Jane Austen wrote in a letter that her novel Pride and Prejudice was maybe a little too "light and bright and sparkling". Perhaps this description is what has often made me think that Jane Austin wrote prose the way Mozart wrote music. I find Mozart's music to be "light and bright and sparkling". Like Austen he is melodic, inventive, well structured and amazingly beautiful. I was thinking this the other day as I walked on the treadmill listening to "The Marriage of Figaro".
Then I was thinking that Beethoven reminds me of Emily Bronte - all stormy and brooding. Wonderful stuff, but I like the light and bright better.
Next my mind wandered to Bach. What author does he remind me of? I'm not sure. My father loved Bach. He said Bach was the father of modern jazz. My father had us listen to the Goldberg Variations because, he said, jazz has the same structure of theme and variations.
I never really developed this idea of comparing authors to composers. It was just a passing treadmill musing. But yesterday right after my treadmill walk, I logged on to twitter and saw a tweet refernce to a book comparing Jane Austin to Mozart. What a coincidence! I ordered the book on line and can't wait to read it.
The following poem by Emily Dickinson seems to fit because music and literature both start with revery.
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
