Studies of the genesis of musical, literary, and theatrical works. Not only the final outcome but the process of creative endeavor has long attracted attention in various artistic disciplines, but only recently has the potential of such research been seriously explored. The most rigorous basis for the study of artistic creativity comes not from anecdotal or autobiographical reports, but from original handwritten sketches and drafts and preliminary studies, as well as from revised manuscripts and typescripts, corrected proof sheets, and similar primary sources. The term "genetic criticism" or "critique genetique" relates not to the field of genetics, but to the genesis of works of art, as studied in a broad and inclusive context. The essays inthis volume explore aspects of genetic criticism in an interdisciplinary context, emphasizing music, literature, and theater. A common thread pertains to the essential continuity between a work and its genesis. This volume bringstogether essays from leading scholars on subjects ranging from biblical scholarship to Samuel Beckett, and from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony to very recent musical compositions. Contributors: Nicolas Donin, Daniel Ferrer, Alan Gosman, R. B. Graves, Joseph E. Jones, William Kinderman, Jean-Louis Lebrave, Lewis Lockwood, Geert Lernout, Peter McCallum, Armine Kotin Mortimer, and James L. Zychowicz William Kinderman is Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Joseph E. Jones is visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In the Palace of Versailles there is a fabulous golden clock, made for Louis XV by the king's engineer, Claude-Simeon Passemant. The astronomical clock shows the phases of the moon and the movements of the planets, and it will tell time-hours, minutes, seconds, and even sixtieths of seconds-until the year 9999. Passemant's clock brings the nature of time into sharp focus in Julia Kristeva's intricate, poetic novel The Enchanted Clock. Nivi Delisle, a psychoanalyst and magazine editor, nearly drowns while swimming off the Ile de Re; the astrophysicist Theo Passemant fishes her out of the water. They become lovers. While Theo wonders if he is descended from the clockmaker Passemant, Nivi's son Stan, who suffers from occasional comas, develops a passion for the remarkable clock at Versailles. Soon Nivi is fixated on its maker. But then the clock is stolen, and when a young writer for Nivi's magazine mysteriously dies, the clock is found near his body. The Enchanted Clock combines past and present, jumping back and forth between points of view and across eras from eighteenth-century Versailles to the present day. Its stylistically inventive narrative voices bring both immediacy and depth to our understanding of consciousness. Nivi's life resembles her creator's in many respects, coloring Kristeva's customary erudition with autobiographical poignancy. Part detective mystery, part historical fiction, The Enchanted Clock is a philosophically and linguistically multifaceted novel, full of poetic ruminations on memory, love, and the transcendence of linear time. It is one of the most illuminating works of one of France's great writers and thinkers.