Repeatable Experiences of Music and Texts

In The Performance of Reading (2006), Peter Kivy argues that reading literary texts is performative in nature, like musical performance, where both require active interpretive engagement. This analogy highlights that both activities involve interpretive decisions and can be silently performed, involving an auditory imagery experience of the inner voice. Nevertheless, Kivy argues that, unlike music, reading is not an intrinsic repeatable activity, mainly because the primary motivation for reading novels is to uncover the plot, and once known, the aesthetic pleasure decreases. In the present paper, we challenge Kivy’s view with both theoretical and empirical evidence. First, literature, like music, involves cultural traditions of repetition and contains multiple layers of interpretation, similar to how repeated musical performances reveal new insights. Second, existing empirical data show that rereading literary texts, including novels, improves appreciation and comprehension, much like repeated listening to music enhances liking and understanding. Overall, we believe that these considerations suggest that both reading and music allow for repeatable experiences that deepen with each engagement.