, Presence and Potentiality: John Cage´s 4 33 Revisited

Bernhard Kuhn
The Silence of an Elephant: Luigi Nono´s Al Gran Sole Carico d´Amore (1975)

Michael Halliwell
The Sound of Silence: A Tale of Two Operatic Tempests .

Word and Music Studies: Surveying the Field

Emily Petermann
The Film Musical as a Subject for Word and Music Studies .

Jeppe Klitgaard Stricker
Musical Form in the Novel: Beyond the Sonata Principle .

Notes on Contributors .

---