Norbert Francis
Abstract
This first chapter provides an overview of the four themes of the book that will frame the study of poetry, music and narrative: (1) bilingualism, (2) multicultural knowledge, (3) origins and evolution of the abilities of poetry, music and narrative and (4) the systems and subsystems of cognition that underlie these abilities. The first theme is especially concerned with how language systems interact, among themselves, and then with other kinds of ability. For example, how are the knowledge systems of language and music related and how are they different? Multicultural aspects of poetry, music and narrative will be concerned mainly with the idea of cross-cultural differences (and interactions) and cross-cultural universals. In this case musical ability will provide a good example for studying culture. The problem of origins takes an evolutionary research point of view. Lastly, the study of component systems and subsystems examines the applicability of an important concept from evolutionary science, that of modularity. 1 Introduction: Art in the Voice The problem of how music and literature are related, and how they interact in real life, has a long history. Going back thousands of years, one idea was that the relationship was actually very close; that music and literature sprang forth from the same wellspring. Today, musicologists and linguists have begun to take another look at this relationship, in some ways different and in some ways the same, with a lens borrowed from the branch of psychology that studies cognitive processes. This new appreciation and curiosity has opened another ripe forum for the science-humanities dialogue. Poetry, narrative and music are aesthetic genres that have a number of things in common, even though narrative also includes strictly prosaic and non-artistic forms. Today, we often associate them with literacy, writing and musical notation. But in all three cases this aspect of their reading and (written) composition is completely secondary, secondary from the historical and evolutionary point of view and in how the respective abilities develop throughout the life span of individuals. Possibly, most adults (or depending on how one counts, at least a large percentage), even today, who are skilled and active creators/performers-poets, narrators and musicians-do not read or write. Not that writing and notation are inconsequential-something can be "secondary," in the above sense, but turn out to be important and widespread, with time, even come to be indispensible in some ways. For example, Chapter 4 of this book is mainly about poetry and writing. In music, poetry and narrative, there are purposes for which writing and notation are useful and even necessary. But they are not the primary motivating purposes, at least not the ones that might tell us something about underlying core characteristics. If this idea turns out to be correct, it has important implications for studying how beginning learners experience these genres. What prior sensibility (if such a thing exists) might we possess, from the beginning, that allows us to process music and literature as objects of art? The three genres are also universal: all normally developing individuals acquire, without deliberate instruction, the basic receptive capabilities of each ability and all cultures pass on from one generation to the next their respective repertoire of poems, stories and songs. In this way, the defining sensibilities and skills associated with poetry, narrative and music cross the oral-written "divide" (not a "divide" in the true sense) and cross all cultural boundaries. Upon closer inspection, the apparent exceptions might even be good examples of this generalization. The focus in this book will be on these poetic, narrative and musical abilities, how they develop and how we learn them. What might be some of the primitive components that distinguish one set of abilities from another, and then which components might be shared in common? A better understanding of the nature of these kinds of knowledge and skill, and the
