Music was central to everyday life and expression in late Georgian Britain, and this 2010 interdisciplinary study looks at its impact on Romantic literature. Focusing on the public fascination with virtuoso performance, Gillen D'Arcy Wood documents a struggle between sober 'literary' virtue and luxurious, effeminate virtuosity that staged deep anxieties over class, cosmopolitanism, machine technology, and the professionalization of culture. A remarkable synthesis of cultural history and literary criticism, this book opens new perspectives on key Romantic authors - including Burney, Wordsworth, Austen and Byron - and their relationship to definitive debates in late Georgian culture.
• Traces a surprising and little-studied narrative of conflict over art, commerce, gender and the nation • Wholly original in its interdisciplinary focus, drawing on current scholarship in Romantic and eighteenth-century literary studies and musicology • Packed with historical information drawing on a variety of archival sources, including newspapers, journals, diaries and pamphlets
Contents
Preface; Introduction. Virtuosophobia; 1. Seward's Handelomania; 2. The Burney baroque; 3. Wordsworth castrato; 4. Cockney Mozart; 5. Austen's accomplishment; 6. The Byron of the piano; Coda. The mechanical nightingale.
Review
Review of the hardback: 'An elegantly sober manner and unflagging diligence underlie the book's many virtues. But to my mind the constant surprises and - it bears repeating - the brilliant execution make this a consummately virtuoso performance.' Marshall Brown, Review 19
Printer friendly version