Virginia Woolf and classical music : politics, aesthetics, form / Emma Sutton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sutton, Emma, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941--Knowledge and learning--Music.

Woolf, Virginia.

Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941.

Music.

Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941--Criticism and interpretation.

Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941--Aesthetics.

Music in literature.

Aesthetics in literature.

Aesthetics.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

ix, 171 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2013]

Summary:

This study is a groundbreaking investigation into the formative influence of music on Virginia Woolf's writing, In this unique study Emma Sutton discusses all of Woolf's novels as well as selected essays and short fiction, offering detailed commentaries on Woolf's numerous allusions to classical repertoire and to composers including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Sutton explores Woolf's interest in the contested relationship between politics and music, placing her work in a matrix of ideas about music and national identity, class, anti-Semitism, pacifism, sexuality and gender. The study also considers the formal influence of music - from fugue to Romantic opera - on Woolf's prose and narrative techniques. The analysis of music's role in Woolf's aesthetics and fiction is contextualised in accounts of her musical education, activities as a listener, and friendships with musicians; and the study outlines the relationship between her 'musicalised' work and that of contemporaries including Joyce, Lawrence, Forster, Mansfield and Eliot. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

On not writing opera

Killing the pianist in the house

Death in effigy

Fugues, flights and free association

What it really means to be English

Only suggest

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 154-165) and index.

ISBN:

9780748637874

0748637877

OCLC:

861618559