Italian Music in Dakota (eBook)

The Function of European Musical Theater in U.S. Culture

Andrea Mariani (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2017 | 1. Auflage
250 Seiten
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress (Verlag)
978-3-8470-0655-8 (ISBN)

Infos

The intersection between literature and music is a major feature in Anglo-American cultural history. The present volume analyzes the transatlantic migration of European opera and its appropriation by some of the most important literary figures of the United States. The presence of opera in literary texts is always 'operative' and results in artistic outputs possessing more articulated and tense vectors of meaning. The comparative method applied confirms the musical sensitivity of masters such as Poe, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, Wharton, Cather, reveals the intriguing contradictions in the poetics of Emerson, Thoreau and James and vindicates the role of some minor figures who, through their involvement in the world of musical theater, contributed to the intercultural context.

Prof Dr Andrea Mariani recently retired from his position as a full professor of Anglo-American Literature at the University of Chieti-Pescara.

Inhalt

Title Page 4
Copyright 5
Table of Contents 6
Body 8
Introduction 8
Chapter One: R. W. Emerson and E. A. Poe 16
1. R. W. Emerson: the music of the spheres 16
2. Contrastive analyses: The Aeolian harp 20
3. Acoustic strategies in E. A. Poe 25
4. The rhetoric of arabesque 29
5. Operatic experimentations 31
6. The melodramatic imagination 34
Chapter Two: H. D. Thoreau and Herman Melville 44
1. Thoreau's visual and acoustic ekphrases 44
2. A music of thoughts 48
3. Herman Melville: theater plus music 54
4. The Piazza Tales 60
5. George Templeton Strong and opera 63
Chapter Three: Walt Whitman 70
Part one 70
1. Musical theater in Whitman 70
2. Proud Music of the Storm 75
Part two 91
3. Italian Music in Dakota 91
4. The Chicago Auditorium 99
Chapter Four: Emily Dickinson, Sidney Lanier 104
1. The old transcendentalist debate 104
2. Close and imaginary encounters 109
3. The Self as musician 114
4. Sidney Lanier: poetry and music 121
5. Odes to Wagner and Beethoven 129
Chapter Five: Henry James 134
1. European opera and realistic fiction 134
2. Henry James's acoustic sensitiveness 145
3. Isabel Archer's “transition” from opera house to sculpture gallery 156
Chapter Six: Wharton, Cather, Santayana 168
1. Edith Wharton: the experience of opera in The Age of Innocence 170
2. Willa Cather: larks and gayhearts 179
3. George Santayana's “epiphonic” moments 189
Chapter Seven: The twentieth century 198
1. William Demby and Vincent Sheean 201
2. John Berryman: music, poetry, syntax 210
3. Music in James Merrill 220
4. Merrill and opera. Conclusions 227
Bibliography 236
Index of Names 246

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.3.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Passages – Transitions – Intersections
• Reihe/Serie: Passages – Transitions – Intersections.
• Reihe/Serie: Passages – Transitions – Intersections.
• Verlagsort: Göttingen
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: 19./20. Jahrhundert • Amerika • Komparatistik • Musiktheater • Musikwissenschaft • Oper • Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
• ISBN-10: 3-8470-0655-X / 384700655X
• ISBN-13: 978-3-8470-0655-8 / 9783847006558