Victorian soundscapes / John M. Picker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Picker, John M., 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English literature.

Sound in literature.

Sound--Recording and reproducing--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Sound.

Speech in literature.

Voice in literature.

Physical Description:

xi, 220 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, c2003.

Summary:

Far from the hushed restraint we associate with the Victorians, their world pulsated with sound. This book shows how, in more ways than one, Victorians were hearing things. The representations close listeners left of their soundscapes offered new meanings for silence, music, noise, voice, andecho that constitute an important part of the Victorian legacy to us today. In chronicling the shift from Romantic to modern configurations of sound and voice, Picker draws upon literary and scientific works to recapture the sense of aural discovery figures such as Babbage, Helmholtz, Freud, Bell,and Edison shared with the likes of Dickens, George Eliot, Tennyson, Stoker, and Conrad.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Illustrations

Introduction:The Tramp of a Fly's Footstep

Hearing Things

An Auscultative Age

Nuisance and Resonance

1 "What the Waves Were Always Saying":Voices, Volumes

Babbage and Dickens: A Library of Air

"Away, with a Shriek, and a Roar, and a Rattle"

Forever and Forever through Space

2 The Soundproof Study:Victorian Professional Identity and Urban Noise

Scatterbrain London

"Blackguard Savoyards and Herds of German Swine"

Writers' Block

Embodying Noise:The Leech Case

"Great Facts"

3 George Eliot's Ear: New Acoustics in Daniel Deronda and Beyond

On the Other Side of Silence

Helmholtz and Eliot: Sympathetic Vibration

"On the Verge of a Great Discovery":Talking Cures

4 The Recorded Voice from Victorian Aura to Modernist Echo

Tennyson's Talking Machine

"Send Me Mr. Gladstone's Voice"

Sinful Speech

Sound Bites

Coda:The Victor Dog

Appendix: Dickens's Prospectus for the Cheap Edition (1847)

Notes

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-210) and index.

Description based on metadata supplied by the publisher and other sources.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786610482412

9780198034667

0198034660

9781280482410

1280482419

9780195151916

0195151917

9780195303292

0195303296

9780199787944

0199787948

OCLC:

922952482