Music, body, and desire in medieval culture : Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer / Bruce W. Holsinger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holsinger, Bruce

Series:

Figurae (Stanford, Calif.)

Figurae

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music--500-1400--Philosophy and aesthetics.

Music.

Human body in music.

Human body in literature.

Human body--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Human body.

Human body--Religious aspects--Christianity--History of doctrines.

Physical Description:

xviii, 472 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2001.

Summary:

Ranging chronologically from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries and thematically from Latin to vernacular literary modes, this book challenges standard assumptions about the musical cultures and philosophies of the European Middle Ages. Engaging a wide range of premodern texts and contexts, the author argues that medieval music was quintessentially a practice of the flesh. It will be of compelling interest to historians of literature, music, religion, and sexuality, as well as scholars of cultural, gender, and queer studies.

Contents:

Part I Backgrounds: Musical Embodiments In Christian Late Antiquity

1. The Resonance of the Flesh 27

2. Saint Augustine and the Rhythms of Embodiment 61

Part II Liturgies Of Desire

3. Sine Tactu Viri: The Musical Somatics of Hildegard of Bingen 87

4. Polyphones and Sodomites: Music and Sexual Dissidence from Leoninus to Chaucer's Pardoner 137

Part III Sounds Of Suffering

5. The Musical Body in Pain: Passion, Percussion, and Melody in Thirteenth-Century Religious Practice 191

6. Musical Violence and the Pedagogical Body: The Prioress's Tale and the Ideologies of "Song" 259

Part IV Resoundings

7. Orpheus in Parts: Music, Fragmentation, Remembrance 295

Epilogue: Toward a Musicology of Empathy 344.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [411]-450) and index.

ISBN:

0804732019

0804740585

OCLC:

45582466