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This book investigates the literary representation of music in the Georgian novel against its musical, aesthetic and cultural background.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. Sound and Sense: Moral Issues: 1. Prelude: Italian opera and English oratorio; 2. The English Orpheus; 3. Damnable pleasures; 4. The natural voice and the ideal of purity; 5. Malodorous soundscapes and musical incenses; Part II. Sentiment and Sensibility: 6. The perimeter of the sentimental mode; 7. The crisis of language; 8. The impression of harmony; 9. The salutary remanence of discords; 10. The inexpressible mystery of music; 11. The music of feeling; 12. Pastoral music; Part III. Sweet Music and the Sublime: 13. Theory of the musical sublime; 14. The musical sublime and ideological control; 15. Ann Radcliffe's feminine sublime; Part IV. Music as a Vehicle for Female Identity: 16. The musical and novelistic perimeters of feminine sensibility; 17. Intimations of musical gendering: Anne Hughes, Caroline; 18. Instruments of a new sensibility; 19. Sensibility and affectation: Jane West, Maria Edgeworth, Elizabeth Inchbald; 20. Variations on a feminine theme: Frances Burney's musical heroines; 21. Jane Austen: music, woman and the middle-way; Conclusion.
About the author
Pierre Dubois is Emeritus Professor of eighteenth-century English studies at Université de Tours. He was Senior Lecturer at Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) from 1997 to 2008 and in 2012 he was a visiting fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. The editor of Charles Avison's 'Essay on Musical Expression' and Related Writings by Charles Avison and William Hayes (2004), his 2009 book La conquête du mystère musical en Angleterre au siècle des Lumières was awarded the 2010 Research Prize of the French Societé des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur (SAES). A self-taught musician, he is the incumbent organist of the historic F.-H. Clicquot organ (1783) of Souvigny (Allier, France) and artistic director of the Journées Musicales d'Automne there. He is also chairman of Sauvegarde de l'Orgue de la Sorbonne, an association he founded for the preservation, restoration and promotion of the historic Dallery organ (1825) of the Sorbonne.
Summary
This book investigates the literary representation of music in the Georgian novel. Pierre Dubois analyses the meaning, and highlights the importance, of musical scenes in novels by authors from Richardson to Austen and explores the implicit cultural issues, in particular the way musical instruments were perceived in the collective imagination.
