Danger or shelter? Lullabies in the music of Benjamin Britten
<p>Britten’s playful aesthetic puts the child at the centre of many of his works. The lullaby is a genre which is therefore omnipresent. Through some case studies (<i>A Charm of Lullabies, The Rape of Lucretia, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>), this article con...
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | French English |
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Université de Bourgogne
2023
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| Summary: | <p>Britten’s playful aesthetic puts the child at the centre of many of his works. The lullaby is a genre which is therefore omnipresent. Through some case studies (<i>A Charm of Lullabies, The Rape of Lucretia, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>), this article considers the ways Britten tests the semiotic boundaries of the lullaby to create many ambiguous situations. With the transposition of a social and musical activity (to lull a child to sleep) on stage, Britten’s work blurs the mother-child relation by many inversions, and in particular makes of the child an ambivalent adult-like figure. The lullaby becomes paradoxically a protection and a luring danger. The article also reconsiders Britten’s own relation with his mother as well as it analyses the child-art and aesthetical implications of his juvenilia.</p><br>
<p>L’esthétique ludique de Britten place l’enfant au centre d’un grand nombre de ses œuvres. La berceuse est un genre qui est donc omniprésent. À travers quelques études de cas (<i>A Charm of Lullabies, The Rape of Lucretia, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>), cet article examine la manière dont Britten joue à tester les frontières sémiotiques de la berceuse pour créer de nombreuses situations ambiguës. Avec la transposition sur scène d’une activité socio-musicale (endormir un enfant), l’œuvre de Britten brouille la relation mère-enfant par de nombreuses inversions, et fait notamment de l’enfant une figure ambivalente de type adulte. La berceuse devient, de manière paradoxale, une protection et un danger attirant. L’article reconsidère également la relation de Britten avec sa mère et analyse l’art enfantin et les implications esthétiques de ses œuvres d’enfance.</p> |
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