Search Results

Angelic airs, subversive songs : music as social discourse in the Victorian novel

Author

Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa, 1967-

Title

Angelic airs, subversive songs : music as social discourse in the Victorian novel / Alisa Clapp-Itnyre.

Format

Book

Published

Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.

Description

xxvii, 226 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes

Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-219) and index.

Contents

• 1 Angelic Airs, Subversive Songs: The Constructions and Controversies of Music in Nineteenth-Century British Society 1
• 2 Country-City Strife and Communities of Singing Women: Domestic Ballads in the Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell 45
• 3 A Subversive Spirituality: The Secularization of Methodist Hymnody in Eliot's Adam Bede 77
• 4 Indecent Musical Displays: Feminizing the Pastoral in Eliot's The Mill on the Floss 101
• 5 Classical but Commodified: Female Confrontations with Professionalized Music in Eliot's Daniel Deronda 123
• 6 Sexual Songs and Darwinian Dances: The Eroticism and Repression of Folk Music in the Novels of Thomas Hardy 149.

Review

"Angelic Airs, Subversive Songs focuses on the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy, who present complex engagements with some of the musical genres most privileged by Victorian society: folk songs, religious hymns, pastoral operas, and concert music." "Professor Clapp-Itnyre recovers the pervasive ambiguities of the Victorian musical period, ambiguities typically overlooked by both literary scholars and musicologists. To the literary critic and cultural historian, the study demonstrates the necessity of further exploring the complete aesthetic climate behind some of the Victorian period's most powerful literary works. To the feminist scholar and the musicologist, it reveals the complexities of music as both an oppressive cultural force and an expressive, creative outlet for women."--Jacket.

Subject headings

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865--Knowledge and learning. Eliot, George, 1819-1880--Knowledge and learning. Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928--Knowledge and learning. English fiction--19th century--History and criticism. Music and literature--History--19th century. Music--Social aspects--Great Britain--History--19th century. Musical fiction--History and criticism. Social norms in literature. Dissenters in literature. Music in literature.

Genre heading

Music. Criticism, interpretation, etc. History. Music.

Notes

Current Copyright Fee: GBP20.29 0. Uk

ISBN

0821414313 (alk. paper) 9780821414316 (alk. paper)