“Poetics” in Musicology: Historical Background and Methodological Frameworks

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2026-1/170-180

Authors

Keywords:

poetics, Aristotle, poetological, musicology, genre, stylistics

Abstract

The article focuses on the application of the concept of “poetics” in musicology. As an interdisciplinary concept, it is widely used in the literary criticism, theater studies, musicology and other areas of the humanities, although it was initially formed in the literary criticism. As a methodological approach, poetics studies not only the aesthetic problems of art, but also the stylistics of musical language and composition techniques. In musicology, it can be applied to the analysis of different levels; in addition, there is an obvious tendency to establish musical poetics as a theoretical discipline. The purpose of the article is to compare the interpretation of the concept of poetics in literary criticism and musicology, and to clarify the methodological foundations of the poetological approach from historical and theoretical perspectives. Considering all these aspects on the basis of the historical and semantic approaches, the author used the methods of contextual and comparative analysis. The main result of the study is that the modem poetological approach developed in Russian musicology is based on the multidimensionality of the work’s organization, in particular, on the dualism of content and form. Much attention has been paid to the theoretical substantiation of this problem by E. V. Nazaikinsky and N. S. Gulyanitskaya, in particular. Their works reveal two main perspectives in relation to the poetics of musical composition – the study of stylistics as a system of expressive means and the extraction of the “spiritual” concept from the “musical” content. However, musicologists also declare a purely theoretical musical poetics, combining theoretical and historical musicology. The idea of analyzing works with a poetic aspect is evident in the lectures of Stravinsky and Berio. Understanding the artistic integrity of a work from the standpoint of its poetics helps to strike a balance between the structural and substantive aspects of the composition. It is concluded that the poetological approach makes it possible to focus on the semantics of the work and the specifics of its stylistic qualities.

Author Biography

  • Sara Vujošević Jovanović, The Montenegro University

    Vujoševic Jovanović, Sara — Ph.D. in musicology, Assistant Professor, Vice Dean for Science and International Cooperation, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, The Montenegro University (Cetinje, Montenegro). E-mail: sara.vujosevic@mail.ru ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9902-4225

    For citation: Vujošević Jovanović, S. 2026. “Poetics” in Musicology: Historical Background and Methodological Frameworks. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 1: 170–180.

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Published

13.03.2026

Issue

No. 1 (2026): Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik antropologii)

Section

The Anthropology of Art