Word Count: 1,099 Katya Davisson

Carter and Bishop’s ‘O Breath’: A Novel Approach to Mimesis?

Elliott Carter’s ideas parallel those of Elizabeth Bishop in many ways. Each of them approaches
their work in a highly detailed manner with the utmost technical control; is concerned with the
passing of time; and deals with multi-layered expression. It is due to this latter fact that Carter
looked favourably upon Bishop’s poetry, which led to the cycle A Mirror on Which to Dwell
(1986): “I was very much in sympathy with their point of view, for there is almost always a
secondary layer of meaning.”1 This study focuses on Bishop’s poem ‘O Breath’ and aims to
locate Carter’s setting amongst existing musico-poetic theories before proposing a novel
approach to mimesis.

‘O Breath’ depicts the intimate observation of the protagonist’s sleeping lover (see Appendix
1). It comprises a single stanza of fifteen lines, containing three lengthy sentences. The most
striking element of the poem is the mid-line breaks, representing the breathing action of the
lover. There is a strong sense of isolation, key to Bishop’s multi-layered expression:
superficially, the scene is an intimate one set in a bed and depicting the vulnerability of sleep;
on a deeper level, however, the speaker experiences a sense of emotional isolation from the
thoughts and feelings of her lover. Carter’s musical setting depicts these layers clearly.

Whilst the setting features beautiful melodies and intricate patterns, the musico-poetic
relationship is where the heart of the song’s interest lies. This relationship, however, is tricky
to locate amongst Kramer’s existing theories of assimilation, incorporation, and mimesis.2
Assimilation understands the text as just one of myriad raw materials of composition, others of
which are external from the poem. On the contrary, Carter’s setting is exclusively concerned
with Bishop’s text. Mimesis, therefore, might seem like a more appropriate route to go down,
which sees music as mimetic of the text at hand.3 However, the implication here is that the text
resides on a higher plane than the music which only serves to fill in the poetic blanks. Carter’s
setting, however, whilst solely drawing on content from Bishop’s poem, advances this content
to a higher artistic plane that surpasses the poem and, hence, mimesis. It is not a supplementary

1
Elliott Carter, quoted in Brenda Ravenscroft, ‘Layers of Meaning: Expression and Design in Carter’s songs’ in
Boland (ed.), Elliott Carter Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 271-291 (p. 272).
2
Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1984), p. 126.
3
Ibid.
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setting, but essentially recreates the poem in a different language, as it were, as if Carter were
depicting the scene in a detailed painting, disclosing intricacies that had previously passed us
by, now in more depth and colour. I therefore aim to contribute to the current academic
discussion the suggestion of a new theory of musico-textual relationship: ‘mimetic
advancement’. This somewhat paradoxically allows the music to go beyond its text in terms of
artistic expression, whilst concerning itself solely with the text’s ideas. With an explicit
reference to mimesis, it is clear that the poem is concerned exclusively with the text and with
recreating the scene depicted by that text, but the use of ‘advancement’ rids mimesis of the
tenet that the music is an imperfect imitation of the words. Such an approach is not universally
applicable though I stand by the notion that mimetic advancement allows for a more fruitful
approach to Carter’s setting of ‘O Breath’ than Kramer’s existing theories. This is precisely
due to the multi-layered expression of Bishop’s poem which lends itself perfectly to Carter’s
multi-layered musical setting, allowing this central theme to shine through more transparently
and disclosing details of the poem we might otherwise have missed. I now demonstrate mimetic
advancement in Carter’s setting.

Layer 1

Layer 2

Figure 1: bars 29-30

Word Count: 1,099 Katya Davisson

Carter honours Bishop’s pauses halfway through each line, and the quiet dynamic ensures that
the setting retains the intimacy of the poem. Despite the evident complexity of Carter’s music,
the poem’s multi-layered structure is readily apparent and comprises two primary layers: (1)
the anxious soprano voice, representing the isolated speaker; (2) the instrumental ensemble,
which plays variably swelling and fading sustained chords to depict the lover’s breathing (see
Figure 1).4 The audible distinction between the parts is brought about by their juxtaposed
rhythms, intervals, and timbres.

However, the multi-layered expression also operates at a deeper level, and it is here that
mimetic advancement becomes crucial. Though this level is merely glossed over in Bishop’s
poem, the use of a multi-layered setting allows Carter to dwell on its significance fairly
extensively. This level concerns Bishop’s mention of the sleeper’s feelings “moving invisibly”
under his visible breaths but, in the poem, this doesn’t necessarily hint at another ‘layer of
expression.’ In the music, however, Carter makes this the priority. He divides up the second
primary layer of the accompaniment into three further layers or ‘strands’, which operate in a
polyrhythmic complex, somewhat acting as the “sub-cutaneous forces that propel the music
through time” much like a slow-moving pulse taking place below the breathing.5 These
polyrhythmic events are grouped together to create the intermittent rising and falling of the
accompaniment pattern. Despite never coinciding, demonstrating the lack of deep concordance
in the pair’s relationship, they do converge on each other towards the end of the song with the
quintuplet pulse overtaking the sixteenth pulse: the pair is very close but never truly meets (see
Figure 2). It is in this way that the poem’s subtle implications are clearly spelled out as if on a
canvas depicting the scene, with the thoughts and feelings of each character occurring
simultaneously through the use of a multi-layered musical structure as in real life. The poem
introduces us to these ideas, but Carter’s setting mimetically advances them, allowing us to
engage more readily with Bishop’s scene. In this way, the setting is an accurate reproduction
of the poem in another and more readily interpretable language – namely, music.

To conclude, mimetic advancement is applicable to this poem because of the clarity of

expression and hermeneutic depth we yield when it is translated into music. This allows the

4
Brenda Ravenscroft, ‘Layers of Meaning: Expression and Design in Carter’s songs’ in Boland (ed.), Elliott
Carter Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 271-291 (p. 290).
5
Brenda Ravenscroft, ‘The Anatomy of a Song: Text and Texture in Elliott Carter’s “O Breath”’, Ex Tempore
9/1 (1998), p. 102.
 Word Count: 1,099 Katya Davisson

setting to reside on a higher artistic plane than the poem. It seems to me that this is as a result
of Bishop and Carter’s artistic similarities; it might be interesting to consider whether this
musico-poetic relationship carries over into the remaining settings of the Mirror cycle.

Quintuplet
pulse

Sixteenth
pulse

Figure 2: bars 44-45

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Bibliography

Bishop, Elizabeth, The Complete Poems 1927-1979 (New York: Farrar, 1979).

Carter, Elliott, A Mirror on Which to Dwell: Six Poems of Elizabeth Bishop (Associated
Music Publishers, 1986).

Kramer, Lawrence, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984).

Ravenscroft, Brenda, ‘Layers of Meaning: Expression and Design in Carter’s songs’ in

Boland (ed.), Elliott Carter Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 271-291.

______, ‘The Anatomy of a Song: Text and Texture in Elliott Carter’s “O Breath”’, Ex
Tempore 9/1 (1998), 84-102.

Schwarz, Lloyd, ‘In Need of Music: Musical Settings of Elizabeth Bishop’, in Cleghorn (ed.),
Elizabeth Bishop and the Music of Literature (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 101-112.

______, ‘Elliott Carter and American Poetry’, Chicago Review 5, 3/4 (2014), 46-60.
Word Count: 1,099 Katya Davisson

Appendix 1

O Breath
Beneath that loved and celebrated breast,
silent, bored really blindly veined,
grieves, maybe lives and lets
live, passes bets,
something moving but invisibly,
and with what clamor why restrained
I cannot fathom even a ripple.
(See the thin flying of nine black hairs
four around one five the other nipple,
flying almost intolerably on your own breath.)
Equivocal, but what we have in common's bound to be there,
whatever we must own equivalents for,
something that maybe I could bargain with
and make a separate peace beneath
within if never with.