Publisher's Synopsis
For nineteenth-century society, music was a means by which women could display their gentility, education, their physical grace and express their 'selves'. Novelists were quick to employ this recognized way for women to project their personalities, and fictional scenes featuring women musicians served to reinforce or explore and challenge traditional views of the place of both women and music in society. - - Over the first half of the century, writers like Austen and BrontÙ confined their critiques to satirical portrayals of women musicians. Later, however, a marked shift occurred with the introduction of musical female characters who were positively to be feared. The stark boundaries between the musical 'angel' and the musical 'demon' became increasingly blurred, making more complex the fictional depiction of gender identities and sexuality. - - Phyllis Weliver examines the reasons for this shift in her investigation of representations of female musicians in Victorian fiction from 1860û1900. Focusing on changing gender roles, musical practices and the framing of both of these in scientific discourses, the book explores how fictional notions of women musicians diverged from actual trends in music making. - - Studies of female musicians in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret and Trilby reveal the extent to which novelists employed the language and ideas of Victorian science in their portrayal of music and gender. Weliver examines the perceived relationships between music and mesmerism, hypnotism, multiple consciousness, double personality, memory and theories of identity, and how these relationships are played out in Victorian fiction. In the simultaneously seductive and angelic Trilby, Weliver argues, we find a character who epitomizes Victorian society's fear and excitement at the contribution made by women toward its evolutionary future. - - About the author: Phyllis Weliver has a doctorate from the University of Sussex and currently teaches at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. She holds degrees in both English literature and music, and has published articles on the relationships between the two disciplines.
