Theme and Thesis in Genre Clerk

Explanation of "theme" and "thesis" using a poem by Rachel Hadas, Genre Clerk

File created 20 June 2009; last updated 28 February 2010.

Supplementary material for "Thematic Reading, Proto-backgrounds, and Transformations," Music Theory Spectrum 31/2 (fall 2009): 284-324.

(INTRODUCTION) The central construct of the article is the proto-background, or tonic-triad interval that is understood to precede the typical linear background of a Schenkerian or similar hierarchical analysis. Figures typically or potentially found in a background, including the Schenkerian urlinie, are understood to arise through (informal) transformations, or functions, applied to proto-backgrounds.

In the article, an analogy is made between "theme" in literary studies and "background" in linear analysis (or other hierarchical analytic models) for music. A further distinction, derived from Monroe Beardsley, is made between "theme" and "thesis."

(THEME AND THESIS: SECOND EXAMPLE). Consider the following unrhymed couplet:

(THEME) To make a thematic statement about this couplet (which for the moment is being treated as if it were a complete poem), we leap immediately to a generalization, returning to the text to test options against details. Version 1: "The theme is a challenge thrown to a reader/listener/interpreter." This form jumps too quickly to implicit meanings and to a thetic statement, as if the stark opposition of "ensemble" and "detail," conveyed and reinforced by design (two lines, two clauses), reveals an authorial tone of voice that demands a choice be made. On the other hand, version 1 lines up nicely with the details of the text (the multisyllabic words of line 1 set against the (mostly) monosyllables of line 2, the breadth (and vagueness) of "ensemble" against the tight, sharp action metaphor of "zero in," the passive voice of line 1 against the agent ("you") and active verb of line 2, past tense against future tense), and therefore we might achieve a usable thematic statement by just toning down version 1. Thus, version 2: "The theme is the split vision (or the opposing options) encountered by anyone reading (listening, interpreting)."

The hierarchy, with thesis (the argument) at the top, theme (high level description or summary), design level and elements, can be constructed more or less as below:

(THESIS) Drawing a thetic statement out of this couplet requires imposing a strong interpretation, as we did in inventing a challenge to the reader in version 1 above. That thesis was unconvincing since it already implied an answer (that is to say, a reading with symptomatic meanings), given that the (deliberately) flabby pretentiousness of line 1 all too obviously compares poorly with the active and familiar voice of line 2. If we nevertheless follow the idea up, the thesis might be something like "In aesthetic experience, live for the exquisite moment, not some grand synthesis."

(CONTEXT OF THE POEM) In its original setting--a poem by Rachel Hadas, "The Genre Clerk" (Indelible 61)--this couplet is one of a series of such contrasting pairs; the poem reserves its thetic statement for the traditional position of the final line(s):

(THESIS REWRITTEN ON THE BASIS OF THAT CONTEXT) The poet has whimsically interposed a bureaucrat between author and reader--someone who manages the desk of readership, as it were, offering options in direct speech and finally reminding the reader of his/her role in reception history. Version 2 of the thesis statement for the analysis above, then, might read "The reader's activity and choices are important to the reception history of a text."

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