British literature and classical music : cultural contexts 1870-1945 / David Deutsch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Deutsch, David, author.

Series:

Historicizing modernism.

Historicizing modernism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Music in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (273 p.)

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"British Literature and Classical Music explores literary representations of classical music in early 20th century British writing. Covering authors ranging from T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf to Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells and D.H. Lawrence, the book examines literature produced during a period of widely proliferating philosophical, educational, and performance-oriented musical activities in both public and private settings. David Deutsch demonstrates how this proliferation caused classical music to become an increasingly vital element of British culture and a vehicle for exploring contentious issues such as social mobility, sexual freedoms, and international political rivalries. Through the use of archives of concert programs, cult novels, and letters written during the First and Second World Wars, the book examines how authors both celebrated and satirized the musicality of the lower-middle and working classes, same-sex desiring individuals, and cosmopolitan promoters of a shared European culture to depict these groups as valuable members of and - less frequently as threats to -- British life."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Contents:

Introduction: Approaches to Classical Music in British Literature, 1870

1945: Theory and Practice

1. The Liberalization of Music in Aesthetic Literature: Pater and Oxford

2. Modernism's Distinctive Musical Rhetoric: Eliot, Huxley, and Woolf

3. The Musical Refinement of the Lower-Middle and Working Classes: Bennett, Lawrence, and their Contemporaries

4. Distinguishing a Musical Homoeroticism: Pater, Forster, and Their Aesthetic Descendants

5. Classical Music, Cosmopolitanism, and War: From Authors to Audiences

Conclusion: A Literary Coda: Classical Music in British Literature

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-251) and index.

ISBN:

9781474235846

1474235840

9781474235839

1474235832

OCLC:

919086928