This book comments episodically on six different artistic manifestations, with heed to how form guides, and is invested by, content, and by the significance and meaningful essence of that content.
The six exemplars chosen are Joseph Haydn, with particular attention to his early symphonies; Dante of the Divine Comedy, with concentration on the transitional cantos that close Purgatorio and begin Paradiso; Beethoven, with convergence on his piano sonatas at the beginning of the 19th century and his final seven sonatas composed between 1814 and 1822; the earlier plays of William Shakespeare; Giuseppe Verdi, with reference to the span of his operas; and, Akira Kurosawa, with commentary on nearly all his filmography.
The six forms selected, therefore, are the classical symphony, the Italian Renaissance narrative poem, the Viennese piano sonata of the early 19th century, Elizabethan drama, Italian Risorgimento opera, and 20th century Japanese cinema.
The text of this book is structured as short articles and observational notes, with the commentary of the works under discussion arranged chronologically or, in the case of Dante, sequentially.