Music was central to everyday life and expression in late Georgian Britain, and this interdisciplinary study looks at its impact on Romantic literature. Focusing on the public fascination with virtuoso performance, Gillen D'Arcy Wood documents a struggle between sober 'literary' virtue and luxurious, effeminate virtuosity that staged deep anxieties over class, cosmopolitanism, machine technology, and the professionalization of culture. A remarkable synthesis of cultural history and literary criticism, this book opens new perspectives on key Romantic authors - including Burney, Wordsworth, Austen and Byron - and their relationship to definitive debates in late Georgian culture.
| ISBN: | 9780521117333 |
| Publication date: | 3rd April 2010 |
| Author: | Gillen DArcy Wood |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 295 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Romanticism |
| Genres: |
Biography, Literature and Literary studies Art music, orchestral and formal music Literature: history and criticism Literary studies: general Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 |