Sounding bodies : acoustical science and musical erotics in Victorian literature / Shannon Draucker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Draucker, Shannon, 1991- author.

Series:

SUNY Series, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English literature.

Music in literature.

Eroticism in literature.

Human body in literature.

Music--Physiological effect.

Music.

Feminist theory.

Queer theory.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (296 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2024]

Summary:

Shows how nineteenth-century discoveries in acoustical science shaped Victorian literary representations of gender, sexuality, and intimacy.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Erotic Symphony

Acoustical Readings

Listening In: Sound, Sensation, and Science in Victorian Studies

Reembodying Victorian Sound Studies

The Feminist and Queer Uses of Acoustical Science

Hearing New Things: New Directions for Music-Literature Studies

Music Beyond Metaphor

Queering the Concert Hall

Good Vibrations: Expanding the Erotic in Victorian Studies

Program Notes: Plan of the Book

Part One: Sounds and Bodies

Chapter One: Hearing, Touching, Feeling Sound: Acoustical Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Physical Acoustics

Physiological Acoustics

"Not Mere Vibrations": Aesthetic Debates

Acoustical Science in Victorian Culture

Part Two: Genders

Chapter Two: Bare Arms and Quivering Nerves: The "Lady Violinist" Novels of Mary Augusta Ward and M. E. Francis

The "Lady Violinist" in Victorian Literature

"Beyond Her Muscular Power": Female Violinists in Victorian England

Brahms in the Blood: Robert Elsmere

"Itching" to Be Heard: The Duenna of a Genius

Physiological Acoustics and Feminist Politics

Chapter Three: Cross-Dressing Violinists and Music/Gender Performance in The Heavenly Twins and The Violin-Player

"The Difference That Dress Makes": Contingent Virtuosity in The Heavenly Twins

"A Real Genius": Triumphant Musicality in The Violin-Player

"Without Regard to Sex"

Part Three: Sexualities

Chapter Four: Dangerous Vibrations: Musical Rape in George Eliot and Thomas Hardy

"In Spite of Her Resistance": The Mill on the Floss

"Excruciating Spasms": Desperate Remedies and "The Fiddler of the Reels"

Chapter Five: Orgasm in the Orchestra Box: Teleny's Musical Pornography

"Natural Tastes": Teleny's Defense of Same-Sex Desire

Aural Sex: Teleny's Queer Erotics

Part Four: Intimacies

Chapter Six: Fiddle Feelings: Human-Instrument Intimacies in Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, and Hardy

"Corporeal Co-Dependence": Human-Instrument Relations in Victorian Acoustical Science

Sympathetic Kinship: George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss

Cello Friendship: Anthony Trollope's The Warden

Passioned Pulsings: Thomas Hardy's "Haunting Fingers"

Self-Playing Instruments

Chapter Seven: Musical Hauntings and Otherworldly Erotics in The Lost Stradivarius and "A Wicked Voice"

"Acoustical Affinities": The Lost Stradivarius

The Murmur of the Castrato: "A Wicked Voice"

Is the Concert Hall Haunted?

Coda: Re-vitalizing Contemporary Classical Music

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438498393

143849839X

OCLC:

1441724069

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access