Full Description
Who speaks in Leonard Cohen's oeuvre? By identifying the many guises in which Cohen presents himself to his audience, Francis Mus seeks to formulate an answer to this question. The countless roles assumed by Cohen's persona are not some innocent games, but strategies in response to the sometimes conflicting demands of a 'life in art': they serve as masks that represent the performer's face and state of mind in a heightened yet detached way. In and around the artistic work, they are embodied in different guises or 'demons': image (the poser), artistry (the writer and singer), alienation (the stranger and the confidant), religion (the worshipper, prophet, or priest), and power (the powerful or powerless).
Ultimately, Cohen's artistic practice can be read as an attempt at forging interpersonal contact. The wide international circulation of Cohen's work has resulted in a partial severing with the context of its creation. Much of it has filtered through the public image forged by the artist and his critics in concerts, interviews and reflective texts.
Consequently, this monograph is less a biography than a reception study, supplemented with extensive archival research, unpublished documents, and interviews with colleagues and privileged witnesses. This book sheds new light on the dynamic of a comprehensive oeuvre spanning a period of sixty years.
Published in English.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Prof. Brian Trehearne
INTRODUCTION
Leonard Cohen, who are you?
1. IMAGE
On the self-representation in the music
2. ARTISTRY
On the relationship between maker, work, and audience
3. ALIENATION
From local embeddedness and global exile to universal aspirations and back again
INTERMEZZO 1. "ANOTHER VOCABULARY"
A writer in search of his language (1):
Case study of an unpublished short story
INTERMEZZO 2. "DON'T FOLLOW THE STORY, FOLLOW THE EMOTION"
A writer in search of his language (2):
The international reception of Beautiful Losers
4. RELIGION
How the priest, prophet, and believer serve artistic expression
5. POWER
Artistic personas caught between vulnerability and authority
INTERMEZZO 3. "EVERYONE MUST FALL"
Freedom as consciousness: About longing and loss
6. ENCOUNTER
"The only song I ever had"
APPENDIX
À tout prendre [Take it all] - Leonard Cohen, Claude Jutra, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
