Literary Elements In Rock And Heavy Metal

University of Sarajevo

Faculty of Philosophy

English Department

PORTFOLIO

Topics:

Literary Elements in Rock and Heavy Metal Music

Tribes in Britain

Student: Bojana Ramić (SF) Domagoj Bagarić (SF) Mentor:

Mr. Nejla Kalajdžisalihović

Sarajevo, May 2014

Literary Elements in Rock and Heavy Metal Music

1.1Introduction

Even thought rock and heavy music was already widespread and popular worldwide back in the 70's and 80's, that is not the situation these days. Today some other genres are popular, and these two kinds of music are mostly a good path for stereotypes. One of the most common stereotypes is that fans of heavy music are "savages" worshiping Satan, drink a lot, and such things. The music is called brutal and noisy, even very primitive, but there is a completely different approach to it. A lot of people are unfamiliar with fact, that most of these songs have a very rich context. And speaking of that, we come to literature elements in rock in heavy metal music.

Abandoned Agony

English: Johan Hegg, the vocalist of the Swedish h...

Ted Lundström of Amon Amarth

1.2Literary Elements in Rock and Heavy Metal Music in General

The best example for that surely can be fact that at West Texas A&M University, Professor Martin Jacobsen teaches "Introduction to Literature: Heavy Metal as a Literary Genre". There are numerous examples for this topic, depending on which subgenre of metal music you like, for example clearly Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden are very familiar with literature. Rush and Dream Theater in prog metal use literary themes and models (like Ayn Rand's ideas in 2112 or the Hamlet motif in DT's "Pull Me Under" or the Metropolis suite). Movies play a huge role too, and metal artists seem to see books and movies rather equally. Iron Maiden seems especially prone to use imagery from movies, though literature and history are also clearly sources for...