Susanne Langer on representation and emotion in music

The British Journal of Aesthetics, January 1994

INTRODUCTION
Susanne K. Langer's theory of music is treated with respect by recent philosophers of music,
even though nobody seems to accept her theory. Her theory remains, in spite of fundamental
weaknesses, a significant contribution to the Philosophy of music. I shall first present Langer's
main theses as I understand them and then assess them critically. In the second part I shall try to
relate her theory of music to more recent theories of the role of emotion in music.
Peter Kivy notes in The Corded Shell (1980) that his own theory of expressiveness in music
resembles Langer's theory in certain respects. ~Both Langer and I', he says, ~claim that music
bears some resemblance to the "emotive life", and that, one way or another, therein lies the
explanation of its expressiveness'.[1] There are, to be sure, important differences between
Langer's and Kivy's views regarding the nature of the emotive and expressive qualities of music.
Langer and Kivy also differ as to what would constitute a proper account of the expressive
properties of music. I will return to these matters later when trying to sketch out some of the
options regarding the expressive qualities of music.
MUSIC AS A SYMBOL OF EMOTIVE LIFE
Langer's theory of music is contained in the chapter entitled ~On Significance in Music' in her
Philosophy in a New Key (1942).[2] Although her discussion is fairly short, her theory has been
interpreted in different ways. Some interpretations of her work are inadequate, notably those
which see her theory as a species of the imitation theory of art,[3] but there is room for several
legitimate interpretations because her analysis is rather unsystematic and, as Jerrold Levinson
puts it, ~intriguingly obscure'.[4]
Langer rejects two widely held theories of expression in music, the so-called self-expression
theory and the semantic theory. The self-expression theory maintains that he ~who produces the
music is pouring out the real feelings of his heart. Music is his avenue of self-expression, he
confesses his emotions to an audience, or--in solitude--just works them off to relieve himself.[5]
The self-expression theory of musical meaning has enjoyed great popularity because it seems to
explain how music can possess emotional qualities and how music affects us emotionally. A
prior expressive act on the part of the composer is, on this review, responsible for the expressive
properties embodied in a musical work.
The self-expression theory cannot, Langer argues, account for the creation of artistic form, in this
case musical form, because ~[s]heer self-expression requires no artistic form', she says.[6] The
history of music, she adds, ~has been a history of more and more integrated, disciplined, and
articulated forms, much like the history of language'.[7] If a composer expressed his real
emotions in his music, it would, Langer argues, be impossible for him to work in accordance
with a programme. It is clear that Langer interprets the self-expression theory in terms of venting
one's feelings and not as objectifying one's emotions. There are, however, more interesting

versions of the expression theory than this version of the self-expression theory. Philosophers
such as Collingwood and Dewey, for example, have explicitly distinguished between direct and
indirect expression, claiming that only the latter is relevant as regards art. In their view emotions
are objectified or embodied in the work of art. But even the theory that a work of art expresses
~emotion recollected in tranquillity' treats the work of art as an expression of the emotional
experiences of its creator, and art is therefore still considered to be essentially autobiographical.
Langer's arguments against the self-expression theory of music could easily be transposed so as
to fit other varieties of expression theories as well. She also rejects the theory that music is
basically a kind of language, a language with conceptual powers. On this semantic theory of
music, instrumental music is capable of describing reality and of conveying a message.
Schopenhauer is singled out as an exponent of this view: ~The assumption that music is a kind of
language, not of the here-and-now, but of genuine conceptual content, is widely entertained,
though perhaps not as universally as the emotive-symptom theory. The best-known pioneer in
this field is Schopenhauer'.[8] For Schopenhauer music--in contrast to other art forms--represents
and expresses the nature of the metaphysical Will itself. It reveals the nature of the world--not by
expressing or describing any particular emotions felt by the composer or by anybody else--but by
expressing the nature of particular kinds of emotions: joy as such or grief as such. The essence of
joy or grief is for Schopenhauer the proper subject-matter of instrumental music. Langer thinks
that Schopenhauer's theory of music is an advance on most previous theories of musical
meaning, mainly because he regards music ~as an impersonal, . . . real semantic, a symbolism
with a content of ideas'.[9] She introduces her own theory of music in the following way: ~If
music has any significance, it is semantic, not symptomatic. Its "meaning" is evidently not that of
a stimulus to evoke emotions, nor that of a signal to announce them; if it has an emotional
content, it "has" it in the same sense that language "has" its conceptual content--symbolically'.[10
Music, in her view then, is neither the cause nor the cure of feelings, but their ~logical
expression'.[11] Music is therefore a peculiar kind of symbolism, capable of expressing the
nature of our emotional experience. However, it is not a discursive symbolism or a real language
with a vocabulary and a syntax: it is ~an unconsummated symbol',[12] she claims. Therefore
~[a]rticulation is its life, but not assertion; expressiveness, not expression'. [13] Instrumental
music is not a language; it is not a discursive symbolism because it lacks a vocabulary with fixed
meanings. There is, however, ~an unexplored possibility of genuine semantic beyond the limits
of discursive language',[14] she believes, and instrumental music belongs to that category.
If music does not describe anything extra-musical or refer to an extra-musical reality, what then
is articulated and formulated in and through music? ~A composer', says Langer, ~articulates
subtle complexes of feeling that language cannot even name, let alone set forth'.[15] Does this
imply that a composer who has acquired a deep knowledge of a particular complex of feeling
articulates that very complex of feeling and not another one? I think this is what she is saying at
times although it is inconsistent with her thesis that music is capable of reflecting and presenting
only the general structure of the emotions, not the structure or nature or whatever of particular
emotions and feelings.
There is, I believe, what could be called a ~particularist' and a ~generalist' tendency in Langer's
thinking about the significance of music, tendencies that give rise to irreconcilable claims. Let
me start with what I have called the ~particularist' tendency. ~Just as words can describe events

we have not witnessed, places and things we have not seen', she writes, ~so music can present
emotions and moods we have not felt, passions we did not know before'.[16] She must have
particular emotions, moods and passions in mind, and not emotions, moods and passions in
general, otherwise the analogy with events we have not witnessed would be pointless. We may
also note that she writes indiscriminately of emotions, moods and passions--phenomena that
differ considerably both psychologically and conceptually. In the following passage, on the other
hand, she does not seem to be thinking of named or unnamed emotions or moods at all. For
music, she asserts, is ~formulation and representation of emotions, moods, mental tensions and
resolutions--a "logical picture" of sentient, responsive life, a source of insight, not a plea for
sympathy'.[17] What are the tensions and resolutions referred to here? Are they tensions and
resolutions that, as it were, inhere in particular emotions or are they the general characteristics of
mental life as such, tensions and resolutions that can be the common property of many different
emotions and moods? I think the latter, because if music is a logical picture of sentient,
responsive life it is a logical picture not of any particular and concrete mental phenomena, but of
the structure of emotive experience as such. This interpretation is reinforced by her support for
those ~thinkers who recoil from the admission of specific meanings.[18] In her view music can
only reflect ~the morphology of feeling'.[19] She argues as follows for this thesis. Instrumental
music is capable of reflecting and presenting the morphology of feeling because there is a
structural resemblance between musical structures and the life of feeling. She tries to clarify this
similarity between the dynamic patterns in music and the dynamic patterns of our mental life in
the following way: ~there are certain aspects of the so-called "inner life"--physical or mental-which have formal properties similar to those of music--patterns of motion and rest, of tension
and release, of agreement and disagreement, preparation, fulfilment, excitation, sudden change,
etc.'.[20]
Langer believes that one condition for what she calls a ~connotative relationship between music
and subjective experience'[21] is satisfied, namely the condition that there be a certain similarity
of logical form between music and the so-called inner life. The first thing to note is that she here
endorses a version of the picture theory of meaning, and assumes that for A to stand in a
symbolic and semantic relationship to B, A must possess the same logical form as B. Music is
therefore, according to her, capable of reflecting and presenting our emotive life in virtue of
similarities in dynamic patterns between music and the emotive life.
But even if we admit the existence of such structural similarities it does not follow ipso facto that
music reflects or presents aspects of the emotions, or that music reflects the nature of feelings.
Numerous non-human, physical processes exhibit similar dynamic patterns, yet music does not
reflect or express them. Think of the sea, for example, which is a natural phenomenon exhibiting
patterns of motion and rest and of tension and resolution. This similarity in patterns is probably
the main reason why some people believe that Debussy's La Mer actually represents the sea. But
for Langer this interpretation is excluded a priori; the dynamic patterns in La Mer as in all music
present dynamic, psychological patterns. Yet if her arguments warrant the conclusion that music
is capable of presenting the dynamic patterns of our inner life, they also warrant the conclusion
that music is capable of presenting any dynamic patterns in nature. Langer takes it for granted
that there is an intrinsic connection between music and our emotional life. Before continuing my
analysis of Langer's theory, I would like to draw attention to a similar difficulty that faces Kivy's
theory of the expressive properties in music.

Like Langer, Kivy thinks that ~music bears some resemblance to the "emotive life"',[22] and he
also believes that the expressiveness of music is to be explained in terms of this resemblance.
Music, however, is for him not a symbol of the emotive life or of anything else, nor does he
entertain the notion of a logical similarity or isomorphism between musical structures and
emotional ones. In particular, he rejects ~the illicit move from resemblance to symbol',[23] that
he finds in Langer. Kivy repudiates the charge that he himself is guilty of a similar move from
resemblance to expressiveness, for if resemblance were a sufficient condition for expressiveness,
he says, ~music would be expressive of everything it resembled: the waves of the ocean, and, . . .
the rise and fall of the stock market or the spirit of capitalism'.[24]
In Kivy's view music can be expressive of something only if two conditions in addition to the
requirement of resemblance are fulfilled. In the first place it must make sense to say that music is
expressive of this or that. In the second place there must be some psychological link between
music and what it expresses.[25] Music, then, is expressive of the emotions, first, because there
is a resemblance between music and expressive behaviour and, secondly, because it makes sense
to say that music is expressive of the emotions as opposed to being expressive of many other
things, and finally, and most importantly, because music can be expressive of the emotions,
because ~we, for whatever reason, tend to animate our perceptions, and cannot but see
expressiveness in them, any more than we can help seeing expressiveness in the Saint Bernard's
face', as Kivy puts it.[26] According to Kivy, we are justified in regarding music as expressive of
individual human emotions because we in fact tend to hear expressiveness in music. If this is so,
I cannot see why Langer should not be entitled to assume that music reflects our emotional life
rather than, say, the life of the stars.
But to return to Langer's argument, if we grant her that music somehow reflects and presents the
dynamic structures of emotive life, we may ask what features or aspects of our emotive
experience are presented in music. One answer is that ~music can reveal the nature of feelings
with a detail and truth that language cannot approach'.[27] Music can do this ~[b]ecause the
forms of human feeling are much more congruent with musical forms than with the forms of
language', she thinks.[28] This passage is a good example of the ambiguity I have found at the
heart of her theory, for she speaks indiscriminately of ~the forms of human feeling' and of ~the
nature of feelings'. Perhaps it makes sense to say that the feeling of hunger or the feeling of thirst
exhibits a pattern or structure of motion and rest, of tension and release, but it does not follow
that the nature of these feelings consists of such patterns.
A somewhat different answer to the question what music can reveal or present is given in a
passage where she denies that music can convey specific emotive meanings. For she asserts that
the only thing that ~music can actually reflect is . . . the morphology of feeling'.[29] I will
henceforth refer to this as Langer's ~official view'. The morphology of feeling presumably
consists of patterns and structures which are isomorphic with musical forms. I take it that it does
not make sense to speak of a sad or joyous morphology or of plaintive or exuberant patterns;
therefore we cannot on Langer's theory ascribe particular expressive emotional properties to a
piece of music. No predicates, which we normally use in describing attitudes, states of mind,
moods, feelings and emotions, can legitimately be applied to music on Langer's official view.

And yet, while insisting that music only reflects the morphology of feeling, in the same breath
she admits that ~[i]t is a peculiar fact that some musical forms seem to bear a sad and a happy
interpretation equally well'.[30] In the absence of any examples of such music it is difficult to
assess her claim. Also, there seems to be a slip of the pen here because the admission that a
passage can be equally well interpreted as sad or as happy is inconsistent with her general refusal
to assign specific emotive meanings to music. The reason she gives is that ~some sad and some
happy conditions may have a very similar morphology'.[31] If music only reflects the
morphology of feeling, it cannot reflect or present or suggest sad or happy moods at all, unless
we assume that every mental condition has its own specific morphology--an assumption which is
inconsistent with Langer's explicit theory.
If music exhibits dynamic patterns analogous to the dynamic patterns of emotive life, music does
not represent or refer to these patterns; music only resembles them and somehow presents them.
The link between music and the emotive life is, then, according to Langer's ~official theory'
highly general and abstract. As Kivy remarks, music in her theory emerges as a ~[peculiar]
symbol . . . . a pale ghost of the emotions: symbolic of them but not of any one of them'.[32]
According to Kivy, ~our talk about music, both in high as well as low places, is talk about
music's relations to the particular human emotions, not just talk . . . to . . . some "abstract emotion
in general"'.[33] Langer's theory cannot account for this, nor does it offer a justification for the
ascription of expressive predicates to music, as does Kivy's theory. Kivy says therefore that
Langer does not ~save the appearances', because she does not ~save the link to particular
emotions'.[34] He is, of course, right about this, but the aims of Langer's theory of music are very
different from Kivy's. Her theory of music is an integral part of her general philosophy of
~symbolic forms', inspired by Ernst Cassirer, whereas Kivy wishes to explain and justify a
certain practice of experiencing, talking and writing about music.
Nevertheless Kivy's comments are illuminating because they highlight the abstract character of
Langer's theory. In his article, ~Is Music a Language of the Emotions?' (1983), Stephen Davies
remarks in a similar vein that ~Langer's theory removes emotion from art, replacing it with
conceptions of emotions'.[35] Davies also criticizes Langer because she removes ~the basis for
emotional responses to musical works and makes mysterious the power of music to evoke
emotional responses'.[36] This is also true, but it must be said that Langer is not interested in
explaining and justifying emotional responses to music; for her ~[t]he real power of music lies in
the fact that it can be "true" to the life of feeling in a way that language cannot'.[37] The musical
experience is for her presumably a cognitive response to musical structures that express the
morphology of feeling.
Before moving on, I shall summarize Langer's views by reproducing the following thesis--like
formulations from Philosophy in a New Key: (1) Music formulates and represents emotions and
moods; (2) Music articulates complexes of feeling; (3) Music presents emotive experience; (4)
Music reveals the nature of feelings; (5) Music reflects the morphology of feeling. Some of these
statements have been discussed above. I think it is clear that they do not all say the same, nor are
they mutually compatible. Like many other readers of Langer I find it difficult to extract a
consistent theory from her chapter on music.
KIVY, LEVINSON AND THE EXPERIENCED LISTENER

In the remainder of my paper I will try to relate Langer's views to Kivy's and Levinson's. I shall
start by discussing a question of method, which can be introduced by asking how a theory of
music relates to the practice of music criticism and to the experience of ordinary listeners and
expert witnesses.
Several recent writers on the philosophy of music appeal at times to their own experiences of
music. Peter Kivy, for example, notes that ~the practice of music criticism is on the side of those
who hear in music identifiable human emotions',[38] adding that this practice not only reflects a
common musical experience, but also his own. In another place he says that ~[w]hat I hear in
music must be . . . the basic data for my theory'.[39] Or consider Jerrold Levinson's argument for
his view that a particular passage in Mendelssohn's overture The Hebrides expresses ~a
particular hope--ardent, steadfast, and with not a little touch of faith as well':[40]
[I]t was my conviction in the truth of my experience with passages such as that in The Hebrides
that initially convinced me there must be something wrong with the oft-repeated arguments in
question, to the effect that music's capacity to express more elevated psychological states is so
inherently and unalterably limited. I can only trust that I have adequately diagnosed the ills of
those arguments, but I know that the Hebrides passage expresses, if not hope, then at least some
higher emotional condition beyond what those arguments appear to allow.[41]
Whereas Langer considers music to be ~expressive in a nonspecific sense', to use Kivy's
wording, Kivy, on the other hand, hears music as expressive in a specific sense; he hears
identifiable, human emotions in music.[42] I, for my part, tend to hear music as expressive in a
non-specific sense. But I would not want to theorize about my experience, nor do I believe that it
is generalizable. But I am certain of one thing: whatever it is I hear in music it is not the ~the
morphology of feeling'. But I think that Levinson's claim to having found expressions of
religious ardour, of sorrow and shame, of boundless heroism and of pride in certain pieces of
music is no less extravagant and puzzling than the Langerian claim that music expresses the
morphology of feeling in music.
I would like to mention one final example of the appeal to what could be called ~the individual
philosopher's musical experience'. In his article, ~Analytical Philosophy and the Meaning of
Music' (1987), Roger Scruton says that ~[i]f a work of music means something, then, this is a
fact about the way it sounds'.[43] And although ~[m]usic is not', according to Scruton, ~in any
full sense, a representational art' because it is beset by ~narrative incompetence',[44] he claims
that music can express moral truths. Commenting on the conclusion to Gotterdammerung Act I,
he writes:
The musical experience rehearses a moral truth: that worship of nature, which is the end of life,
stands next to the idolatry of power, which is the means. The holy is the neighbor of the corrupt,
and that which is loved is adjacent to that which is bought and sold. Such is the way the music
sounds, however strange it may be to say so.[45]
Scruton is, of course, not describing pure instrumental music here, but still it is strange to say
that music sounds the way he says it sounds. Moreover, I find it difficult to reconcile these

assertions with his insistence on ~the narrative incompetence' of music.

Kivy and Levinson not only appeal to their own experience of music; they also think that the
practice of music criticism and the experience of musically competent and musically cultivated
listeners support their theories. Kivy argues that the appeal to his own experiences of music is
justified for the following reason: ~[F]or although I am generalizing from a single case, I am not
generalizing from a singular one. I share, with all others at my musical level, a common musical
education and, because of that, a common approach to listening: common listening habits'.[46] I
doubt whether any common listening habits can be appealed to in support of a particular theory
of musical expressiveness. In the first place, there are theorists and music critics who refuse to
describe music in emotive terms in the belief that all descriptions in emotive terms are either
meaningless or arbitrary. In his review of Kivy's The Corded Shell, R. A. Sharpe claims that
~Kivy is quite fundamentally mistaken in seeking to rehabilitate the use of . . . expressive
predicates',[47] and he believes that the expressive vocabulary belongs to the beginner and
should consequently be discarded by the cognoscenti. In the second place, there are those who
think that music has a describable content, a conceptual or metaphysical content very different
from anything envisaged by Kivy. In a book on Mahler by a theorist, who like Kivy is a
professional philosopher with a degree in musicology, we find the following analysis of the
meaning of Mahler's Fifth Symphony: ~Listeners who allow Mahler to lead them into a nonKantian temporality may find that the work reflects, and thereby illuminates, the temporal
process that characterizes human consciousness as it actually is.'[48] And a passage in the first
movement (the ~Funeral March') is said to make ~explicit the horrible pain associated with the
death of the person whose corpse is passing by'.[49] These views may be dismissed as eccentric
and exceptional. It is, however, easy to find less extravagant descriptions of the content and the
message in music, which are at odds with Kivy's theory and with his experience of music. In an
article on Mozart's Requiem, in a recent issue of the journal Classic CD, the reviewer claims that
this music ~reflects the composer's struggle to reconcile the frightful visions of death, occasioned
by his own final illness, with the consolation and hope traditionally afforded by religious faith.
The message of the work is that no such reconciliation proved possible'.[50] I do not say that this
is wrong or unintelligible, only that it is incompatible with Kivy's view of the nature of music.
The appeal to the common practice of music critics then is riskier than Kivy supposes. Different
people expect different things from music, they hear different things in music and they describe
it in different ways and theorize about it differently. The conception of the innocent eye is a
myth, and so is the idea of an innocent ear.
In Levinson's essay, ~Hope in The Hebrides', the expert listener, or ~musically prepared listener'
as Levinson calls him, plays a certain role. Levinson admits that nothing of what he has said
about the passage in The Hebrides proves that it expresses hope. ~[I]t only expresses [hope]', he
claims, ~if musically prepared listeners will eventually agree that it is most aptly heard that way
on an emotional plane'.[51] It comes as no great surprise that he also believes that ~it should be
heard that way'.[52] In the same essay he claims that ~fully understanding [certain] passages,
would entail acknowledging in experience that particular emotional construals of them were
especially apt'.[53] There is a risk of circularity here. The musically prepared listener is
presumably someone who is capable of construing certain passages in a certain way, recognizing

hope in The Hebrides, for example, and the ascription of a definite emotive meaning to a certain
passage is supported by the real or imagined consensus of informed listeners.
In spite of my doubts about the appeal to the practice of music criticism and the experience of
expert listeners, it must be admitted that there often is considerable agreement--not only among
critics and experts--about the expressive qualities of a piece of music. If we wish to characterize
the first movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony in expressive terms, almost everybody would
choose predicates referring to the darker emotions, such as ~despairing', ~mournful', ~sad' and
~desperate'. Somebody who thought that this movement is expressive of jubilant joy or
exuberant good spirits would be joking or would have a very peculiar musical sensibility or
rather, no sense for music at all.
When it comes to a finer discrimination of the expressive properties of a piece of music, it seems
impossible to determine decisively which from a given range of properties are the most
appropriate. In other words, we may not be able to decide whether a piece of music should be
described as sad, or as lamenting, or rather as mournful or melancholy. ~Expressive ambiguity is
an inherent feature of most if not all of our art',[54] says Allan Tormey. He believes that this fact
explains ~the continuing divergence of informed judgment concerning the expressive qualities of
art works'.[55] Even if this is true it does not explain why some people are willing to characterize
music in specific expressive terms, whereas others think that music can only be characterized in
very general expressive terms. Nor does it explain, of course, why there are ultra purists who
think that all descriptions of music in expressive terms are misguided.
Whereas Langer's theory allows for the expressive ambiguity of a musical work, both Kivy and
Levinson try to play down the importance of this phenomenon.
The debates concerning the significance and meaning of music are, I think, partly conceptual and
partly normative. Theories of musical meaning--overtly or covertly--recommend a way of
listening to music. That is perhaps the reason why these controversies frequently become rather
heated. Susanne Langer wrote that ~[t]he oddest thing about this perfectly legitimate problem of
musical meaning is that it seems impossible for people to discuss it with anything like
detachment or candor'.[56] The purists, she says, ~reject with horror the very attempt to construe
music as a semantic, they regard the imputation of any meaning--emotional or other--as an insult
to the Muse, a degradation of the pure dynamic forms, an invidious heresy'.[57] Peter Kivy
makes a similar observation; he says that ~the quarrel between musical emotivists and musical
cognitivists all too often seems to involve a sort of moral crusade'.[58] Kivy, of course sides with
the cognitivists who think that a property such as sadness is an objective phenomenal property of
music regardless of whether the music makes the listeners sad or not, whereas the emotivists
claim that sad music is sad in virtue of its capacity to arouse sadness in the listener.
Hanslick, Langer, Kivy and Levinson assess the role of emotions in music differently. Hanslick
believes that music cannot have expressive properties and he denies that there is any room at all
for an emotional response to music. Langer's attitude is perhaps less straightforward; in her view
music has emotional significance, albeit in a rather attenuated sense, and Kivy thinks that music
can be expressive of definite human emotions such as sadness, joy, grief, and melancholy.
Levinson, finally believes that music is capable of expressing not only complex human emotions,

but also attitudes and character traits. These are, of course, not the only options as regards the
existence of expressive qualities in music and the role of the emotions. I myself am in sympathy
with Edmund Gurney, whose views can be placed somewhere in between Langer and Kivy. In an
often quoted passage he writes: ~[W]e often call music which stirs us more expressive than
music which does not; and we call great music significant, or talk of its import, in contrast to
poor music, which seems meaningless and insignificant; without being able, or dreaming we are
able, to connect these general terms with anything expressed or signified'.[59]
To conclude: I am intrigued and puzzled by Langer's vague and ambiguous but fascinating
theory, I am less puzzled by Peter Kivy's clearheaded analysis, and I am very much puzzled by
Levinson's impressively argued but strange views. Music itself gives me far less trouble than the
philosophers of music.
Lars-Olof Ahlberg, Cultural Studies, Uppsala University, Tridgirdsgatan 18, S-753 09 Uppsala,
Sweden.
REFERENCES
[1] Peter Kivy, The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression (Princeton U.P., 1980), p.
60. [2] In Langer's later works, Feeling and Form (1953) and Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling
1967), there is little mention of music, and in any case these works do not add anything
significant to her discussion in Philosophy in a New Key. [3] George Dickie, Aesthetics: An
Introduction (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1971), pp. 78-84. [4] Jerrold Levinson, ~Truth in Music', in
J. Levinson, Music, Art, and Metaphysics: Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics (Ithaca: Cornell
U.P., 1990), p. 282, n. 6. [5] Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the
Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, 1942, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U.P.,
1957), p. 214. [6] Ibid., p. 216. [7] Ibid. [8] Ibid., p. 219. [9] Ibid. [10] Ibid., p. 218 [11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., p. 240. [13] Ibid. [14] Ibid., p. 86. [15] Ibid., p.222. [16] Ibid. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid., p.
238. [19] Ibid. [20] Ibid., p. 228. [21] Ibid. [22] Kivy, The Corded Shell, p. 60. [23] Ibid., p. 61.
[24] Ibid., p. 62. [25] Ibid. [26] Ibid. [27] Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, p. 235. [28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid., p. 238. [30] Ibid. [31] Ibid. [32] Kivy, The Corded Shell, p. 62. [33] Ibid., p. 63. [34]
Ibid. [35] Stephen Davies, ~Is Music a Language of the Emotions?', The British Journal of
Aesthetics 23 (1983), p. 232. [36] Ibid. [37] Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, p. 243. [38]
Kivy, The Corded Shell, p. 46. [39][Peter Kivy, Sound Sentiment: An Essay on the Musical
Emotions (Philadelphia: Temple U.P., 989), p. 185. [40] Jerrold Levinson, ~Hope in The
Hebrides', in J. Levinson, Music, Art, and Metaphysics, p. 370. [41] Ibid., p. 337, [42] Kivy, The
Corded Shell, p. 46. [43] Roger Scruton, ~Analytical Philosophy and the Meaning of Music', The
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46 (1987), Special Issue, p. 171. [44] Ibid., p. 172. [45]
Ibid., p. 175. [46] Peter Kivy, Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical
Experience (Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1990), p. 70. [47] R. A. Sharpe, Review of P. Kivy's The
Corded Shell, The British Journal of Aesthetics 22 (1982) p. 81. [48] David B. Greene, Mahler:
Consciousness and Temporality (New York: Gordon & Breach, 1984), p. 129. [49] Ibid., p. 45.
[50] Classic CD (December 991), p. 42. [51] Levinson, ~Hope in The Hebrides', p. 370. [52]
Ibid. [53] Ibid., p. 375 n. 53. [54] Alan Tormey, The Concept of Expression: A Study in
Philosophical Psychology and Aesthetics (Princeton U.P., 1971), p. 140. [55] Ibid., p. 141 [56]
Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, p. 236. [57] Ibid. [58] Kivy, Music Alone, p. 146. [59]

Edmund Gurney, The Power of Sound (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1880), p. 313.

Abstract
Susanne K. Langer's theory of representation and emotion in music is suggestive, but
inconsistent or ambiguous at times. Langer regards music as symbolic of emotional experience,
but not as a fully developed language. She states explicitly that music does not represent specific
feelings, yet at times she refers to musical passages as happy or sad. Furthermore, Langer is
unable to show why music represents the structure of emotion rather than other types of dynamic
patterns. On the other hand, Peter Kivy and Jerrold Levinson rely on questionable appeals to
their own experience or to the experience of a supposed expert listener as a basis for
generalization.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1994 Oxford University Press.

Source Citation
Ahlberg, Lars-Olof. "Susanne Langer on representation and emotion in music." The British
Journal of Aesthetics 34.1 (1994): 69+. Biography in Context. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
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