Contents

A Note on Translations and Abbreviations

Hors d’oeuvre I

Introduction: The Subject of Music and Madness

1   Hearing Voices

Sirens at the Palais Royal

Between the Infinite and the Infinitesimal

Excursus: The Howl of Marsyas

Socratic Energy

2   Unequal Song

Music and the Irrational

Mimesis: Cratylus and the Origin of Language

Identity and Difference

Crisis at the Café de la Régence

Satire, Inequality, and the Individual

3   Resounding Sense

A Break in the Grand Confinement

The Emergence of the Mad Musician

Empfindsamkeit

Hegel’s Reading of Le neveu

Sentiment de l’existence

4   The Most Violent of the Arts

The Musical Sublime in Longinus and Burke

Kant’s Abdication

Community and Herder’s Conception of Music

Wackenroder’s Berglinger Novella

5   With Arts Unknown Before: Kleist and the Power of Music

Music, Reflection, and Immediacy in Kleist’s Letters

Die Heilige Cäcilie oder die Gewalt der Musik

Self-Representation

6   Before and After Language: Hoffmann

The Designative and Disclosive Functions of Language: Kreisleriana

The Uses of Form

Emptying Out Into Form: Julia Mark and the “Berganza” Dialogue

Euphony and Discord: “Ritter Gluck”

Postscriptum: “Rat Krespel”

Praescriptum: Kater Murr

Hors d’œuvre II

Notes

Bibliography

Index