The acoustics of alien space in oriental notes by F. Werfel and E. Canetti

The material of the study is the travel notes Egyptian Diary by F. Werfel and Voices of Marrakesh by E. Canetti, two Austrian writers of Jewish origin. The task of both authors is defined as a return to national and cultural origins and reconstruction of the ‘oriental myth', which, in their opinion, serves the basis of any aesthetic search. It is concluded that the writers are united by the principle of text fragmentation, namely the transition from one space to another and overcoming of the boundary both locally and in terms of spiritual development. Travel in literature necessarily implies segmentation of the text when changing locations. In most cases, however, verbal communication remains for Werfel and Canetti beyond the music they seek in the East. The dialogue obscures and recodes the deep strata of the ancestral culture, the desire to find which moves the authors. For musically-minded writers, each topos segment has its own acoustic score. The article describes the reasons why both authors refuse to study the language beforehand, preferring to rely on intuition and sense of language. Since for both of them the sound is stronger than the word, they use similar principles of audiolization of the world. The authors of the article dwell on contrast, the capturing of rhythmic shift, and the use of music-related metaphors and other types of ekphrasis. The dialogue conducted in a comprehensible language (German, French) is opposed to the music of urban streets and the desert in the descriptions by Werfel and Canetti. The incomprehensible is aestheticized and mythologized, while the verbalized is felt as profane, ordinary, flat.